“Something went wrong”: Introduction to the special issue on gentrification and touristification in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

This special issue introduction has aimed to provide a contextual and conceptual framing forthe various case studies that follow, without trying to be exhaustive and give some hints to thereader about what is to come. We believe the special issue is a modest yet (we hope) significantattempt to bring together theoretical, methodological, and empirical research cultures and, ingeneral, ways of doing, imagining, and thinking. Though we do not want to close without stressingthat, even within Latin America, there are huge differences among countries; we need more urbanresearch in Bolivian or Paraguayan cities, for example. Many urban transformation processes inCentral America are also off the radar. That adds to other claims to know more about other GlobalSouth regions from which we know very little. In all Spanish-speaking academia, and especially inLatin America, urban scholars are usually aware of the conceptual debates that are going on in thenorth and the crucial cases that inform those discussions (commonly New York, London, orChicago). As a way to close the introduction, we would like readers from and in English-speakingacademic institutions interested in any of the topics covered here to be similarly attentive to theresearch outcomes from the Global South. And to break the norm and learn a language differentfrom English, Spanish or any other. Only by fostering these kinds of connections and associationsacross geographies can we foster new debates and reach a more prolific understanding that willlead to our common goal: to have more socially and environmentally just, solidary, and democratic cities.