3. Literature Review
We frame our research in the context of efforts to revitalize and redevelop cities by taking a “recreational turn,” which focuses on culture as a tool shifting the main urban economic activities from manufacturing towards service-based tourist and leisure industries (Stock 2007; Nofre, Giordano, Eldridge, Martins, and Sequera 2018). In this process, many cities (including Montreal) have redefined themselves as “creative cities” (McKim 2012) and have increasingly engaged in processes of "touristification” or tourism-led urban revitalization, which some classify as gentrification (Nofre et al. 2018; Gotham 2005). Such processes are supported by strategies of aestheticization and/or “spectacularisation” that aim to make cities more attractive “for consumption” (Kavaratzis 2004; Ethier and Margier 2019).
One particularly interesting strategy is that of “city festivalization” (Bennett and Woodward 2014), entailing the role of festivals in city branding as “central mediators in the development of contemporary cities” (Nunes 2019: 148) and as driving forces in the creative city movement. Festivals have been researched in relation to their spatiality and temporality and the ways in which these aspects influence the social dynamics and behaviors within festival places: for example, Stevens and Shin argue that “the physical reality and the meaning of local neighborhood spaces is transformed for the brief time of a festival” (2014: 3). Another interesting line of research proposes the idea of festivals as temporary third places, i.e. “sociable yet neutral spaces outside of the workplace and […] home” (Hawkins and Ryan 2013: 192, see Oldenburg 1999). In proposing festivals as third places, Hawkins and Ryan (2013) contested their spatial limitations and permanence, while Slater and Koo (2010) included “the broader criteria of accessibility, comfort/image, sociability and activities” (Hawkins and Ryan 2013: 198). Hence, festivals allowing for the creation of a community space, where people have the opportunity to connect with others – linger and engage in informal, free, or low-cost social interactions – and participant desire to return as regulars is stimulated, can be understood as third places (Oldenburg 1997; 1999). This approach is particularly interesting to consider, because, while most festivals occasionally take place in temporary or peri-urban settings, the QDS represents a permanent festival space.
In general, processes of touristification have led to tensions between locals and visitors, motivating city halls around the world to find ways to manage and balance livability and vitality. Nofre and his associates (2018) speak of the negative impact of tourism-led redevelopment on the livability of popular neighborhoods in Barcelona, ranging from the unaffordability of the neighborhood to the “out of place” feeling of locals. This was informed partially by what Davidson (2008) called “neighborhood resource displacement,” a shift of neighborhood services and resources from residents towards other groups, which, in the case of the neighborhood of Barceloneta, led to an “expansion of youth-oriented and tourist-oriented nightlife” (Nofre et al. 2018: 391). This reorientation had not only a strong spatial but also a temporal component, as it led to a conflict between the life rhythms of locals and visitors. The friction between livability and vitality further challenges ideas of home in creative cities and the relationships of city dwellers with their private and public spaces. Home is more than just a physical space, it is also a symbolic one (Mallett 2004). Mary Douglas (1991) speaks of home as “located in space but not necessarily a fixed space,” allowing for a flexibility of spatial boundaries to be continually defined and redefined by the inhabitants and their understanding of public–private life dichotomies. In the context of the QDS, and from a sonic perspective, we embrace the idea of a fluidity of home boundaries by adopting anthropologist and ethnographer Olivier Féraud’s concept of a porosity of spaces, as mediated by sound (2010). In investigating the separation between private and public spaces in Naples, Féraud explored how the boundaries between street and home life became permeable by, for example, opening windows and doors. These simple, everyday acts created spaces of permanent interaction in which public sound sources continually ensure contact with the outside world.
Finally, we rely on insights from soundscape literature on the relationship between soundscape assessments and activities performed in diverse everyday indoor and outdoor spaces (Steffens, Steele, and Guastavino 2017) with an emphasis on the role of age in framing this relationship (Yang and Kang 2005). We build on ideas of soundscapes as reflections of human activities (Maffiolo et al. 1997; Guastavino 2007) to bridge individual sensory experiences and collective social practices (Dubois, Guastavino, and Raimbault 2006). In the context of being at home in a festival neighborhood and navigating private and public festival spaces, our approach was informed by research on the role of everyday activities in mediating soundscape evaluations (Bild, Pfeffer, Coler, Rubin, and Bertolini 2018; Bild, Steele, Pfeffer, Bertolini, and Guastavino 2018) and, conversely, on the role of soundscapes as affording diverse activities (Nielbo, Steele, and Guastavino 2013). While festivals are events that usually briefly change the composition of a neighborhood (Stevens and Shin 2014), in the QDS, festivals are part of a larger, year-long season blending genres, types of performances, audiences, organizers, etc. We draw upon these diverse bodies of literature in order to address the idiosyncrasies of the sonic experience in the QDS and to experiment with ways of operationalizing the idea of being/feeling at home in a festival neighborhood. We used a qualitative approach to understand how locals described their increasingly “spectacular” home neighborhood and the role that festival sounds played in their experiences.