Välkommen till Kanarieöarna. Våldsam skillnadspolitik i bemötandet av turister och båtflyktingar
This is a qualitative case study about tourists and boat migrants in movement to and in place on the Canary Islands, Spain. The aim is to study how these two groups of guests are treated differently, either as guests or strangers, based on how they move, illegally or legally, where they come from and where they have rights to go. To analyze the case I use theories of how differences in ethnicity, culture and religion etc. are created and recreated in society in interactions among humans and in the politics - the politics of difference. The politics of difference creates and recreates categories of mobility such as tourists and boat migrants. Scholars as Michael Azar, Nikolas Rose and Tim Cresswell mean that the politics of difference, which involve control, division, exclusion and unequal distribution of resources, are violent processes. The recreation and the maintenance of the different categories, tourist and boat migrant, show violent actions both in the movements of the groups and the treatment on place. Therefore the problem researched shows how these violent actions of the politics of difference manifest themselves in creating and recreating the categories of tourist and boat migrant. In analyzing the violence I use the theory of Johan Galtung. He defines violence as assaults against basic human needs divided in structural and direct violence. In the case of tourists and boat migrants the politics of difference affect several aspects of needs such as survival, freedom, identity and meaning and wellbeing. In the perspective of the tourist the structural violence is natural because of its contribution to the stability of society while the violence becomes direct to the needs of the boat migrant. This shows how the politics of difference neglect the human rights in practice.