Travels to an Ancestral Past: On Diasporic Tourism, Embodied Memory, and Identity

Main author: Leite, Naomi
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-19967
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description This paper explores 'roots tourism' as a diasporic identity practice. Drawing on accounts of voyages made by members of several different diasporic populations, I demonstrate that attention to individual tourist experience reveals a subjective focus on the sensing body as a key component of touristic 'return' to ancestral homelands. Through sensory engagement with their physical surroundings, travelers undertake commemorative practices that somatically and imaginatively unite them with their forebears, thus bridging the diasporic rupture of past and present, ancestors and selves, homeland and exile.
format Journal Article
author Leite, Naomi
author_facet Leite, Naomi
authorStr Leite, Naomi
author_letter Leite, Naomi
title Travels to an Ancestral Past: On Diasporic Tourism, Embodied Memory, and Identity
publisher Universidade Fernando Pessoa
publishDate 2005
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/19967/