I am, as some will know, doing my PhD and, for that reason, I was in Barcelona a few days ago, where I spent a period of time at the Autonomous University (UAB).
During those days and in the free time that I had and that I tried to make the most of it (because, I confess, the investment of those who study is significant), I walked around the city.
From the neighborhood café, in a residential area where, of course, students and elderly people abounded, right next to the place where I stayed, to Paseo de Gracia/Passeig de Gràcia, the most luxurious avenue in Barcelona, one of the many designed by Cerda; from Mercat la Boqueria and Mercat Sant Antoni to Barceloneta, where fishing boats and the local fishing community live, keeping some of their oldest traditions and true sense of group; even from the Barça stadium, which I passed, to the Fira Internacional, where the biggest COVID-19 vaccination center I've ever seen was set up; I passed them all and tried, as I said, to make the most of the evening hours, after, very early and like any student who traveled with me, taking the metro or bus and then the train, to walk the approximately 20 kilometers that separated me from my place of residence to the UAB and return at the end of the working day.
In fact, being a foreigner and having a short stay, I considered myself a bit of a “tourist” and what I tried, before arriving there, was to learn everything about the city: history, monuments, places of cultural interest and natural beauty, geography, transport, gastronomy, etc.. I made a mental pre-script of the places where I would like and could go and, when I arrived, I tried to adapt my time occupation needs with study, with the financial possibilities I had for, thus, being able to know the space where I was and the people who inhabit it.
I walked the streets just to look. To understand what is everyday and natural there. To find out how to speak and what to say. To find the meaning of living in this great metropolis.
My concern was precisely that: to look and understand as best I could all the circumstances that are visible in this city and reveal the marks of its growth and are a sign of the way of being and living of the Barcelonans, Catalans, strong and convinced, workers and fighters.
And yet, all of a sudden, I find myself surrounded by people whose concern was anything but looking for that inner space where, as the Spaniards say, our own “viewpoint”, our deepest sense of seeing, is kept.
Especially in the city's major tourist attractions - those designed by Antoni Gaudi, the famous modernist architect - such as the Sagrada Familia, Casas Batlló and Pedreira, Park Güell, significant groups of tourists (which I was told are much smaller than before the pandemic ) disputed places to take pictures, making poses, faces and mouths, getting annoyed for not getting the time they wanted and endlessly repeating gestures that, according to their opinion, would transform them, for sure, into the best posing models in the world. and surroundings!
Jumps, to keep a photo in motion, open your arms, to touch points that generate very creative optical illusions, shake your head and change legs to capture all possible angles.
I remember a mother and daughter (teenager): the mother took dozens of photos and the young woman, always dissatisfied after looking at her cell phone screen, returned to the same place to rehearse new stunts, which certainly ended up leaving her satisfied, for they departed and left the place to others, equally desirous of seeing themselves portrayed in a famous space.
Everyone with a cell phone in hand, fighting for a corner near a point of interest, ending up, soon after, making posts and more posts, on the many social networks that are just a click away. Just go, for example, to Instagram and search for #barcelona and you will find many of the examples I just mentioned.
I found myself studying, also in my spare time: a famous Catalan, Manuel Castells, said in his works of sociological analysis that we live connected, in a networked world, where time is no longer sequential, because it is timeless and where space it is no longer just physical, but data and information flows.
Zygmunt Bauman, another famous but Polish sociologist, theorized about “liquid modernity”, a society where everything is in motion and individuals are shaped by inconstancy, consumerism and their experiences, needing a constant fluidity that takes them to the next point, and to the other, and to the other…
All of this was there, at the doorstep of Barcelona's most important attractions. And then came the inner question: are they seeing, or are they seeing each other?… They seem to look without seeing…
What is this process, in which, apparently, subjects seek to travel, seek tourist attractions, seek to leave their own country/physical space, not to truly understand what surrounds them, but to immortalize themselves in what Pope Benedict XVI called the “digital continent”? What understanding will they have of this new ecosystem, environment, in which they insistently want to be seen? And why do they want to be seen and apparently not look?
This is one of the points I investigate: what skills does a tourist/traveler have (or should have) that lead him to discover, deeply and really, the place and the people he will meet on his trip? It is a process that involves communication and tourism, but is also deeply related to the way we teach and learn.
From my point of view, we need a specific literacy that allows us to understand all these processes and behaviors and that reveals to us what the tourist's attitude should really be. We are looking for and studying what “Tourism Literacy” will be, whose dimensions and nuances could be useful to those who work in communication and tourism, in travel journalism, in various fields.
On my return, I brought a portrait, which is part of my personal library of knowledge and which, of course, will be transformed into other permanences that I will have to carry out.
But I brought all these doubts and questions, which now help me to reflect and study, activities that, along with communication, are actually my greatest passion.
And Barcelona is no longer the same as the image I took of it. And when I return there, I will build a new representation.
Author: Sandra Côrtes Moreira has a degree in Social Communication from the FCSH of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, a Master's in Educational Communication from the Faculties of Arts and Human and Social Sciences of the Un. from Lisbon and Algarve and Master in La Educación en la Sociedad Multicultural by the Universidad de Huelva. She is a doctoral candidate in Educomunicación y Alfabetización Mediática at the Universidad de Huelva.
Superior Language and Communication Technician at the Municipality of Faro, is also Advisor to the Information Office of the Diocese of Algarve, member of the Pastoral do Turismo and ONPT team.
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