Buenos Aires, capital of tango: tourism, redevelopment and the cultural politics of neoliberal urbanism

Abstract

In this paper, I problematize the connections between global tourism, urban redevelopment and cultural policy in Buenos Aires. Market-oriented approaches to urban growth have continued after Argentina’s economic collapse of 2001–2002. Devaluation produced unprecedented international affordability, which triggered a tourism boom. City government capitalized on this through cultural initiatives. Yet tourist-oriented cultural entrepreneurialism promoted forms of disjointed redevelopment that exacerbate socio-spatial inequality and fragmentation. Moreover, Mayor Macri has been advancing a cultural politics of scale that recasts Buenos Aires as a world-class city, while mobilizing localist identities to oppose national efforts towards income redistribution and intercultural recognition. Particularly important have been the recent appropriations of tango as a cultural commodity. Deployed for city marketing and selective reinvestment, tango also emboldens Eurocentric narratives of cosmopolitan urbanity that legitimize racialized exclusion and geographical elitism. Concluding remarks suggest that socio-political uses of tango are not the exclusive domain of neoliberal urbanism, and research implications are discussed beyond Buenos Aires.

Keywords:

• Latin America
• urban cultural policy
• neoliberalism
• tourism
• urban social movements

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Helga Leitner for her detailed suggestions and editorial guidance. Peter Muller read and commented on an earlier version of this manuscript. The usual disclaimer applies.