Alternative Tourism and Platform Cooperativism: The Resistance Practices of Abruzzo’s Community-based Cooperatives

The article presents the results of an action research project carried out in Abruzzo, a region in southern Italy characterized by high socio-economic marginalization. Eight community-based cooperatives active in alternative tourism and local services participated in the co-design of a digital mock-up of a platform that reflects their values and practices. The experience is analyzed as a form of resistance to the "hit-and-run" tourism promoted by mainstream platforms such as AirBnB and Booking. The theoretical framework draws upon studies on the platformization of tourism and the resulting socio-cultural transformations, as well as literature on alternative tourism and platform cooperativism. Inductively, it also integrates studies on community resistance practices and commoning actions. The methodological framework is based on digital co-design as a qualitative research method with a sociological vocation. The results show that the co-designed platform, AbiTerr & ograve;, has fostered the formation - albeit complex and not without tensions - of a collective identity among the cooperatives, which have thus positioned themselves as a community of resistance, even in the digital sphere, to the dominant tourism model enabled by mainstream platforms. Compared to the latter, the cooperatives adopt both oppositional and propositional practices and positions, which are immediately translated into the digital design of AbiTerro.