Tourism has played an essential role in the economic growth of global peripheries, covering the emerging need of the capitalist world for leisure areas. Nonetheless, this growth and its impacts on socioecological systems have been largely underestimated, while sustainability discourse has been centred around alternatives to conventional tourism instead of approaching tourism as a generator of socioenvironmental conflicts. The claim of this research is that tourism monoculture that began in the 1950s in Greece within but not limited to island contexts is a product of growth-oriented policy and planning that has caused a metabolic rift, disrupting regenerative socioecological practices and undermining their well-being. By revisiting tourism growth through the lens of political ecology, this research seeks to demonstrate its implications on local socio-ecological systems, historically correlated with resource sovereignty. Greek islands through the centuries have been living paradigms of autonomy and self-sufficiency, in a prosperous interrelation with nature, having developed a meticulous understanding of limits and boundaries. This type of human ingenuity, demonstrated in its coexistence with nature has been described as local ecological knowledge, largely influencing, among others, the development of a strong cultural identity and autonomy. Through the identification of tangible and intangible elements that make evident the metabolic rift that has been developed due to unilateral tourism growth, this research aims to outline its conflicting repercussions on the island’s long-term sustainability and well-being. The identification of regenerative socioecological practices is expected to provide an integrated methodological tool for decision-making processes in spatial and strategic planning aiming towards well-being as well as an efficient post-growth framework for research in rural development, with autonomy in the centre of design towards socio-ecological transition

Katerina-Shelagh Boucoyannis
National Technical University of Athens

 
ID Abstract: 128