ERASMUS INTENSIVE PROGRAMME 2011
EUROPEAN ISLANDS: PERSPECTIVES FOR DEVELOPMENT. CANARY ISLANDS.
Anna Oberrauch, Nora-Csilla Vicsai, Aljaz Celarc, Carlos Alves, Jaime Jover Báez
Introduction
Social geography is studying the interaction of groups and communities in the space. In that sense, we were aware of Mogán particular spatial structure, with many disperse old villages and a recent urban development in the coast. In the last ten years, the population of Mogan municipality has more than double. The tourism development, lowers taxes and the climate, are the major reasons to explain this exponential increased.
That is why we came there to study it, we were interested in the relationship between the old town, the hinterland, and the coast; and once we came we found out this particular spatial pattern is also showing a particular social structure.
Source: Wikipedia.
Mogán is one the largest municipality in Gran Canaria. It is located in southeast face of the island. Its relief is abrupt, with many cliffs, ravines and valleys, which is also shaping a peculiar landscape. Its large municipality means we find twenty-five population entities; so their inhabitants are really dispersed. Within them, we are focusing on three main cases: Mogán’s old town in the hinterland and Puerto de Mogán and Arguineguín, in the coast. Either way, we also find other important nodes, especially in the coast, like Taurito, Patalavaca or Puerto Rico.
Pictures taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011. Mogán’s hinterland.
History background
Nowadays, nobody have shore about this, but old people say that there is one relationship between the name Mogán and one typical Canarian flower “Mocan”. The first occupation of Mogán was in the seventeen century, and then, all the population received a parcel of soil to use, given by the Canarian Government. This politic was not completed succeed, because the difficulties with cliffs and the valleys, to bring water to the most important towns.
So, the major part of the population leaved their proprieties to search better opportunities in the north face of the island.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the south of the island was not populated. It changed, when the Conde de La Vega Grande understood the potential touristic of the area, and started one process of urbanization which employed lots of population.
The touristic development of Mogán started thus in the mid 60s, as well as the development of its neighbour municipality, San Bartolomé de Tirajana. Despite this, its growth was slower and it was not till the 70s when a proper tourism development began. Before that, Mogán’s society was rural, dedicated to agriculture (tomato, potatoes) and fishing in the coast. Society was thus self-supplying; they grew and fished everything they needed for living. Its location helped Mogán not to have a proper tourism development since the 70s, which was decreased due to the Oil Crisis in 1973, and was undertaken again in the 80s. Spain joining the EU was a primary fact that made Mogán start their real tourism growth what brought us to the present situation, highlighting the first decade of the 21st century when the municipality has almost doubled its population, as the next table shows:
Source: Mogán’s Master Plan (provisionally adopted in October 2010). Page 42 of the Information Memory.
Transformations
Economic transformation due to tourism started later than in other parts of the island, as we have said. Anyway, it had an exponential growth, so at the beginning it was not as fast as it has been in the last decade of the 20th century and first of 21st century, as we have just said.
At this time transformation of traditional society started. Tourism growth, usually out of control because of the harshness of Spanish democracy, made Mogán walked through an agriculture and fishing activity to a tourism industry which employees most of the population. Its dependency is enormous, so that society has also changed in that sense, because their standard of living was positively changed too. Local people see tourism as their main way of life, and this has also brought a special society where almost the half of the population is immigrant, are foreigners.
So, changes in the economy introduced new social patterns, and with them new social groups and issues. The most obvious one are immigrants, due to processes triggered by tourism. Why they are massively coming and how they are organizing as well as how much is their integration within Mogán traditional-shifted by tourism society are our main goals.
Source: Instituo Canario de Estadística. Graphic elaborated by the authors.
Mogán’s studying cases
In the following lines we are going to study two main cases in a diversity –due to the almost half of immigrants- community like Mogán’s one. Thus we are interested in the role of social-cultural clubs and their importance for connecting that particular community.
First case: Mogan’s social-cultural club Tahona
Tahona social-cultural club was founded in 1987, with the support of the municipality and the Island government, which gave money for construction. The club is located in the centre of town, opposite to the municipality building. Just in front of the club’s building is a small park, where people can gather. The club itself is responsible for the maintenance of the building, which is in the possession of the municipality of Mogan. In the building there is an office, a storage room and a main hall, where the club organises it’s events.
The club today counts 600 members, 300 of which are form the city of Mogan. Everyone in Mogan can attend the club’s activities, although some activities are just for members, who are paying annually from 13 to 16 euros. Most of the activities are related to folklore dances and theatre, which are usually presented once a year. The most important local holyday in Mogan is San Antonio’s day on 13. June. In the week of celebrations The Tahona club plays one of the leading roles.
The club was founded with a goal to improve social life in the community. Before the establishment there was no proper place for locals to gather. At the very beginning the main goals was to establish help for elderly people and preserve the traditions. Even though the role of the club in the society and society itself has changed a lot, but the main goals of the club has remained. Today’s organisation of the club is much better than in the past.
The role of the Tahona club can easily be understood if we study the socio-economic development in the Mogan area in the past. Before the introduction of tourism in late 70’s there was no need for a club, because most of the population lived the traditional lifestyle. For instance, there was no need to preserve the customs and to take care of the elderly people, because traditionally elderly people were taken care of by families. When tourism started, the society adapted to the new way of life, which drastically changed the social relations within the community. Young people were searching for jobs in tourism, while the older people were still farming in the traditional way. Because of the disintegration of the family there was a need to help the elder people, ant this is the main objective of the club.
Another objective was, to establish a place where people could meet. Establishing of a club was a reaction to the fact that more and more immigrants came to the island. The native islanders feared to loose their identity and the club helped to keep local identity. In Mogan and Puerto de Mogan there was a population boom, because large numbers of Europeans from Scandinavia, Britain and Central Europe, who were searching for second home and quite a few of them were looking for work in tourism. Bedside’s that there was also a large number of emigrants from Africa and South America to look for a job and settle on the island. With all these new cultures coming in the community of Mogan tried to preserve their customs and it’s identity. The club is achieving this with supporting the folklore, the handicrafts and art activities. For the Europeans local customs were always interesting to look at. It is interesting to know that 30 members of the social club of Mogan are foreigners, coming from Norway, England, Sweden, France, Morocco and even Brazil! We were told that one of the most active members of the club is a Norwegian.
For newcomers it’s easy to integrate in the local community, if they are involved in the club. And for the native members is interesting to get to know other cultures. With that the Tahona club has a leading role in the integration of newcomers in the local community.
First picture taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011. Second one, taken the 30th April in the moment of our presentation, with the Town Hall in the background.
An important issue in the club’s function is the cooperation with other clubs. For example the Tahona club is cooperating with the Mogan Bonito club, which tries to stop the destruction of the cultural landscape by keeping the traditional houses. A strong cooperation is also exists with the Norwegian club. From a social point of view the quality of life is improved if the newcomers have a chance to meet locals and other nationalities ant to take part in their social events. With that, they don’t just get to know each other, but they can also relate in different ways: there might appear job opportunities or the chance to establish new businesses might appear. With a chance to meet new people and have a larger social network one’s own economic status can improve a lot.
The case study of the Tahona club shows how the community reacted to the changes that came about with emergence of tourism. The whole community quickly adjusted to the new situation, and thereby created created a good social environment for the integration of immigrants. We got the feeling that in this part of Gran Canaria the locals and the immigrants respect each other and get along quite well.
Norwegian society in Arguineguín
In the town of Arguineguín Norwegian immigrants are very well organized and the whole community is functioning as a social village, a “Little Norway” on the island of Gran Canaria. Norwegians started to come here 30 years ago.
The official population statistics do not give the real figures for immigrants, because a good many of them are not registered.
The real figures, we were told, are much higher. It is estimated that in the whole Mogán municipality the Norwegian community consists of 9.000 people. Mogán municipality consists of the old Mogán itself, Puerto de Mogán, Puerto Rico, Aruineguín and some other touristic settlements. So the Norwegians represent by far the largest foreign community in this part of the island.
Among the Norwegian population, there are quite of few, let’s call them “snow-birds”. These are residents, that escape the Skandinavian frostbelt in order to enjoy an outdoor-orientated lifestyle in the most pleasant climate of the Canary islands. So they only stay here for half a year, from mid-October till mid-April.
As we mentioned before, the main reason for coming to Aruineguín is primarily the climate. With this kind of climate all sorts of health problems, such as asthma, rheumatism and allergies, do not cause the same negative effects than back in Norway, so people feel much more comfortable to live here than back home.
According to the World Health Organisation, or should we say the tourist board of Gran Canaria, the southern coastline between Playa del Inglés and Playa the Mogán has, from a bioclimatic view, the third best climate of the world. But then we do not know where the two best places can be found.
The Norwegian community consists of all age groups: families with and without children and elderly people.
Most children are here because of health reasons. The Norwegian state even supports parents that decide to move to Gran Canaria so that their children do not have to suffer because of their chronic deseases.
For these children the Norwegian community even established a private elementary and secondary school that provides a good education for about 230 students.
Also the school is supported by the Norwegian government. The school is purely dedicated to Norwegian students, because who else will understand Norwegian.
We were told, that quite a few middle-aged Norwegians spread their roots in the local business world. They are either employed in the tourist industry or in the local hospital, or they even run their own businesses. We heard that quite a lot of Norwegian capital was invested here, mainly in hotels. Some of these hotels are run on a time-sharing basis.
The majority of the Norwegian community, however, consists of elderly people that either rent a place or buy a flat or even a house. As Norwegians are not short of money, they pay, we were said, almost any price. So rents and prices for real estate property are still sky-rocking in this part of the island. This is quite different to other parts of Spain, for instance the Costa del Sol, where the economic crises can be felt severely and prices in the last 3 years dropped by more than 1/3. Real estate property there often cannot be sold and stays unoccupied.
The Norwegian diaspora runs their own church, publishes a monthly paper, the Dag & Natt, and operates their own club.
The church is a Lutheran church, a special Lutheran church, which is called “Syomannskirken” (The church of the seamen). This branch of Lutheran church was founded in 1864. It can be found worldwide, because Norway is one of the most important seafaring nations. The “Syomannskirken” supports lonely seamen that otherwise might get drunk or do other silly things
Pictures taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011.
The Lutheran “Syomannskirken” does not only serve seamen, but also stranded tourists. It is a meeting place for all the Norwegian community. During the high season, that is the winter time, church services are held, interestingly enough, in the local catholic church. During the summer, when the snow-birds have gone home, services are held here.
The Norwegian religious community in Arguineguín is one of the largest religious ethnic communities of the island. There are also the Swedes, the Germans and the British that run their own church.
Another tool to hold the Norwegian community together is the monthly published Dag & Natt (day and night) newspaper. Also the Swedes, the Germans and the British run their own ethnic newspaper.
Besides the church and the newspaper we also find the Norwegian club, the “Norske Klubben”, which was found in 1989. The club has presently more than 1000 members, most of them are of course Norwegians, but there are also a few Spanish members, mainly married to a Norwegian spouses, and some members are from other nationalities. Most of the members are elderly people. The club house is a meeting place, has a library, a cafeteria and it organizes all sorts of other activities, such as hiking, Spanish courses, needle work and sometimes they go sightseeing on the neighbouring islands. The annual fee is 40€. During the winter season the club also publishes a monthly journal, the “Klubbnytt” (Club News).
On the one hand the church and the club are very much inward orientated, their members stick together and speak Norwegian as most Norwegians don´t speak Spanish. On the other hand both institutiones are also outward orientated, that is to say, they are involved in the Spanish community. The church supports the poor and patients in the hospital and the club sometimes co-organizes activities together with Spanish local clubs, such as the social cultural club in Mogán, the “Tahona” – club, where we had our first stop today. Another example of inter-ethnic collaboration is the Norwegian-Spanish-Brassband. The Norwegians and Spanish even play football together.
Pictures taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011. Arguineguín’s beach viewed from the Norwegian church.
We were told that besides the Norwegians, also the Swedes and the Fins form their own strong community on Gran Canaria, but they also very strongly work together on a Scandinavian basis. The Danish do not take part in that, they consider themselves, being “Europeans”.
Intermarriages between Norwegians and Spanish are of course another form of inter-ethnic activity. The children of these inter-ethnic couples are, however, mainly Spanish orientated.
It is worth saying that some Norwegians deliberately are not part of the Norwegian community. They do not want to be socially controlled and they believe that sticking with the Norwegians hinder them to get in contact with the Spanish.
Finally it´s interesting that neither the Skandinavian communities nor the Germans and British have any political representation in the local or regional governments, diffrent to, let´s say, Mallorca, where ethnic groups are strongly involved in local politics.
Landscape: social identification
This part is written as a linker for all ideas already mentioned. Mogán’s particular social structure shaped mainly because of tourism growth allows us to identify other social issues, these ones also related to local policy, as it is landscape. We think we can summarize many social, as well as economical and political processes under this concept, especially in such a peculiar community.
Cosgrove and Daniels wrote (1992): “A landscape is a cultural image, a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolising surroundings”. Landscape is hence totalizing all relationships in one territory given. It contains and comprehends the history of a place through its image, subjectively composed by the perspectives of every citizen. That is why landscape is usually defined as a social construction. It is this special idea, also regarding to the inherited factor, which makes landscape be named as immaterial heritage. Since in essence it is heritage, it is not refuted nowadays the necessity of conservation, due to it is shaping the place where people live and have lived during centuries, so it is a live image of cultural development. At the same time, landscape does not belong to none, despite local inhabitants are identified with it, because it remains them their home, that place where they were born and where they come from. However, this feeling is difficult to perceive, especially when money is playing an important role. Most likely that feeling –called by us in the presentation as “belonging feeling”- we are referring to appears when people is abroad, when people miss their place so they remember it nostalgically. But it is the concept of identification here described, which makes landscape worth or even necessary to be first of all, protected and conserved.
If landscape is local identification, is a social construction, we would like thus to know what it does mean in Mogán. So we will focus on answering questions like how Mogán –in all its diversity- is seeing landscape, in order to crumble the relationships shaped; and how is society taking care of it. As a consequence, we will see how the City Council, how local policy is treating it –thinking what professor Parreño told us about the Tourist Act from 2003, which was especially sensitive with landscape-.
We have seen the high diversity and peculiar structure of Mogán’s society (almost half of the population is foreign –like the Norwegian community-, living in many coastal resorts, also thanks to the large municipality where we are, with many towns and villages…). Despite this, there is none group or association aimed to preserve and confront landscape issues in Mogán, which can be easily seen in the next picture. Of course, this is not to say all the issues here are related to the rapid tourism development in the latter years.
Pictures taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011. Coast between Taurito and Puerto Rico.
The single groups who could be somehow interested in landscape we have found, are the ecological and environmental association of “Ecologistas en Acción”, working for the whole island –so therefore less powerful in local scopes-, and the local club called “Mogán Bonito”, whom we have already talked about. Related to this, we should mention how this latter club is not just formed by Spanish or better, local members, but also foreigners.
Our hypothesis is consequently that Mogán’s inhabitants are not taking care of their landscape. And for setting this, we are underpinned in three consecutive facts:
1.Landscape as a social construction is a contemporary view, which has not much more than ten years old. Of course, theories started before, but in terms of social –and therefore political- implementation, the process is eventually modern.
2.As a consequence, the political concerned about landscape in Spain and more accurately in the Canary Islands (because the regions have the powers in this topic) is quite new, as well as the mentioned implementation in local policy, especially in urbanism Master Plans.
3.Tourism is the main activity on that area, its growth has been increasing year per year. Not even the crisis which has affected other historic tourist resorts –like Costa del Sol or even the brother island of Tenerife- has been suffered in Mogán, concretely around Arguineguín and linked to the Norwegian community we talked about. So, the growth has made they reach a situation in which tourism is the main and almost the exclusive industry.
All this has guided Mogán to a very particular situation, easily noticed by us in the interviews we have been carrying out. Tourism is seen as the main source of income, no matter what. Tourism is so important, that is present in every decision. In that sense, we may mention the politics of profit, referring to the fact that put economy in a preference situation, when economy is the only matter to attend. And, normally –in other areas-, relating to tourism, we should be saying how this politic of profit cannot be totally developed because of society, citizens and groups interested in remark the disadvantages of that policy, like the one which affects to landscape. Problem here is the position of tourism in Mogán’s reality, again as the main and most endurable source of money, which shapes a society unidentified with its natural and inherited landscape. For Mogán’s people, landscape is a resource, and as so, it is just to be exploited. Landscape then means hotels, resorts and tourism infrastructure. There are no almost beauty or texture patterns, the identification with landscape is done in terms of economy, in terms of tourism, employment and thus money and richness.
That particular situation is extremely interesting to us. With their coastal mass urbanism policy they are occupying their natural cliff coastline and consequently increasing their standard of living, earning cash. But what they are not doing its preserving their social basis foundations, those values like landscape which affects and have affected to their ancients from the way they behave to the way they think.
To put it forward in other terms. Urbanism as a policy is public function looking after citizens and the territory where they live, in a broad sense. It has to look for the general interest; it has to take care of social issues, within we consider landscape. But, if society is not even interested in that –as we have seen, there are barely a few people, like the ones working for “Mogán Bonito”-, politicians can do whatever they want; and it is hard to believe that in the process society is taking any advantage. What we are saying is despite, in theory, the City Council and its territory following that policy is richer in economic terms; in social terms is not that rich, because it is sentencing its natural resources at the same time. The real benefits –if we understand benefits not just in economic view, but also in general: considering sustainability as the model to achieve the richest situation, including culture output- are being obtained by the ones who built these big resorts without thinking on nature or landscape, and the ones who allow them, the town hall. In this capitalism neoliberal economy we live in, markets control decision-making. In the case of Mogán, they are usually tourism companies, which play the role of lobbies with people in charge, with municipality power. For instance, the best example is the corruption case of “Anfi-Tauro Golf & Luxury Resort”. In 2007, actual major was arrested and accused by helping the Norwegian entrepreneur Björn Lyng to carry out the construction of 7.500 beds resort including a golf course. The case, briefly, consisted in the sold of lands from the Norwegian business man to the City Council, and vice versa. The problem was the lands sold by the City Council where much more valuable, especially compared to the Norwegian entrepreneur lands, because these were about to be expropriated in order to build the new south Gran Canaria motorway (sources: Digital news from El País and El Mundo, -links attached at the bottom-)
Final reflexions
At the end of our research we were able to establish connections between our research goals and connect facts together in one single image about reasons for uneven distribution of social groups in space and time. Trough socio-economic changes and reasons for globalised processes of migrations, we have been able to show reasons for cooperation among communities.
Socio-economical transformation from domination of primary to tertiary economic sector in area of Mogan’s municipality started later than in Maspalomas and surrounding areas, but even though was rapid. Transformation had different affects then in other resorts in surrounding area, because of Mogan’s valley previous land use and economic activities, which held communities together in a system. Inflow of capital and immigrants changed the look of landscape and social structures drastically.
Our two case studies are showing in what way collaboration with and within social groups is important. Firstly we were dealing with consequences of transformation in previously existing Mogan’s community. In rapidly changing society there was a need to preserve community. They had achieved this within a socio-cultural club Tahona. Club’s connections were also a point of interest for immigrants, who joined the club. That helped to integrate them in society lot easier. One more important underline: if a pre-existing society wouldn’t be strongly connected, probably the integration of immigrants would be more difficult and problematic.
In the case of The Norwegian club the main goal is to keep community together in the foreign state. They are very successful in achieving, although it is problematic because of possibility that members of Norwegian community are not integrating with locals, and can satisfy all their needs inside community itself. We have noticed attempts for collaboration between clubs in culture and charity. Collaboration with and within clubs could be a good chance for growth of social capital in the municipality of Mogan.
In that sense, and linking with the last part studied, it has also to be mentioned the lack of sensitiveness with landscape. The problem comes from the peculiar development we are dealing with, based just on tourism, which has shaped the special social structure in which landscape is only seen by society –and by their deputies, their politicians- as a resource. Urbanism is then a political instrument used to foster this tourism. Nowadays, tourism is so important in Mogán’s society that is not seen as a real threat to their territory, because is literally feeding them. Anyway, we believe that if there were a strong and rooted economic diversity shaping a different social structure –less dependency on tourism- which higher culture, we would not be focusing on that. It is a real pity how the lack of environmental or even better, territory culture is helping to change in a bad way the place where they live. Albeit, is also logical in a society that suffered a rapid shift from agriculture and fishing to tourism (so they walked from poverty to richness straight, and in less than thirty years). But not everything is going that wrong. The immigrants who came due to tourism are integrating in society as we have seen, so they are bringing their more respectful sight with culture, including landscape, playing an important role in clubs like “Mogán Bonito”, located in Playa de Mogán and in which there is a large number of foreign members.
Pictures taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011. Puerto or Playa de Mogán.
It was in the heart of this group where a popular initiative was launched in order to save one of the last valleys in the municipality of Mogán, Veneguera ravine. We think this fact was a key factor, because it is showing how not just Mogán, but Gran Canaria society was fed up of their stamping ground due to tourism policy. The initiative achieved to collect all signs required by legislation to raise the case to the regional Parliament of the Canary Islands, where the Veneguera’s resort project –which, by the way, was going to be built by “Banesto”, one of Spanish’s top banks- was stopped. Nowadays they valley remains a rural area, with –also worth to be mentioned- a difficult access to its beach.
Pictures taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011. Veneguera’s valley and beach.
To end with this topic, we might also mention a flagrant contradiction seen in the leaflet from the Government of Canarias. In them is shown how to behave if there is any unexpected meteorological phenomenon, like heavy rain in a short period of time. Thus they encourage people to maintain calm and act in some particular way. What they are not saying is that because of the politic of profit ongoing: the urbanism policy of gaining as much as it is possible; they are creating an impact that may be dangerous when one of those phenomena we mentioned appear, assuming natural hazards, like floods.
Pictures taken by the authors in the field work carried out from 25th to 29th April 2011. Coast between Puerto Rico and Arguineguín.
Conclusions
Our conclusions are aimed in three aspects, so are written in three related branches:
Firstly, because of rapid change in society there was a need to establish cultural social clubs. These clubs have an important role for integrating people into the community, both for the native and the immigrants. In our opinion, this is important for development.
Secondly, about the Norwegian community, we want to finish with two insights. On the one hand, they try to integrate on the main stream Spanish society. On the other hand, they try to stay among themselves, because many Norwegians do not speak Spanish, so they are segregating themselves spatially and socio-culturally.
Finally, although socio-cultural clubs of Mogán are helping to bring the main stream society and the new comers together, their goal is not yet to preserve important traditional items of cultural landscape and way of life. This is a role, we think, that a socio-cultural club should play, because there is no organized attempt by people of Mogán to put pressure on the local politicians, to preserve their inherited culture.
Annex
Interviews: Mr. José Antonio Rodrígez, president of Club Tahona; Mr. Pedro Rojo, Mogán’s chief architect, Mr. Paco Amas, Mogán’s City Council; priest from the Norwegian Church of the Canary Islands; as well as the principals of the public elementary school of Mogán and Playa de Mogán, and the Norwegian private primary school of Arguineguín. Besides, there were interviewed several random people in Mogán old town, Playa de Mogán and Arguineguín, and all their kind and polite answers helped us to understand their reality and finish this report, to whom therefore we thank very much.
Specific bibliography:
COSGROVE, D. & DANIELS, S. (1992): The iconography of landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Websites consulted:
http://ayuntamientodemogan.com/
http://www2.gobiernodecanarias.org/istac/index.jsp
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mog%C3%A1n
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/01/23/espana/1169542597.html
http://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/article7227.html
http://es.anfi.com/es/anfi_tauro.htm
http://www.eldia.es/2003-06-03/islas/4-Banesto-rechaza-revelar-cuanto-pide-Gobierno-Veneguera.htm
http://vozgrancanaria.blogia.com/2006/051501-una-permuta-para-veneguera.php
http://www.canariasahora.com/noticia/164024/
