Paper Short Abstract:

This paper revisits classics themes in Mediterranean anthropology--cosmopolitanism and hospitality--in the context of tourism massification and resistance thereof in Marseille, France. The paper explores contemporary articulations of cosmopolitanism and hospitality by opposing publics.

Paper Abstract:

Writing about the physical and human landscape in the 16th century, Fernand Braudel (1995[1996]) argued that the Mediterranean constituted a unit of analysis. Mediterranean cities, with their cosmopolitan cultures were a crucial element of this broader geographic and cultural unit. With the end of the Ottoman empire and the Cold War, claims to Mediterranean geopolitical and cultural unity began to fade. The end of the Cold War and increasing migration flows across the Mediterranean have once again brought attention to the region and its unity (Albera 1999, 2006; Bromberger 2006). This emerging literature returns to the study of the Mediterranean as a space united by difference, a fractured and hybrid space, shaped by postcolonial legacies as well as by contemporary hierarchies generated by fortress Europe (Chambers 2008) and neoliberal economics. Working alongside this literature, this paper brings attention to contemporary articulations of classic themes of cosmopolitanism and hospitality in the context of a relatively new phenomenon in Mediterranean cities: tourism massification. Capitalizing on a global imaginary of the Mediterranean climate, food, and architecture, many Mediterranean cities have promoted mass tourism as a key to economic development. At the same time, protests against overtourism have intensified. Looking at urban policies, market trends, and grassroots movements in the city of Marseille, France, this paper explores how imaginaries of cosmopolitanism and hospitality are deployed by various actors advocating or contesting tourism massification.