No abstract

Islands worldwide experience the commodification of land and natural resources owing to touristic activities and urbanization. Islands represent the epitome of commodified spaces, power, and territorialization. Therefore, focusing on islands reveals how the production of socionatures shapes the dynamics of capital accumulation, dispossession, and resistance. By paying attention to the interplay between insularity and socioecological transformations, we aim at expanding the literature on the neoliberalization of socionatures. We explore the contestation against urban tourism development in Tenerife in recent decades, such as the intense expansion of artificial land use since the touristic boom in mid-20th century, which was intensified through neoliberal capitalism by commodifying elements of everyday life. Environmental struggles inevitably facilitate greater mobilization than other claims. An empirical survey on the spatiotemporal evolution of this island illustrates and helps to deepen the conceptual development of the right to the island and to nature. We found that social contestation and its political emancipatory potential with the defense of nature and the demand for a different social and territorial island model highlights ‘right to nature’ as a central element in the fight for ‘right to the island.’

Tourism is an attractive means of economic growth for governments, private companies, and international organizations, especially in places on the periphery of world capitalism. This growth strategy goes hand in hand with the transformation of coastlines and their surrounding areas and the enclosure of common spaces. These trends are illustrated by ongoing processes in the Canary Islands. In the aftermath of the 2007–2008 economic and financial crisis, and in line with its island development model, the archipelago’s regional government boosted the urban development of rural land and the construction of new hotels along the coastline. In early 2016, a movement to prevent the construction of a hotel on the coast of La Tejita (Tenerife) was formed. This study analyzes the fight to halt the development project, together with key landmarks in the protest, and explores the hypothesis that the right to nature exists and is indeed upheld, expressed in turn as the right to the island. The analysis is based on participant observations, dialogue with activists involved in the protest, and media coverage.

El artículo explora los inicios en España de la geografía urbana crítica y marxista de raíz anglosajona, a partir de las contribuciones pioneras que bajo este enfoque introduce la geógrafa Luz Marina García Herrera (1953-2020). Sus investigaciones sobre periferias urbanas, relaciones de propiedad del suelo y agentes urbanos son hoy un referente obligado en el panorama de la geografía radical española. Este análisis trata de reconstruir un capítulo del pensamiento geográfico, centrando la atención en los trabajos sobre periferias urbanas, objeto destacado de estudio de la geografía urbana crítica, y en las innovadoras aportaciones teóricas y empíricas que sobre tales ámbitos debemos a la profesora García Herrera. Para ello se analizan en profundidad sus dos monografías principales centradas en esta temática; se revisa la producción bibliográfica desde 1970; y se realizan entrevistas a personas del entorno académico y sociopolítico de esta investigadora, prematuramente fallecida, a quien rendimos homenaje desde estas líneas.