Big Cruise Ships Going Feral: An Ecocritical Reading of Overtourism in Venice

Abstract

The problem of big cruise ships overtourism in Venice is examined with an ecocritical approach, through two novel concepts: Feral entity and Plantationocene. The first one is adopted to describe big cruise ships as other‑than‑human subjects benefitting from human‑built infrastructures to spread beyond human control, becoming undomesticated. Such ferality is evident in some of their attributes, such as being uncontainable, creating a toxic environment or producing legacy effects. Plantationocene, instead, is used to depict the cruise ships‑induced touristic monoculture affecting the city, highlighting its major characteristics, namely that of global circulation of humans and capital and the homogenisation, simplification and exploitation of eco‑social landscapes.

Keywords

• Anti‑tourism movement. Ferality. Plantationocene. Touristic monoculture. Touristification