Publicação
The production of tourism in Ponta Negra, Northeast Brazil: policies, representations and logics of desire
| Resumo: | This article discusses how the beach neighbourhood of Ponta Negra (Natal, RN), in the Northeast of Brazil, came to experience the intensive tourist development that now characterises it. Its origins as a fishing village, its gradual emergence as a local resort and the internationalisation of its tourism in the late twentieth century are examined. The discussion of this process demonstrates how public policies have played a major role not only in configuring the model of spatial planning and urbanisation that was adopted, but also in defining Europe as the main geographical focus of tourist internationalisation, in creating attractive conditions for foreign investment, and in the construction and dissemination of a tourist identity largely founded on past images and desires. At the same time, this discussion of Ponta Negra’s tourist-capitalist appropriation, Europeanisation and its (re)production as a site of racialised desires contributes to a better understanding of the ambivalent spatialities and multiple tensions that coexist in the neighbourhood today. The analysis presented here draws on empirical data collected during a period of ethnographic fieldwork in which the predominant methodologies included participant observation, semi-structured interviews and documental and statistical research. |
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| Autores principais: | Sacramento, Octávio |
| Assunto: | Tourism production socio- spatial changes public policies representations logics of desire Ponta Negra (Natal; Brazilian Northeast) |
| Ano: | 2017 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | artigo |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da UTAD |
| Resumo: | This article discusses how the beach neighbourhood of Ponta Negra (Natal, RN), in the Northeast of Brazil, came to experience the intensive tourist development that now characterises it. Its origins as a fishing village, its gradual emergence as a local resort and the internationalisation of its tourism in the late twentieth century are examined. The discussion of this process demonstrates how public policies have played a major role not only in configuring the model of spatial planning and urbanisation that was adopted, but also in defining Europe as the main geographical focus of tourist internationalisation, in creating attractive conditions for foreign investment, and in the construction and dissemination of a tourist identity largely founded on past images and desires. At the same time, this discussion of Ponta Negra’s tourist-capitalist appropriation, Europeanisation and its (re)production as a site of racialised desires contributes to a better understanding of the ambivalent spatialities and multiple tensions that coexist in the neighbourhood today. The analysis presented here draws on empirical data collected during a period of ethnographic fieldwork in which the predominant methodologies included participant observation, semi-structured interviews and documental and statistical research. |
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