Venezia di notte. Frontiera della colonizzazione turistica o spazio-tempo per pratiche sociali? Venice by night. Frontier of tourist colonization or space-time for social practices?

Growing tourist flows, continuous depopulation, rising tension between locals and visitors are three of the most severe issues affecting Venice’s historic centre. The aim of this paper is to explore if Venice’s night is a spatiotemporal frontier for touristification and if the re-interpretative practices of urban spaces and the expression of the “right to the city” occur during the night. The analysis develops a taxonomy of evening and night-time social activities in urban outdoor spaces and employs a qualitative methodological frame based on an ethnographic fieldwork structured through focused surveys and participant observation. In particular, the analysis focuses on urban night practices in the area of campo San Giacomo da l’Orio.