Making sense of platform-mediated residences in tourist destinations. A semiotic analysis of the controversy around home sharing in Barcelona

Abstract

In 2021, the city of Barcelona made the controversial decision to prohibit short-term rentals of private rooms to tourists. The ban renewed the heated debate around the uses and functions of private property in the context of the contemporary tourist city, where the market of tourist accommodation has been significantly impacted by players such as Airbnb. This study aims to give an account of the controversy surrounding the ban on the short-term renting of private rooms in Barcelona by interpreting it as a reflection of the intrinsic conflicts of meanings operating in the tourist city. Accordingly, it maps and analyses the different positions voiced by the social actors involved in both the political urban arena and in the market. The main hypothesis of this work is that the controversy provoked by the decision to ban the shared homes listed by platforms such as Airbnb unmasks different ways to “make meaning of” structural issues such as urban life, housing and inequalities, tourism, digital labour and precariousness in the immediate post-pandemic scenario of the tourist city. From the epistemological point of view, the study relies on a semiotic perspective and critically analyses different textualities related to the debate around home sharing in Barcelona. These textualities articulate different themes and figures at a deeper axiological level where a clash of value systems takes place.