Abstract
Post-pandemic Palermo is facing both overtourism and its rise as a destination
for “South workers”, dynamics tied to imaginaries of the South and the "Mediterranean". As
both observers and participants of French spatial-temporal practices in the city, the authors
use auto-ethnography to examine how personal trajectories and intimate narrations intersect with tourism dynamics of the city. Using a fragmented approach, the paper explores
how practices such as movida, rural anchoring and politicisation shape forms of urban
appropriation, as well as individual and collective tourist gazes.
Keywords: Auto-ethnography, slow life, imaginaries of the South, Palermo