The role of social capital in the production of tourism spaces: An investigation of public beaches in Antalya

Date

2024-6

Author

Uçak Taşkıran, Eda

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This thesis investigates the role of social capital in the production of tourism spaces. Changing planning paradigms have been evolving in a more collaborative ground in which roles of actors and their social relationships in the planning processes have been gaining importance especially for the last decades. Tourism planning is a socio-spatial and relational phenomenon in which there are various actor groups. Therefore, the collaborative and/or conflicting relationship dynamics between actor groups are important variables in the planning processes. To comprehend the relationship dynamics and their effects in the production of tourism spaces, this research utilizes the concept of social capital as a theoretical lens under the light of case studies encompassing the planning processes of two public beaches in a mass tourism destination, in which the intervention of state by replanning these areas resulted in local objections. Social capital is defined in this study as a form of collaborative capacity out of social and institutional interactions. In that respect, the research inquiries the presence and effects of social capital in the production of tourism spaces through document analysis, in-depth interviews, and field observations based on the study model and social capital indicators developed for the research. The data was analyzed with content analysis in a qualitative data analysis software, MAXQDA 2022. Results indicate that tourism spaces are mostly produced by the social capital between the state and investors, but the social capital at community level has a limited effect in the reproduction of tourism spaces. The root cause of this result is addressed to the highly central and market-oriented policy and legislative design. In turn, policy inputs for redesigning institutional setup are proposed.

Subject Keywords

Social capital, Relationships between actors, Tourism planning, Public beaches

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/110144

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis