Title: New rurality and agritourism in Empordà, Catalonia

Authors: Sabrina Doyon; Eliseu Carbonell

Addresses: Département d'anthropologie, Université Laval, Pavillon Charles-De Koninck, 1030, avenue des Sciences-Humaines, Québec (Québec), Canada, G1V 0A6 ' Departament de Pedagogia, Universitat de Girona, Pujada de Sant Domènec, 9, 17004 Girona, Spain

Abstract: Agritourism in the Empordà region has become increasingly popular in recent years. It provides a variety of services, ranging from food catering, the tasting of local products, garden, orchard, and vineyard visits, and lodging. It creates opportunities for a relationship between visitors, places, ideas, and experiences, between the territory, landscape, and terroir, between local products and food sovereignty. It encourages re-peasantisation, the promotion of local know-how, and environmental conservation. This paper examines how this form of agritourism draws a part of its inspiration from a social imaginary of a peasant past that existed prior to the 1960s' advent of mass tourism. Using the tools of the new rurality approach, this paper analyses the landscape and evolution of agritourism in the region. It presents some of the producers' main principles and activities in the light of a regional context that comprises, among other constraints, environmental deterioration, socio-economic inequalities, and a considerable pressure for access to basic resources.

Keywords: agritourism; wine tourism; new rurality; moral economy; heritage; Costa Brava; Empordà; Catalonia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2021.123197

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2021 Vol.8 No.4, pp.351 - 369

Received: 02 Mar 2021
Accepted: 06 Sep 2021
Published online: 01 Jun 2022 *

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