Beatriz Martínez Parra (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Université Paris 1: Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Migratory processes towards Europe and America occurred from the late nineteenth century onwards. These processes were caused by the quest for economic prosperity and decolonization processes. In this context, ethnic groupings were conformed, mainly in large cities, where migrants and their descendants settled down (Sassone and Mera, 2007).

Ethnic districts were conformed on the basis of familial and social ties which consolidated through migratory chains. Migrants settled down in urban spaces, having an impact on them (Sassone and Mera, 2007) and generating cultural and social changes in the urban landscape (Quijano Gómez, 2009.).

When migrants arrived, they usually struggled for social and labour integration. Inside the enclave, their counterparts offer them employment opportunities and facilitate access to adequate housing (Terzano, 2014). However, on the outside, they are subjected to violence, labour exploitation and discrimination (Qadeer and Kumar, 2006).

As they were expelled and segregated by the receiving home society, their only alternative for survival was grouping and starting businesses run by them and for them (Qadeer and Kummar, 2006). This  entrepreneurial spirit is what has formed the ethnic districts which can be found today (Qadeer y Kummar, 2006).

At present, these urban agglomerations have been transformed into places focused on leisure (Schmiz, 2017). These neighbourhoods have been promoted by tourist literature as places which enrich local culture (Ford et al., 2010).

The issue that cities went from obviating the existence of these ethnic neighbourhoods to advertising them as must-visit places is the result of different factors (Maruyama et al., 2017). On the one hand, the reduction of industrial activities in cities that based their economic activity on the manufacturing industry. As a result, these cities needed to look for alternatives to the industry to maintain their economic activity (Maruyama et al., 2017). At the same time, it produced a change in consumers’ tastes, emerging a new market niche that was interested in individualized consumption and individual symbolic development (Maruyama et al., 2017). With this social and economic situation, the presence of ethnic neighbourhoods which count with a gastronomic and leisure offer with an exotic essence, were transformed into a resource for cities (Maruyama et al., 2017a).

In such a way, some of these neighbourhoods started to muster the attention of foreign visitors by being configured as ethnic tourism districts with their own personalities. 

Some of them have been the object of active policies of development and promotion as areas of leisure and tourism, taking advantage of the entrepreneurial talent of the migrant population (Shaw et al., 2004). At a political level, culture has been produced to develop a multicultural agenda which contributes to changing certain pejorative perceptions inherited regarding these neighbourhoods (Maruyama and Woosnam, 2015). Traditionally, city planners have been taking advantage of the cultural singularities of groups but also controlling the ways in which it presented this culture to tourists (Maruyama et al., 2017). Tourist districts embody the ethno-cultural diversity of big cities converting it into an asset (Vergun, 2019). It has developed branding, diversification and differentiation processes which look to produce places which attract consumers using global brand resources such as Chinatowns and Little Italy (Schmiz, 2017).

In this way, a considerable number of these districts are, thus, the object of interesting processes of heritagization and touristification. Many scholars have researched these processes of cultural asset transformation in tourist attractions, which are joined by the bundling of resources and services for their easy tourist consumption (Maccannell, 1973). In this context, María Soledad Laborde (2008) indicated that the visibility of, for example, Chinese neighbourhoods, implied the selection of a series of cultural performances which are legitimated by governments, because they, together, conform to a resource to raise an image of the city from a tourism approach (Laborde, 2008). 

In these processes, the authenticity of cultures vanishes, and it is replaced by the thematization of landscapes (Loukaitou-Sideris and Soureli, 2012). Santos, Belhassen and Canton (2008), in fact, specified that ethnic tourism in cities is developed in a commodification context of ethnicity for tourism (Santos, et, al., 2008). Moreover, in many cases, local culture is commodified without the consent of the participants (Cohen, 1988). In this manner, the commodification destroys the authenticity of local culture and in its place appears a “staged authenticity” (Cohen, 1988). Similarly, this tends to generate the perpetuation of stereotypes, which could turn into an amalgamation of the exotic perceived under the perception of the socially dominant majority (Loukaitou-Sideris and Soureli, 2012).

Nevertheless, tourists usually react in a positive way to rebuilt cultural performances or attractions developed with the purpose of attracting tourism and always with a certain sensation of authenticity and exotism (McKercher et al., 2004). In fact, it has been suggested that lots of people who visit cultural tourist attractions look for stereotyped images from the past (McKercher et al., 2004). 

Consequently, the debate on whether ethnic districts really need to be ornamented with stereotyped images to satisfy tourist demand or if they should maintain their own aesthetic (which may provide a more real and authentic experience) arises. It is possible that the lack of ornamentation reduces the number of visitors who arrive in the neighbourhood. Nevertheless, there are some tourists and visitors who reject this type of performance and look for other types of experiences where you really see how people live. Regarding residents, neighbours may not feel represented by the ornamentation of the area. However, the arrival of visitors attracted by decoration may provide income to the neighbourhood. Should the new and potential ethnic neighbourhoods surrender to ornamentation and cultural performances as well-known Chinatowns or should differ from them and offer other types of experience? Maybe there is no correct or wrong answer in this debate. Nonetheless, when developing and implementing policies for ethnic neighbourhood development I consider it key to consider all stakeholders, including civil society to arrive at the most adequate decision.

Beatriz Martínez Parra has a degree in Tourism and a master’s degree in Planification and Management of Tourist Destinations, both at Complutense University of Madrid. She decided to study Tourism not just because it is a great industry (specially in Spain), but because it is a cross-cutting and at the same time multi-purpose issue. She chose the topic of my thesis while working on the Una Europa project named CUTE. In this project she studied, together with Maria García, Juan Angel Martin, Ana Yañez and other master’s students (as she was), heritagization processes in the districts of Usera and Villaverde. Usera is nowadays becoming the Chinatown of Madrid. Beatriz has been always interested in topics regarding ethnicity, anthropology, culture, heritage… And, since the Chinatowns of the world are touristy areas, it is interesting for her to study how the ethnic districts and neighborhoods are conformed, and to research firstly the heritagization processes of these areas and secondly the turistization processes, usually attached to the previous heritagization processes.

Referencies:

Cohen, E. (1988). Authenticity and commoditization in tourism.  Annals of Tourism Research. 15. 371-386. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/0160-7383(88)90028-X.

Ford, L., Klevisser, F., Carli, F. (2008). Ethnic Neighborhoods and Urban Revitalization: Can Europe Use the American Model? Geographical Review. 98(1). 82 – 102. DOI:10.1111/j.1931-0846.2008.tb00289.x.

Laborde, M. S. (2008). Apropiación y disputa en la conformación del “Barrio Chino” en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires: el patrimonio inmaterial como estrategia. IX Congreso Argentino de Antropología Social. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales – Universidad Nacional de Misiones, Posadas. 

Loukaitou-Siders, A. y Soureli, K. (2012). Cultural Tourism as an Economic Development Strategy for Ethnic Neighborhoods. Economic Development Quarterly. 26(1). 50-72. DOI:10.1177/0891242411422902.

Maruyama, N., Woosnam, K. (2015). Residents’ ethnic attitudes and support for ethnic neighborhood tourism: The case of a Brazilian town in Japan. Tourism Management. 50(2015). 225-237. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2144.

Maruyama, N., Woosnam, K. Boley, B. (2017). Who is ethnic neighborhood tourism for anyway? Considering perspectives of the dominant cultural group. International Journal of Tourism Research. 19(6). 727-735. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2144.

MacCannell, D. (1973) Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist Settings. American Journal of Sociology. 79. 589-603. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/225585.

McKercher, B., Ho, P., du Cros, H. (2004). Attributes of popular cultural attractions in Hong Kong. Annals of Tourism Research. 31(2). 393-407. DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2003.12.008.

Qadeer, M., Kumar, S. (2006) Ethnic enclaves and social cohesion. Canadian Journal of Urban Research. 15 (2). 1-17.

Quijano Gómez, E.  (2019).  Barrios chinos:  cultura, economía y turismo.  Reflexiones sobre transnacionalidad y etnicidad en la era de la globalización. Revista Ciudades, Estados y Política. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15446/cep.v6n3.84044.

Santos, C., Belhassen, Y. y Catón, K. (2008). Reimagining Chinatown: An analysis of tourism discourse. Tourism Management. 29(5). 1002-1012. DOI:10.1016/j.tourman.2008.01.002.

Sassone, S.M., Mera, C. (2007). Barrios de migrantes, espacios interculturales: coreanos y bolivianos en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. XXVI Congreso de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología. Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología (ALA). Guadalajara, México. 

Schmiz, A. (2017). Staging a ‘Chinatown’ in Berlin: The role of city branding in the urban governance of ethnic diversity. European Urban and Regional Studies, 24(3), 290–303. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0969776416637208V.

Shaw, S., Bagwell, S. y Karmowska, J. (2004). Ethnoscapes as Spectacle: Reimaging Multicultural Districts as New Destinations for Leisure and Tourism Consumption. Urban Studies. 41(10). 1983–2000. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098042000256341

Terzano, K. (2014). Commodification of Transitioning Ethnic Enclaves. Behavioral science. 4(4). 341-51. DOI: 10.3390/bs4040341.

Vergun T.V. (2019). Ethnic villages as a factor of the development of ethnic tourism. Science Almanac of Black Sea Region Countries. 20(4). 29-35. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098042000256341.

Defne Özözer (Université Paris 1: Panthéon-Sorbonne, Helsingin Yliopisto)

Rony Alfandary, born in England after the Holocaust, encountered a chest full of letters, found by family members in his great-uncle Léon Cohen’s house in Marseille. Like many other Ottoman Jews, his ancestors emigrated to different places in the first half of the 20th century. Rony studied some of these letters and the collective memory of his family in his book titled: Postmemory, Psychoanalysis and Holocaust Ghosts: The Salonica Cohen Family and Trauma Across Generations. His work is based upon letters circulated between Rita Cohen Parenti (1903-1986) in Palestine, Léon (1901-1942) and Isaac Cohen (1898-1942) in Paris, and the rest of the Cohen family in Salonica.

As a psychotherapist, Rony is interested in the relationship between one’s psychology and the happenings in their family’s past. That being said, his family letters also provide new primary sources for us, the historians. These 400 documents contain administrative papers and letters in English, French, Greek, Hebrew, and Ladino. The ones in Ladino provide us with incredibly delicate and one-of-a-kind information. This is because Ladino, today an endangered language, is unique to the Sephardic Jewish community – a community that composed the majority of Salonica’s population until the First Balkan Wars.

Example of Ladino in Solitreo cursive writing (right) and printed Hebrew characters (left) from https://www.avlaremoz.com/2021/05/30/roportaj-devin-naar-ile-ladino-edebiyata-bakis-1-3/

Ladino is known worldwide by different names such as “Judezmo” or “Judeo-Spanish.” The language is mainly spoken by Sephardic Jews, who are Jews of Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) origin. Ladino is based on old Spanish and contains many words from other languages of the people that Sephardic Jews have been in contact with, such as Hebrew, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, and Italian.

During the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, the Iberian Jews started fleeing Catholic rule. Especially after the Alhambra Decree issued by Spain in 1492 and the edict of expulsion for Jews and Muslims by King of Portugal Manuel I in 1496, mass conversions, persecutions, and emigration took place. The expelled Jews and Muslims emigrated to other Mediterranean regions, primarily Italy, North Africa, the Levant, and the Balkans. Ottoman Sultan at the time (Bayezid II) sent the Ottoman navy to help Iberian Jews migrate and settle in main port cities, such as Salonica, Adana, and İzmir. That is why most Ottoman Jews speak Judeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino.

Ladino was the common language spoken in Salonica during the Ottoman period (1492-1912) due to the notable Jewish presence. Moreover, Salonica was home to eminent Ladino newspapers of the Ottoman World, such as La Epoka and El Avenir. However, after the city became a part of Greece (1912), Jews of Salonica, who were subjects of an empire prior to this development, received the status of minority in a nation-state, and Greek was recognized as the official language. The demographic situation in the city also changed significantly after 1912 due to the turn of events, including the arrival of Greek-speaking people from neighbors by population exchange treaties with Bulgaria and Turkey (1919-1924), the Great Fire of Salonica in the Jewish neighborhood (1917), and the assimilation attempts by Greece. Nonetheless, Ladino remained widely spoken in Salonica until the Nazi occupation of Greece (1943).

Today, it is estimated that 130,000 people on earth speak Ladino, around 100 being in Salonica.

During the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans (the 1870s to 1920s), many Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jews left their hometowns. As a result, a big part of the diaspora lives today in the United States, France, and Israel. However, many are dispersed around the world. Rony Alfandary’s family is an excellent example; his ancestors scattered in France, the UK, the US, Greece, and Israel. Unfortunately, only the ones who migrated to the US, the UK, and Palestine before the 1940s have survived, while the rest were victims of the Holocaust.

When studying the history of underrepresented ethnic or religious groups within nation-states, there is only so much we can learn from conventional primary sources. Sources like administrative documents, ephemerals, newspapers, or pamphlets were either in the official languages of the nation-state or were subjected to censorship before or after their publication. In Salonica’s case, except for the newspapers, official sources are either in English, Turkish, French, or Greek. On the other hand, personal papers were written in Ladino – the language spoken by the community. These letters and mémoires provide information from inside the community.

Defne ÖZÖZER is a Ph.D. student in History at the University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, and History and Cultural Heritage at Helsinki University. Her research focuses on the Jewish community of Salonica and its diaspora, with a specific interest in education and language.

Xinyu Li (Université Paris 1: Panthéon-Sorbonne, Complutense University of Madrid)

The preservation and protection of historical heritage in China have been going on since the 1980s. In 1982, several measures for identifying and protecting heritage at the national level were established. In 1985, China joined the World Heritage Convention. According to the 2019 report of the National Cultural Heritage Bureau of China, more than 4 thousand monuments were protected at the national level in China.

Compared with the traditional historic districts, there is a type of heritage with some peculiarities in China, i.e., the former concessions. Different from colonies, the sovereignty of the concession areas remained with China. However, the economy and administration of these places were under the control of the occupying countries. These districts were enclaves outside Chinese jurisdiction. Under the influence of communist ideology, they were considered a colonial symbol for about 30 years before the Chinese economic reform in 1978. Thus, this type of heritage built by a large state is, in a sense, dissonant (Tunbridge, Ashworth, 1996).

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the potential value for tourism and substantial commercial returns of this heritage category has been discovered (He & Wu, 2005). The unique cultural landscape of the concession districts offers an “exotic” image different from the general urban view in China. Under this background, cities with concession areas started projects to preserve and develop these heritages. For example, in 2002, the Xintiandi renovation project was completed in Shanghai. The former Italian Concession was requalified as New I-Style Town in Tianjin in 2009 (Lu, 2017). A renovation project of a street museum on Li Huangpi Road in Wuhan was launched in 2014 (Cheng, Yu, Li, 2017). The city governments often guide these projects. They often choose to put heritage preservation and touristification together. In this process, there is a significant population movement. Therefore, what is the result of the population movement of these projects?

Li Huangpi Road (known as Yima Street) is the main street of the former Russian Concession, close to the former French Concession. The road is about 600 meters long and contains almost all the elements that make up a city: administrative buildings, residential buildings, police stations, business buildings, hostels, banks, schools, the hospitals, most built between 1910-1927 by the German architect Richard Sachse. In the first half and middle of the 20th century, most residents were local Chinese. It was not until the 1980s, with the economic and urban development, that large numbers of suburban and rural populations moved into the area, searching for jobs and renting these apartments. According to the surveys, most residents in this area are low-income and have a very high percentage of mobility. Many apartments are divided by plaster walls into small, temporary rooms for rent (Cheng, Yu, Li, 2017).

In 2000, a street museum was set up in the area to preserve and display the neighborhood’s architecture and culture. The facades of these buildings were replaced with old red bricks. Some presentation boards were set up to introduce the history of the neighborhood and the buildings. At the same time, several street committees were established with the government’s support. These committees organize activities and events to encourage residents to participate in preserving and promoting the local culture. The collective memory and cultural activities are combined with the daily life of the community residents.

The establishment of the “street museum” has made this area a public cultural space. The unique history and Western-style urban landscape attracted small companies and restaurants. After becoming a street museum, this area gradually gained many cultural and fashion facilities, such as photography studios, art salons, galleries, cafes, and bars. Some freelance artists and craftspeople rented vacant rooms to use as their offices. The combination of Western heritage with café-restaurants and art studios brought new mobility and dynamism to the neighborhood and created an image of an exotic western cityscape (Qiu & Liu, 2019). These images have attracted residents, and tourists from other cities to visit the area. This mobility has enhanced the visibility of this area. So, it gradually transformed from a traditional residential area to a multifunctional, commercial, cultural, and tourist area.

However, the completion of the renovation project and the mobility of artists and tourists have led to an increase in local consumption levels and the price of living. Lots of original residents could not afford these costs, so they moved to other areas of the city with lower spending levels. The vacant rooms are then used as restaurants or studios. This has led to the further cost of living increases and the departure of the original residents.

Today, Li Huangpi Road became a well-known tourist site, because of the Western-style buildings and various bars and restaurants (Chen & Xu, 2021). In this area, we could no longer see the elderly and low-income residents, but it is filled with a large number of young people. The road has become a great place to take photos, which are great to post on social media. It became equally a place to meet friends and have parties.

The departure of the original residents and the circulation of tourists hide or dilute the collective memory. The heritage with once colonial history has been given a new narrative and identity, becoming a public space for tourism, commerce, and entertainment. Both public and private actors are involved in their own way in the preservation and reuse of these architectural heritages. The building facades were preserved and restored as a material heritage, becoming a landmark symbol in the city.

Xinyu Li is an architect and Ph.D. Candidate in planning at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and geography at the Complutense University of Madrid. His research focuses on the heritization, touristification, and physical-social transformation of historical areas, with a specific interest in historical towns and Western-themed spaces in former concessions in China.

References

Chen, E., & Xu, H. (2021, June). Research on the protection and utilization of historical and cultural blocks under the New Museum Theory——Taking the Street Museum of Lihuangpi Road in Wuhan as an example. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 787(1). IOP Publishing.

Cheng, S., Yu, Y., & Li, K. (2017). Historic conservation in rapid urbanization: a case study of the Hankow historic concession area. Journal of urban Design, 22(4), 433-454.

He, S., & Wu, F. (2005). Property-led redevelopment in post-reform China: A case study of Xintiandi redevelopment project in Shanghai. Journal of Urban Affairs, 27(1), 1-23.

Lu, Y. (2017). De l’ancienne concession italienne de Tianjin à l’I-Style Town : enjeux et processus de la patrimonialisation et du développement touristique. Ph.D. thesis, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France.

Qiu, J., & Liu, Z. (2019). The Charm of Slow Thinking—Taking the Street Museum on the Lihuangpi Road of Wuhan as an Example. In 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2019) (pp. 269-276). Atlantis Press.

Tunbridge, J. E., & Ashworth, G. J. (1996). Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. Chichester: Wiley.

”Heritage on the move” was born out of the UNA Europa transnational research team “Heritage, Global Migration and Mobility”. It brings together research and researchers from all across Europe to write, debate and cooperate on issues of mobility, movement, migration in heritage in a global context. Most of all, it aims to be an open space for thinking about what critical heritage can contribute to scholarly and societal discussions on mobility and migration. Employing a grassroots approach, it invites members of the research team to engage in a lively discussion on what critical heritage is, how heritage can be understood, protected and experienced, and how their ongoing research can inform international and global conversations about mobile and migrant heritages.