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，创造了表达新的世界性记忆的可能性，以及对过去的解释的冲突。人们从国际关系、电影、纪念碑和新媒体等方面探讨了跨国助记的动态，然而，作为跨国接触的一个关键领域，国际旅游业只得到了有限的关注。该项目考察了跨国旅游遭遇中文化记忆的构建和争论，重点是俄罗斯到三个后苏联城市旅游的例子。每年，数以千计的俄罗斯人前往城市旅游，这些城市在沙皇和苏联时期曾是俄罗斯的一部分，在苏联解体后成为新独立的民族国家的一部分。这些游客的流动为文化记忆和当地遗产遗址的谈判提供了机会，因为导游向游客讲述他们要参观的目的地的故事，游客带着对地方和他们的过去的特殊期望和感知到达。这些人际接触是在地缘政治关系变化和俄罗斯与邻国之间持续紧张的背景下发生的，特别是在解释共同过去方面。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可以找到与有争议的过去有关的记忆和身份。该项目解决了四个研究问题：RQ1：游客和导游在跨国接触中产生了哪些文化记忆？问2：导游与游客打交道的方式和经验是什么？RQ3：游客如何通过记忆练习与地方建立联系并设定身份？问4：不同的国家背景和权力关系是如何塑造旅游业的记忆的？该项目采用了对三个有目的地选择的城市--爱沙尼亚塔林、乌克兰基辅和哈萨克斯坦阿拉木图--旅游业进行比较人种学研究的创新方法设计，这三个城市拥有大量的俄罗斯游客，在历史和现在与俄罗斯的关系上存在明显差异。这项研究是基于对导游的参与者观察和对导游和游客的半结构化访谈，这些将被集中在一起，对三个案例进行“粗比较”。方法论方法利用人种学方法的传统开放性，同时选择关键地点和记忆制作做法，以便在不同情况下进行系统比较。贡献该项目将对记忆研究进行重要的干预，它将引起人们对旅游记忆制作生产率的关注。它还将有助于旅游研究和对后苏联空间的了解，将旅游业的研究扩大到西方游客以外，并通过扩大对后苏联空间在俄罗斯与其邻国之间持续紧张的背景下的记忆和身份建构的理解。为了使非学术用户受益，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，以指导未来的实践。

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.