Chiara Rabbiosi

The invention of shopping tourism. The discursive repositioning of landscape in an Italian retail-led case

Under the label of ‘shopping tour’, tour operators currently offer package tours which aim to highlight for the visitor the commercial appeal of a particular location. A variety of destinations are suitable for tours with such a label. In this context, certain ‘shopping tourism’ destinations simply consist of areas where the concentration of corporation-led retail venues is high. The Novese Area, in the northwest of Italy, has been transforming into such a destination since the opening of the Serravalle Designer Outlet, an outlet ‘village’ which opened in 2000. This paper reports on original research aimed at enquiring about shifts in the representation of the landscape of this area as it is shown in the discourses of local political and business actors. It is argued that this case study portrays a rather unique case of late western urban regeneration practice through which a formal industrial area is turned into a consumption site suitable for tourism. Here, the repositioning process not only influences local planning policies, but feeds – and is fed by – a simultaneous process of consumption normalization.

Itineraries of consumption: Co-producing leisure shopping sites in Rimini

This article proposes a spatial approach to tourism and consumption as it emerges through leisure shopping. The notion ‘itineraries of consumption’ is offered to underline the emergence of tourists’ multiple shopping patterns in a single tourist destination. Itineraries of consumption produce, connect and transform shoppingscapes and tourismscapes. Tourism consumption research has expanded over the past 15 years in the social sciences and humanities. This article continues previous debates on consumer culture and tourism studies by debating about the nexus between shopping and tourism as a co-productive realm. In particular, the joint performances of tourists, retailers and tour operators in Rimini (Italy) are considered as a way to understand leisure shopping in a location that used to be primarily associated with seaside-oriented mass tourism. The geometries and geographies of power evident in emerging tourism networks are also discussed.

Are we allowed to use fictional vignettes in cultural geographies

Fictional vignettes are narrative texts that academic researchers may invent in order to illustrate arguments or to present their research outcomes; they are stories or situations that do not strictly report factual realities observed by the author, but that, in any case, implement the heuristics for the arguments that the author wants to raise. Although there are several works in social sciences taking advantage of fictional narratives, geographers have started mobilising invented stories in their writings mostly recently, provided that a variety of creative methodologies had been introduced. The aim of this article is to present fictional vignettes as an integrative research method and writing technique, while discussing potential opportunities and limits relating to their use in geographical research, particularly within the recent rise of various ‘creative methodologies’ in cultural geographies.

Rediscovering the “urban” in two Italian tourist coastal cities

This chapter appreciates the role of tourism within the more holistic framework of urban policy in the context of coastal cities. Through an investigation of two medium-sized Italian cities (Rimini and Pesaro), the study addresses the paucity of literature on regeneration strategies conducted in coastal areas where tourism has already reached a mature stage of development. The idea of a “culture city” emerges as the most appropriate pathway to innovation, change and progress in line with the several, albeit often criticised, examples of culture-led regeneration in urban studies. The discourse analysis of the strategic plans of each city emphasises the different role that the sea and the seaside play in each location. Rimini explicitly includes these factors as pivotal cultural resources, which is evident in the innovative concept of “sea wellness”. Pesaro, on the other hand, does not attribute a specific role to the sea and the seaside; they are instead simply juxtaposed with a vibrant city centre that appeals to business and cultural tourists.

Urban regeneration ‘from the bottom up’

In the last decade, urban studies scholars have been studying a wide variety of urban regeneration strategies formulated by social movements and civic networks. These initiatives range from physical interventions to social and cultural activities that also serve to appropriate urban space, according to an alternative logic to neo-liberal redevelopment plans. The aim of this paper is to participate in this debate by focusing on urban interventions that arise from self-organised local civic networks, to which I refer to as urban regeneration ‘from the bottom up’. The term includes proposals, projects or effective actions that are not yet framed by a public policy implemented by governments. Drawing on empirical research in the Navigli area of Milan, Italy, civic network initiatives are contrasted to municipal strategies of regeneration. By focusing on two different experiences I show how civic networks’ actions respond to neo-liberalism ambiguously: they challenge it, but at the same time they are consistent with its logic. In the conclusion, it is claimed that urban regeneration ‘from the bottom up’ suggests that the urban civic substratum of contemporary cities is still thriving. However, it is urgent that the contradictions these strategies entail are critically appropriated in order to develop a stronger answer to austerity urbanism.

Rigenerazione urbana dal basso nel sud-ovest milanese: un’esperienza dal destino incerto

The paper gives an operational and academic report on the research project entitled ‘Urban regeneration, tradition and innovation: the Milanese Mesopotamia’, carried out in partnership with Mesopotamia Milanese, an association founded in 2008 by businesses located in the area that lies between the Naviglio Grande and Naviglio Pavese canals to encourage and influence the process of urban regeneration in the area enclosed between these two historically famous canals. The paper focuses on urban regeneration from the ‘bottom up’, a subject around which a variety of parties are potentially interested in interacting and exchanging resources. The conclusions offer reflections on future outcomes of the process described, starting from the guidelines recommended by the City Council which came to power in Milan in 2011.

Turismo e commercio tra competizione economica e istanze culturali. Il caso della promozione turistica dello shopping a Parigi

Una serie eterogenea di portatori di interesse mobilita articolate strategie per far fronte alla competizione urbana internazionale a partire dalla capacita attrattiva del consumo esperienziale associato all’andar per compere. Seguendo un approccio post-strutturalista, sono presi in considerazione elementi solo apparentemente distanti l’uno dall’altro che caratterizzano la promozione turistica dello shopping a Parigi, analizzata attraverso il concetto di mise en tourisme. I riferimenti sono alla letteratura sul turismo e degli urban studies per soffermarsi sulle implicazioni socio- spaziali del fenomeno trattato.