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ROSEMAN,S. R., 2015, “Document - Picture: Turigriños Go Home?”, Via@, 20152(8), http://viatourismreview.com/en/2015/10/varia-ph2/
DOCUMENT – PICTURE
Turigriños Go Home
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Sharon R. Roseman
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Memorial University
Academic Editor, ISER Books
Figure 1. Turigriños Go Home
Taken on July 1, 2008 with a Nikon Coolpix P2 digital camera in Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Source: Roseman, 2008.
In the midst of the severe economic recession, people were still digesting the results
of the March 9, 2008 general elections for the parliament of the Spanish state and the
lead-up to early 2009 elections for the government of the Autonomous Community
of Galicia. The graffito’s angry content was amplified by its location on a street
leading to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. Crowds looking for sustenance
and souvenirs contrasted with the pall of economic and political anxiety elsewhere in
the city.
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The neologisms yelling at them from the stone building were rendered in the
Galician language. ‘Tourist-pilgrim’ combined turi- for turista in both Galician and
Castilian (Spanish), and –griño from a – in this case parodic – use of the Galician
diminutive for the last part of peregrino, for pilgrim. As is common with such public
street writing, the word play is central. Peregrino/a is found in both Castilian and
Galician. Synonyms include romeiro/a and also pelegrin/a found in historical
dictionaries and other texts (e.g. Santamarina 2006-2013).
Less familiar and more contemptuous, the suffix ‘-iño’ Galicianized the Castilian
term mangurrino for a “rotten” or worthless” person (Collins Spanish Dictionary,
2005). Relevant synonyms include mangante for a parasitical person and
mangoleteiro for someone who does not like to work (Gran Dicionario Século 21 da
Lingua Galega, 2005, p. 797).
Turigriño, mangurriño: the combination of the two evokes the long-standing
“Tourist go home” (parodied in Jackson and Weyman, 1959).
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This shot was taken at one of the thresholds to the Old Town, in a sort of
borderland (Anzaldúa, 1987). I have been taking photographs of graffiti –
communicating reprimands, alarm, self-critical humour, and outrage – in Santiago de
Compostela since the early 1990s. I regularly find fresh examples outside of the Old
Town – a UNESCO World Heritage site, designated as a European Capital/City of
Culture in 2000. In this case, there was something about its location – and perhaps
the failed or half-hearted attempt to remove it – that signalled matter-almost-out-ofplace (Douglas, 1966, pp. 35-36).
Tourism and heritage can be political flashpoints in places such as Galicia where they
are seen by some as having fueled property speculation and replaced industrial and
public service employment with low income, insecure, and often seasonal jobs. There
is also ambivalence on both the political Left and Right specifically about who has
benefitted from the revival of the The Way of St. James, the Medieval walking
pilgrimage to Santiago. One resentment involves self-declared travellers who
mascarade as pilgrims, staying for free in hostels meant for those engaged in sincere,
spiritual quests (e.g. Frey, 1998).
The presence, motivations, and activities of sojourners cannot be extricated from
local politics. The vilification of visitors in Galician neologisms constitutes one
among many efforts to claim a stake in a politicized landscape directed at local voters
as much as at incoming tourists and pilgrims (Roseman and Fife, 2008). To Galicians,
the Cidade Vella (Old Town) is a canvas for forms of political action and political
talk even if, historically, graffiti on its heritage buildings has been less prevalent than
what one finds in newer parts of the city and, when composed, has been more
rapidly removed.
An increase in strategically-placed, anti-tourism pintadas by specific political entities
as well as by anonymous authors began to be reported in news stories at the time
when I took this photograph. On September 1, 2008, a municipal political party
pushed for sanctions against the group Assembleia da Mocidade Independentista
(AMI) that had signed such grafitti in Sada, home of a popular beach near the city of
A Coruña (La Opinión Coruña, 2008). It is certainly probable that they also authored
this grafitto that I photographed in Santiago de Compostela.
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On May 15, 2011, protests by Indignad@s against the economic crisis, corruption,
and neoliberal capitalism organized by networks such as the Plataforma ¡Democracia
Real YA! (Real Democracy Now! Platform) and Juventud SIN Futuro (Youth
without a Future) moved into public squares in Spain. In Santiago, meetings and
camp-outs began in the Praza do Obradoiro, the square in front of the cathedral.
Pilgrim-tourists and tourist-pilgrims (e.g. Smith, 1992) had no other choice than to
witness activists’ messages, in this case relayed in portable signs and oral speech
rather than on heritage structures.
Since 2008, some targetting of Galician heritage and tourism sites with grafitti has
continued (e.g. Faro de Vigo, 2011; Gómez, 2013). Many, in contrast, silently note
the irony of their localities being emptied of workers who must migrate to find a
livelihood just as these same spaces continue to provide sanctuary for visitors
(Roseman 2013). In sum, the spatialities produced by the passage of visitors can
become a backdrop that sharpens broader political discussions (Lefebvre, 1991). In
July, 2008, who were the mangurriños? The so-called tourist-pilgrims, or those locals
whose promotion of heritage primarily for the benefit of outsiders might be seen by
a sometimes vocal minority as a form of trespassing?
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References
Anzaldúa G., 1987, Borderlands, la frontera: the new mestiza, San Francisco, Aunt
Lute.
Collins Spanish Dictionary, 2005, Collins Spanish dictionary – complete and
unabridged, 8th edition, HarperCollins.
URL : WordReference.http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?
spen=mangurrino.
Douglas M., 1966, Purity and danger: an analysis of the concepts of pollution and
taboo, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Faro de Vigo, 2011, “Patrimonio elimina pintadas de los edificios del centro
histórico”, Faro de Vigo, 12/09/2011.
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Frey N.L., 1998, Pilgrim stories: on and off the road to Santiago, Berkeley, University
of California Press.
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Lefebvre H., 1991,The production of space, Nicholson-Smith D., trans., Malden and
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Composela”, International Journal of Iberian Studies, vol. 21, n˚ 2, pp. 109130.
Santamarina, A., 2006-2013, Dicionario de dicionarios, Instituto da Lingua Galega.
URL:
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Smith V., 1992, “The quest in the guest”, Annals of Tourism Research, vol.19, n˚ 1,
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