I am pleased to share our latest article, “An Exploratory Ethnography of the New Tourist Nightlife in Bairro Alto, Lisbon”
Co-authored with Jordi Nofre and Juliette Galavielle, this paper examines a central transformation in contemporary cities: the growing colonization of the urban night by the tourism industry.
Set in Bairro Alto, Lisbon’s historic nightlife district, the article is based on exploratory ethnography conducted between 2022 and 2024. It focuses on the emergence of new tourism-oriented nightlife venues, many of which have opened despite local regulations explicitly prohibiting new licenses since 2014. This paradox is not incidental. It reveals a deeper tension between regulation and practice, policy and enforcement, discourse and reality
What we observe is not simply the expansion of nightlife, but its transformation into a highly specific form of tourist-oriented consumption. These venues are not designed for local sociability or cultural production, but for the rapid circulation of bodies, alcohol, and affect. They produce an intense festive atmosphere that spills into public space, blurring the boundary between private venues and the street, and reshaping the sensory and social fabric of the neighborhood.
At the core of this transformation lies a broader process that can be described as the colonization of the night by tourism. Nightlife, once embedded in local scenes and social networks, becomes increasingly aligned with global tourism logics. It is reorganized around short-term consumption, standardized experiences, and the expectations of transient audiences
However, the article goes further. It shows that this transformation is not neutral. The ethnographic analysis reveals that these new nightlife environments are structured around highly gendered dynamics. They foster atmospheres marked by patriarchal values, heavy alcohol consumption, and sexualized interactions that shape both the organization of space and the behavior of participants.
This is not simply a matter of individual conduct, but of structural conditions. The design of these venues, the music, the density of bodies, and the promotion strategies all contribute to producing a specific type of nightlife, one that normalizes asymmetrical power relations and limits the possibilities for alternative forms of interaction.
At the same time, this nightlife is not only produced by private actors. It is also enabled by public governance. The role of Lisbon City Council is particularly revealing in this regard. While official policies promote sustainability, inclusivity, and gender equality, the continued expansion of these venues suggests a form of institutional ambivalence, or even complicity. The city appears to tolerate, and indirectly support, a model of nightlife that contradicts its own stated objectives.
This contradiction is key. It highlights the gap between urban policy discourse and the material realities of the night. It also raises fundamental questions about the governance of tourism, the regulation of nightlife, and the political economy of urban space.
What emerges from this analysis is a nightlife that operates as both an economic asset and a site of social tension. It generates revenue and reinforces the city’s global attractiveness, but it also produces exclusion, inequality, and forms of violence that remain insufficiently addressed.
In this sense, the case of Bairro Alto is not exceptional. It reflects broader dynamics affecting cities across Europe and beyond, where nightlife is increasingly instrumentalized as a tool for urban competitiveness, often at the expense of social sustainability.
Understanding these processes requires taking the night seriously as a domain of urban governance. Not only as a space of leisure, but as a terrain where power, economy, culture, and social relations intersect in particularly visible and intensified ways.
Manuel Garcia-Ruiz 