Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SMARTDEST (Cities as mobility hubs: tackling social exclusion through ‘smart’ citizen engagement)
Período documentado: 2021-01-01 hasta 2023-09-30
The project planted three dimensions of impact (scientific, societal and policy) to be attained through various activities inscribed in a Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication strategy and targeting various ‘publics’. The scientific impacts have been above expectations, with 22 papers derived in high-impact journals and a wide presence at academic vents.
From a societal perspective, our outcomes clicked with the revamped interest for the disruptions created by tourism and related mobilities in the postpandemic recovery period. From a policy perspective the administrations of the cities with which we have worked as case studies have demonstrated interested in putting our insights at good use. At EU level we could connect with key organisations that having been involved in our events declared their interest to spread our tools and analytics among their networks for policy design.
At the end of the project, this has taken shape as a suite of publications, data generated, analytical tools, fieldwork experiences and participation processes at case study level (7) that has arguably contributed to populate a new phase of the debate on resilient cities under the forcefield of tourism mobilities.
The domains on research in which our project made the most outstanding contributions are the following:
1) The European geography of social exclusion vis-à-vis tourism mobilities and other forms of attractiveness
2) Housing affordability and residential displacement under the ‘touristification of housing’ both across the EU territory and in specific case study cities
3) The monocultural specialisation of city centres and the erosion of economic and place diversity
4) Tourism mobilities vs everyday mobility and the related urban conflicts
5) The nexus of disadvantaged labour in the tourist sector and precarious lives: the city of risk
6) Urban studentification and social exclusion, between hindrances to student mobilities and conflictive nightlife landscapes
7) Inclusive governance and responsible destination ecosystems, including insights on data democracy and the value of citizen science
In all these domains we have striven to propose original conceptual and analytical frameworks inspired by the ‘mobilities turn’ as well as empirical advances that could inform both communities and policymakers about the challenges faced, policy options available, scales and structures of government involved in the necessary reforms that this project has identified.
The progress we made beyond the state of the art refer to datasets and analytics, but most importantly to have given the voice to affected communities, crafting original characterisations of the most pressing issues faced by cities where inclusiveness and socially cohesion is at stake when becoming overtly dependent from and oriented to the attraction of tourists and other hypermobile and temporary populations.