Venice and the Extractivist Regime of Mass Tourism

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Abstract

This short text explores the phenomenon of overtourism and its impacts on cities like Venice, drawing from political geography, critical development studies, urban studies, and the environmental humanities. It examines how the expansion of extractivist dynamics – traditionally focused on natural resources – now extends to social, economic, cultural and ecological domains, providing a unique perspective for understanding key dimensions of the Anthropocene. The social conflicts resulting from the aggressive neoliberal marketization of urban spaces, as exemplified by Venice, expose the extractive logics justifying mass tourism: the commodification of the commons and of cultural heritage embodies a form of symbolic extraction that parallels the material extraction of resources, reshaping the social, economic, and ecological landscapes of cities. This extractivist logic, intensified by neoliberal forces and promoted by several political actors, transforms urban life, aesthetics, and ecology at once.


Open access

Pubblicato 10 Giugno 2025 | Lingua: en

Copyright © 2025 Emiliano Guaraldo. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-933-7/014


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