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Ancestral Tourism: A Pursuit for Meaning

Ancestral Tourism: A Pursuit for Meaning
Author: Emily Nicholas
1 Commentries
Abstract: With today's global world being interconnected and a world of movement, identities are changing. Finding the birth place of one's ancestry has now become a way of self-discovery and the tourist experience has become more meaningful. There has been a shift in tourism, from relaxing and escaping the stresses to one of fulfilment and enrichment. It is about finding out who you are and where you came from, using genealogy tourism to achieve it.


Key Words: Ancestral, Enrichment, Meaning, Connection, Diaspora


Most of you will have heard of the BBC programme 'Who Do You Think You Are?', where celebrities try and discover as much as they can of their ancestors. It is seen as a journey to discover who you are, where you came from and even to the extent of why you are like you are.
It is impossible to find out about your roots without the need to travel. This 'journey' that people take to find their ancestors is written about in literature as a motivator (Santos and Yan, 2010; Josiam and Frazier, 2008) which can be seen as a reason for travel. Santos and Yan (2010) also mentioned that the homeland provides the largest and most accurate amount of information; this instigates the basic need to travel from the researcher's homeland.
Searching for ancestor's can also be argued that it is just as much about self discovery than searching for lineage (McCain and Ray, 2003). It is a feeling of being connected to ancestors and to achieve a link with the place that they lived and worked.
The 'journey' that is taken can be described as a form of a treasure hunt, at the start people will use the Internet to gather as much information as they can (Davis, 2009). The Internet at this stage can be thought of as the map, this leads the researcher to the 'treasure'. The treasure can be tangible and intangible, the enrichment and fulfilment (McCain and Ray, 2003) of finding their ancestor's place of birth is intangible, but plays a major role in the meaning of their tourist experience. The physical reality of the homeland, such as the buildings that can be touched are the tangible aspect.
Once the Internet has been used to find the homeland, the researcher or amateur genealogist can then travel to the specific country. This travel is to find a precise meaning, their own little discovery, as the information that is found on the Internet is still rather meaningless without a physical place to visit.
The most well known genealogists of all the countries has to be that of the Americans, the main reason for this is due to displacement. Often families were separated and the descendants have a wish to connect to their family home, bringing them back to the country of origin.
The slave trade is one of the most known forms of Diaspora Tourism (Fowler, 2003; Teye and Timothy, 2004), the displacement of millions of native Africans, taken from their homes across the sea to America and the Bahamas. In Ghana, as written about by Teye and Timothy (2004) there are tours and re-enactments, put on to understand and visually see what went on. This form of genealogy tourism and Diaspora Tourism has taken a rather different way of providing understanding. It can be considered as a form of 'Dark Tourism', wishing to feel and perhaps even see (in the case of the Ghana Slave Trade re-enactments) what their ancestors went through (Lennon and Foley, 2000).
However, the experience can be spoilt by re-enactments, refurbishments and places created for the tourists, known as staged authenticity (Urry, 2002).
MacCannell (1999) wrote that 'sightseers are motivated by the desire to see life as it is really lived.' Adapting this slightly to suit the amateur genealogist, as a tourists they wish to see life as it 'was' lived, the way their own ancestors lived. Having an experience that is made for them, might not damage the connection and experience, the connection could be made stronger, due to the researcher not being able to experience the reality of their ancestor's lives.
It is an experience that is valued, as tourism in today's world has shifted from relaxing and escaping the stresses of everyday life to finding enrichment (Silberberg, 1995) and meaning in their own lives.
Genealogists mean to find their ancestry and roots, but deeper than this, they wish to seek meaning in their own existence by discovering where they came from, who they came from and what they were like.
This exploration of self-discovery gives the tourists or family genealogist a sense of belonging, by using travel to find their roots and to develop their sense of identity and connection to the place of their lineage. Tourism in this aspect plays a meaningful part in the researcher's life (Deforges, 2000), as without the ability to travel to the other countries and visited places of culture and heritage, that conserve and educate them about the past, they would just have names and never have the strong emotional connection with a places that allow them to have a sense of meaning and fulfilment.


References

Santos, C.A., and Yan, G, (2010) 'Genealogical Tourism: A Phenomenological Examination. Journal of Travel Research, 49 (1) 56-67

Ray, N.M. and McCain, G., (2009) Guiding tourists to their ancestral homes, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 3 (4) 296-305

Teye, V.B. and Timothy, D.J., (2004) The varied colors of slave heritage in West Africa: White American stakeholders, Space and Culture, 7 (2) 145-155
Ancestral Tourism: A Pursuit for Meaning
Author: Charlotte Friess
It is not clear why the author put its discussion paper in this strand. In fact it is about seeking the reason of travelling, but in this case I assume that the stress has been more put on the importance to find its roots and therefore its identity to move forward.

However, this discussion paper caught my entire attention as it somehow complements my own work.

The author defines clearly what ancestral tourism is and the reasons why people are ready to travel all around the world to find where they come from. Seeing as a motivation of travel, the metaphor of the treasure hunts expresses the importance for the Diaspora worldwide to find their roots, identify as the key to self realization (Bruner, 1996).

It is very interesting to see that besides the act of travelling itself, internet plays such an important role in the journey to find its roots. In fact usually when doing genealogist researches, the first step is to ask the parents or grand parents. But in the case of the Diaspora, very often this information has not been passed on to the next generation. In a globalized world, internet seems really to be the only key to their past.

As mentioned by the author Ghana is a very popular place for ancestral tourism for the African Diaspora living in the United States. But in this case, I would not call it ancestral tourism but roots tourism. In fact as mentioned earlier many Afro-Americans will never find out where exactly their ancestors where born or how they were called. The term roots tourism is more appropriate, as the journey will take them back to their "Homeland", not to see members of their family, but to visit ancient slave castles also called 'black spot' or 'lieu de memoire'.

Furthermore, roots tourists needs to visit authentic places. I don't think that experience made for tourists could, to a certain extend, reinforce the connection with their past. In fact, in Ghana, Afro-Americans were even against the renovation of the castles, claiming that it would take away the authenticity of the place.

As mentioned by the author, finding their roots was not possible before. But thanks to globalization, the development of the internet and tourism industry, people have a possibility to answer their identity issues by going back to their roots.

Finally it is suggested that this paper raises following questions: What is the impact of reconnecting with the past for the Diaspora? Is it really making them moving forward? How are they dealing with the fulfilment of their identity? Is it for example in the United States pacifying or emphasizing racial tensions?