Tourism as memory-making: heritage and memory wars in post-Soviet cities

在一个先进的全球化、通信技术和大规模流动的时代，文化记忆日益超越当地社区和民族国家的界限，为新的世界性记忆的表达创造了潜力，也为对过去的解释产生了冲突。在国际关系、电影、纪念碑和新媒体方面已经探讨了跨国记忆的动态，但是国际旅游作为跨国接触的一个关键领域只受到有限的关注。该项目考察了跨国旅游相遇中文化记忆的构建和争论，重点以三个后苏联城市的俄罗斯旅游为例。每年都有成千上万的俄罗斯人前往曾经在沙皇和苏联时期属于自己国家的城市，在苏联解体后成为新独立民族国家的一部分。这些旅游活动为文化记忆和当地遗产遗址的谈判提供了机会，因为导游会告诉游客他们正在访问的目的地的故事，游客到达时对地方及其过去有特定的期望和看法。这些人际交往发生在地缘政治关系变化和俄罗斯与其邻国之间持续紧张的背景下，特别是在对共同过去的解释方面。该项目关注游客和导游的视角和互动动态，将阐明在不同国家背景下的旅游业中，与有争议的过去相关的记忆和身份。该项目涉及四个研究问题：RQ1：在游客和导游之间的跨国接触中产生了哪些文化记忆？RQ2：导游与游客合作的方法和经验是什么？RQ3：游客如何通过记忆实践与地方联系并塑造身份？RQ4：不同的国家背景和权力关系如何塑造旅游中的记忆？该项目采用创新的方法设计，在爱沙尼亚的塔林、乌克兰的基辅和哈萨克斯坦的阿拉木图这三个有目的地选择的城市对旅游业进行比较民族志研究，这三个城市有大量的俄罗斯游客，它们与俄罗斯的历史和现在的关系截然不同。这项研究是基于对导游的参与观察和对导游和游客的半结构化访谈，这些将在三个案例研究的“深度比较”中结合在一起。方法论方法利用了民族志方法的传统开放性，同时选择了关键地点和记忆形成的实践，允许跨案例进行系统比较。该项目将对记忆研究产生重要影响，引起人们对旅游制造记忆生产力的关注。它还将通过将旅游研究扩展到西方游客之外，并在俄罗斯与其邻国之间持续紧张的背景下扩大对后苏联空间中记忆和身份建构的理解，从而有助于旅游研究和对后苏联空间的理解。为了让非学术用户受益，该项目将提供对现有遗产传播的见解，这将有助于开发以实践为导向的课程，以供未来的指导实践。

In an age of advanced globalisation, communication technologies and mass mobility, cultural memory increasingly exceeds the confines of local communities and the nation-state, creating the potential for the articulation of new cosmopolitan memories as well as conflicts over the interpretation of the past. Transnational mnemonic dynamics have been explored in relation to international relations, films, monuments and new media, however international tourism as a key field for transnational contacts has received only limited attention. The project examines the construction and contestation of cultural memory in transnational touristic encounters, focusing on the example of Russian tourism to three post-Soviet cities. Every year thousands of Russians travel to cities that used to be part of their own state during the Tsarist and Soviet periods and became part of newly independent nation-states after the break-up of the Soviet Union. These tourist mobilities provide opportunities for the negotiation of cultural memories and local heritage sites as tour guides tell tourists stories about the destinations they are visiting and tourists arrive with particular expectations and perceptions of places and their pasts. These interpersonal encounters are situated in a context of shifting geopolitical relations and on-going tensions between Russia and its neighbours, particularly in relation to the interpretation of the shared past. Focusing on the perspectives and interactional dynamics of tourists and tour guides, the project will illuminate what memories and identities in relation to the contested past can be found in tourism across different national contexts. The project addresses four research questions: RQ1: What cultural memories are produced in transnational encounters between tourists and tour guides? RQ2: What are tour guides' approaches to and experiences of working with tourists? RQ3: How do tourists relate to places and enact identities through memory practices? RQ4: How is memory-making in tourism shaped by different national contexts and power relations? The project uses the innovative methodological design of a comparative ethnographic study of tourism in three purposefully selected cities, Tallinn, Estonia, Kyiv, Ukraine, and Almaty, Kazakhstan, which have significant numbers of Russian tourists and differ distinctly in their historical and present relations to Russia. The research is based on participant observations of guided tours and semi-structured interviews with tour guides and tourists, which will be brought together in a "thick comparison" of the three case studies. The methodological approach makes use of the traditional openness of the ethnographic method while at the same time the selection of key sites and practices of memory-making allows for systematic comparisons across cases. ContributionsThe project will make an important intervention in memory studies by drawing attention to the productivity of tourism for memory making. It will also contribute to tourism studies and the understanding of the post-Soviet space by expanding the study of tourism beyond tourists from the West and by broadening understanding of memory and identity constructions in the post-Soviet space against the background of on-going tensions between Russia and its neighbours. To benefit non-academic users, the project will provide insights into existing heritage communication, which will facilitate the development of practice-oriented lessons for future guiding practice.