Geographic tourist status in the urban era and the countryside-city progression in Latin America

Abstract

The discussion of the urban era tends to isolate, dichotomize and overshadow the rural-urban interaction, which is the source and lasting aspect of cities. In this context, this work aims to propose a discussion of the geographic tourist situation addressing this interaction in Latin America. The thesis defended is that the rural-urban friction, tension, and symbiosis by tourism in small cities of the American continent, through the individual and collective idyllic imaginary of culture and “nature” created in the metropolis virtualize concrete ruralities. Methodologically, we propose a cartography of the geographic tourist status that integrates a palimpsest of variables, scales, and temporalities unique to the provincial and metropolitan urban-rural world. It bypasses the strength of the rural/urban or countryside/city dichotomy, as well as the analytical protagonism of the metropolis, to interpret the connectivities of scalar agglomerations where the resistances and/or virtualities of ruralities are the reasons underlying the connections. The theoretical revision and the methodological proposal were supported on the mining sites of Pirenópolis (Goias, Brazil) and Real de Catorce (San Luis Potosi, Mexico). The geographic tourist status seeks to relativize the protagonism of the metropolis as the core of global agglomeration-difussion of the urban era. This requires deeper territorial analysis involving the social, mental, and physical perspectives; in other words, it is at the core of the spatial dialectics. This proposal is justified by being contextually singular and theoretically universal, contrary to the thesis of the urban era that isolates, dicotomizes and eclipses the rural-urban symbiosis, which is the source and lasting aspect of cities. The geographic tourist status is produced by the rural nature as well as by the real and virtual rurality (small city) and imagined rurality (metropolis). Thus, the cartography of the geographic tourist status should consider (i) the mutual interaction and overlap of flows between small and large (or medium) cities, and (ii) the interactions with and between attractive locations on the site or small city itself and its surroundings. The analysis of the small Latin American cities Pirenópolis (Brazil) and Real de Catorce (Mexico) made it possible to confirm the thesis regarding the rural-urban friction, tension, and symbiosis by tourism through the individual and collective imaginary originating in the metropolis, which virtualizes the concrete ruralities inherent to these centers. The representation of this spatial situation integrates a palimpsest of scales, temporalities and variables unique to the provincial and metropolitan urban-rural world. Methodologically, consideration should be given to the technical-political content of each moment within the continuum revealing those perpetually linked worlds - rural and urban - that constitute a lasting symbiosis through which the territory brings together history without clear ruptures.