Youth tourism? Traveling in the biographies of young people of popular neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires

Abstract

In this article, I present results of my doctoral thesis whose general objective is to analyse the experiences of young people from Buenos Aires' popular neighbourhoods, investigating articulations between mobilities and corporalities in their individuation processes. A qualitative approach was proposed, following the directives of the grounded theory. Semi-structured interviews, biographical focus and participant observation were conducted in a social organization that offers free circus workshops to young people from popular neighbourhoods. Research begin to warn about youth tourism, highlighting the increase of young travellers and tourist centres created around them. However, the possibilities of traveling and ‘vacation’ differ between different social groups. Its approach becomes a way of recognizing inequalities. This paper identifies the characteristics of the trips present in the biographies of the young people interviewed, the way they perceived those trips, the senses around them, as well as the enabling and limiting factors to undertake them. By analysing the narratives, it is possible to distinguish three types of trips: those possible and motivated by familiar bonds, those proposed by religious groups settled down in popular districts of the city for survival in the nature and those projected to future, as a desire of potential mobility.