Open AccessCarrefours: Migrants’ Support Volunteer Tourism in Lesvos
Author(s) -
Giovanna Di Matteo
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
lingue culture mediazioni
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2421-0293
pISSN - 2284-1881
DOI - 10.7358/lcm-2021-001-dima
Subject(s) - tourism , panacea (medicine) , context (archaeology) , emblem , tourism geography , blueprint , political science , geography , sociology , law , engineering , medicine , mechanical engineering , alternative medicine , archaeology , pathology
Lesvos (Greece) has become over the last few years the emblem of human migration to Europe. As a consequence of the so-called “migration crisis” in 2015, people from all over the world who, first in a self-organized way and then structuring themselves into associations and organizations, wanted to bring support to migrants in transit or blocked on the island arrived developing what I define migrants’ support volunteer tourism. After defining the historical and contemporary context, I define the tourist framework and in particular this (relatively) new form of volunteer tourism. Keeping in mind that tourism – often described as a panacea for the Mediterranean islands – does not necessarily mean encounter with the other, I try to analyse voluntary tourism from the point of view of the possible relationships that are created thanks to the intersection of two forms of contemporary mobility: tourism and migration.