Alejandro ARMAS-DÍAZ, Universität Leipzig / Institut für Geographie, Germany
Fernando SABATÉ-BEL, Universidad de La Laguna / Departamento de Geografía e Historia, Spain
Crises are moments in which the impulse of urbanization and tourist activity intensify the processes of exploitation of nature. We address protest to urban-tourist development on the island of Tenerife through two examples that illustrate these trends (Armas-Díaz & Sabaté-Bel 2020): a mega-port in Granadilla de Abona, whose construction was closely related to the crisis from 2008; and a tourist infrastructure, a hotel in La Tejita located on the coast of Granadilla de Abona, whose construction began more recently in the midst of the pandemic crisis.
Islands represent epitomes of commodified represented spaces, power and territorialisation, and in this regard, the focus on islands would shed light on how the production of socio-natures shapes the dynamics of capital accumulation, dispossession and resistance. And in particular, territorial conflicts related to the protection of marine and coastal ecosystems fuel a large part of the protests in tourist regions of southern Europe. Not surprisingly environmental protest in the Canary Islands have seen growing popular participation compared to other mobilizations focused on issues such as health, education, employment, or housing (Armas-Díaz et al 2020).
We explore how the construction of the two projects generates an intense protest against the commodification of nature and the yearning for a different island model. Drawing on participant observation, dialogue with activists involved in the protest and the administration, as well as the press, we analyse the right to nature (Apostolopoulou & Cortés-Vázquez 2018) and the right to the island (Clark 2013). We understand these two rights as the control of the societies that inhabit those places, their control on decision-making and natural resources, but also as framework of degrowth and as a redistributive political project oriented towards an eco-social transition (Fletcher et al 2019).
Mots clés : Port|Tourism|Social movements|Right to nature|Right to the island
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