Towards just production of tourism space via dialogical everyday politics in destination communities

This article takes an under-explored approach to politics and social change, focusing not on critiquing per se but on establishing local relations that enable community building. The study objective is to envision a type of politico-economic agency that would contribute to building local relations that are characterized by socially just production of tourism spaces. The topic is explored in the context of tourism economy and related injustices in local communities. The study draws on Lefebvre's work The Production of Space and its insights on politico-economic subjectivity, difference, and politics. His concepts of 'abstract' and 'absolute' spaces are highlighted as central in studying social transformations. The proposed view on social change is explored empirically in the context of local tourism politics in the Yllas destination in the Finnish North. The case study illustrates how in its current mode the prevailing tourism politics is not sufficient to advance socially just production of tourism space. Based on an ethnographically oriented study of the existing everyday tourism realities it is proposed that the injustices are reproduced by a mutual lack of attention to different perspectives between groups. It is argued that dialogical everyday politics is needed for facilitating mutual understanding across difference, and thus widening the perspectives from which local development needs are discussed. The article concludes that critical research should recognize that it is essential to improve inter-group relations in communities if the aim is a just production of space in which the diversity of voices is taken into account.