Paper short abstract:

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Paper long abstract:

The bazaar in Aleppo, Syria is the largest covered market in the Middle East. It is still central to the economy of the city. Large-scale traders, small-scale shopkeepers, industrial workshop-owners, ambulant food-sellers, customers, and spectators mix and mingle in the covered market. The old city of Aleppo, where the market is situated, is on UNESCOs world heritage list, and infrastructural development and urban rehabilitation is taking place in the bazaar, partly to attract Western tourists. The old market is packaged and sold as a tourist site by underlining its 'authentic, ancient and unspoiled' ambiance. But the people making a living in the market do not support such claims, unless they can make money on it. They care about the bazaar because this is where others like them meet and work. In this presentation the tension between 'enchanted space' and 'prosaic place' will be explored in relation to the new emphasis on tourism in Aleppo. Whilst the ‘natives’ of the market may seem to tourists to be very rooted in this place, they typically have vast networks to many parts of the world, making, in fact, most tourists parochial and local.

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