Abstract

Both short-term tourism rentals and the digital platforms that manage and mediate them have expanded enormously in recent years, against a backdrop of increasing platform urbanism and platform capitalism. This expansion triggers transformations that are contributing to acute negative externalities never envisaged within the original ethos and sustainability promises of the sharing economy. The severe knock-on effects of the unanticipated reconfiguration of economic and everyday life have met with a strong civic response, leading to a growing politicisation of platform-mediated rentals increasingly performed in the digital sphere. Numerous social movements have arisen in opposition to platforms such as Airbnb, while lobbyists and user collectives have also mobilised to defend their respective rights to ‘home-share’ and generate extra income, as the business becomes increasingly professionalised in large cities. Through the lens of the increasingly politicised and polemical impacts of the platform economy, this article analyses Twitter narratives and counter-narratives surrounding Airbnb-mediated rentals and their impact on Madrid and Barcelona. Findings show how narratives are choreographed by a range of actors and that narrative ecosystems emerge in the form of interconnected virtual relationship networks, often embedded in translocal assemblages.

摘要

近年来，在平台都市主义和平台资本主义日益盛行的背景下，短期旅游租赁和管理和调解它们的数字平台都大幅扩张。这种扩张引发了转变，这些转变导致了共享经济的原始精神和可持续性承诺中从未设想过的严重负外部性。经济和日常生活的意外重组所产生的严重连锁反应已经引起了强烈的公民反应，导致在数字领域越来越多地进行的平台中介租赁的政治化程度越来越高。反对Airbnb等平台的社会运动已经兴起，而游说者和用户集体也动员起来捍卫各自的“房屋共享”权利并产生额外收入，随着大城市的业务越来越专业化。通过平台经济日益政治化和争议性的影响，本文分析了 Twitter 上关于 Airbnb 中介租赁的叙述和反叙述，以及它们对马德里和巴塞罗那的影响。研究结果表明，叙事是如何由一系列演员编排的，叙事生态系统以相互关联的虚拟关系网络的形式出现，通常嵌入跨地域的组合中。