Gourmetization and touristification of traditional markets: a comparative approach between Porto and Madrid

• Type: Chapter or Part of a Book
• Date: 2021

Authors

Alberto Rodríguez-Barcón (Author) Other; Sílvia Sousa (Author) FEUP

Book

Title: Investigaciones actuales en ciencias sociales y en turismo

ISBN: 968-84-1853455-3

Other information

Abstract (EN): Traditional markets have become a cornerstone element in the urban planning of the contemporary city. Their patrimonial and architectural value, their symbolic capital, together with the provision of wide and central spaces in dense urban contexts, give them a leading role in urban configuration. Howev-er, factors such as the pressure of urban tourism have upscaled their functions, transcending their historical role as a space for economic exchange and social interaction, and revealing new potentialities within the economic architecture of the postmodern city. The global changes in consumption and leisure patterns derive from the growth of a tourism model that, framed in the paradigm of the cultural econo-my, seeks new forms of entertainment linked to exclusivity and authenticity. In this context, gastronomy and the entire complex system of relationships that accompany it, has been revealed as a first-rate variable in the transformation of traditional food markets into theme parks geared towards tourism, undermining their function as a market oriented to the resident population and their role as structuring and revitalising elements of neighbourhood life. This work focuses on analysing in a critical and comparative way the ur-ban renewal processes of the traditional markets of Bom Sucesso in Porto (Por-tugal) and San Miguel in Madrid (Spain). Considering their transformation driv-en by tourism and the implementation of an elitist consumption model based on the fetishization of gourmet gastronomy, we bring to light the privatization and touristification processes that underlie the renewal of both markets. In this fash-ion, we identify the structural elements as well as those divergent factors de-rived from the idiosyncrasy of each territory.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific