TOURIST EXPERIENCES IN LAGOA MIRIM (BRAZIL/URUGUAY): BETWEEN PRACTICES AND REPRESENTATIONS

Abstract:

The Mirim Lagoon is the largest water body of its kind in Brazil and Uruguay, whose thalweg has served as an international boundary. The core goal was to identify and analyze tourist practices that occur in the studied sites, during the 2019-2020 summer vacation. The multiple case study comprises documentation, direct observation and semi-standardized interviews, until theoretical saturation was reached, followed by qualitative content analysis and triangulation. The studied areas are Vila da Capilha beach (Brazil) - historic location around the Taim Ecological Station - the Lago Merín resort (Uruguay) - built for this purpose - and Porto Pindorama (Brazil) - disabled as a terminal. Each of these arrangements forges, in its own way, trajectories of (dis)encounter with landscapes and tourism and/or leisure practices. Tourism and leisure have been provisionally constituted as one of the territorial uses in this area, based on lake landscapes and seasonal practices, which involve gazing and performing. The observed and mapped practices are broader than those documented and articulated. Such practices go beyond representation, although they are not entirely dissociated from the lakeside tourism experience, of which the appreciation of landscapes is a part of.

Keywords:
tourism and leisure; tourist practices; landscapes; geographical experience; Mirim Lagoon (Brazil/Uruguay)