Se venisse un turista a Gela. Fantasie di turismo e senso del luogo in un contesto tardo-industriale

Abstract

This paper explores the imaginaries of tourism development in the Sicilian town of Gela, home to a petrochemical plant that, in the 1960s, transformed a rural village into a symbol of top-down industrialization in southern Italy. Built by Eni, the plant has led to environmental pollution and unregulated urban development over the years, casting a heavy stigma over the town. The plant's recent closure has added to the uncertainty. Consequently, tourism development linked to the sea and the town's ancient Greek heritage is now considered a possible path to economic and moral redemption. In exploring this transformation, this paper critically examines the recent tourism-oriented policies by Eni, aimed at reorienting the local sense of place. It also analyzes grassroots initiatives through which local entrepreneurs, associations, and inhabitants reclaim degraded areas of the downtown in an attempt to meet the expectations of an imagined "tourist gaze." The widespread evocation of this gaze can be seen as a meta-cultural discourse through which social actors narrate the town, produce collective representations and horizons of expectation, and attempt to erase stigmatizing narratives. In this regard, the article emphasizes the importance of exploring tourist imaginaries even in areas that are on the fringes of mass touristification.