Space, identity and festivals. Spatial empowerment and the construction of identity discourses through the lens of heritage festival organizers

ABSTRACTThe study analyzes the discourse on local identity developed by festival organizers in a heritage city with emerging tourism development (Tarragona, Spain). Drawing on the concept of spatiality and spatial empowerment, and through data obtained from in-depth interviews with local festival organizers, an analysis about the role of spatiality in festivals is carried out. The main result shows the existence of different spatial strategies employed in festivals, which support different local identities patterns. We demonstrate this through the way festivals renegotiate local identity using an spatiality approach, and a selective location process of the festival spaces. A two-dimension typology of festivals in heritage cities is proposed in order to synthesize the diversity of identity narratives identified, resulting in four types of festivals. Finally, the article addresses various implications surrounding the dimension of spatial empowerment, both theoretical and practical.KEYWORDS: Festivalsspatialityspatial empowermentheritage citiesTarragona Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsFrancesc González-RevertéDr. Francesc González-Reverté has been a Lecturer in Tourism at The Open University of Catalonia (UOC) since 2003 and member of the NOUTUR research group. He is the author/co-author of several books on tourism and he has widely published sustainable issues in refereed journals. His research experience spans a variety of tourism contexts, including sustainable tourism development, tourism impacts, event and festival tourism and tourism local development. His recent research interests include the social construction of tourism-phobia and overtourism, resident's attitude towards tourism, technology and tourists' perceived risk and mass tourism development. To date, he has published several books and more than 50 scientific articles in different languages.