Objects and memories in roots tourism: how objects shape the image of a place

Wendy De Luca, Monica Pascoli

Research output: Other contribution to conferenceAbstractpeer-review

Abstract

Emigration from Friuli to Australia dates back to the last decade of the 19th century and involved very small numbers, compared to the migratory flows to other European and non European destinations.
Only after World War II, it became a more significant phenomenon. Translated into numbers, between 1890 and 1940 Friulian immigration to Australia involved about one thousand people, while in the decade 1946-1958 there were about one thousand four hundred departures (two thirds made up of young men) (Source: Ammer Archives).
The importance of the migrants' ties with their homeland and the need to strengthen relations with the emigrants and their descendants were recognised very early on, also at a political level (for example, with the foundation of Ente Friuli nel Mondo in 1953).
Roots tourism focuses precisely on rediscovering these ties, searching for identity and belonging and exploring family history, reliving past memories, exploring the places. In roots tourism the imaginary relating to one's heritage - personal, family and community heritage - is confronted with the reality of a
place and a community hitherto only imagined (imaginaries of both people and places).
Tourist imaginaries (and roots tourism is no exception) are nourished by verbal and non-verbal images, but also by objects that become signs capable of representing a place, a community. Those images and objects open the possibility to familiarise oneself with the place and community, to create the desire to visit it and therefore contribute to the realisation of a travel project.
This paper presents the first results of an exploratory study on descendants of Friulian emigrants in New South Wales, Australia. The aim is to explore how the imagery of the place is constructed and transmitted, analysing the material elements that compose it: artefacts that represent the link with the ancestral land, which are transmitted from generation to generation, but whose meaning is composite and differentiated. Objects that have a non-unique meaning, since different narratives and practices are associated with them. Despite their different meanings, they turn out to be essential elements in the process of identity formation, the making of (tourist) place, and the perpetual invention of culture.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 12 Dec 2024
EventInternational Conference on Roots Tourism: Social Science and Tourism - University of Calabria , Naples, Italy
Duration: 12 Dec 202415 Dec 2024

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Roots Tourism
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityNaples
Period12/12/2415/12/24

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