Gentrification in Latin American heritage areas: ethical questioning based on the case of Cuenca, Ecuador

Abstract

In last decades urban heritage areas in Latin America have been the scenario of public and private interventions in order to conserve their heritage and increase tourist attraction. These actions have generated processes of gentrification and dispossession, whose ethical analysis is approached in this paper through the construction of a reference ethical framework applied to a specific case: Cuenca, in Ecuador. It begins with the theoretical review of gentrification and debates about its study in Latin America, specifically in heritage areas, where the role of tourism is highlighted. We then proceed with the description of Cuenca case and close with its ethical analysis.

Keywords:
Gentrification; Heritage áreas; Latin America; Ethical analysis