Experiencing ‘moments of home’ through diaspora tourism and travel

ABSTRACT

Whilst the relationship between diasporic communities and tourism has been explored in the tourism literature, it has generally been underpinned by a limited consideration of the notion of home. Based on ethnographic research with an Iranian diasporic community in the South Island of New Zealand, this paper explores the different ways in which this diaspora community engages with travel and tourism to (re)produce and taste ‘home’. It is argued that the notion of home should be viewed as incomplete, contingent and fleeting, rather than fixed and permanent, specifically within the tourism context. The concept of ‘moments of home’ is presented to illustrate how diasporic communities use travel and tourism to find, maintain or make home when away from their original homeland. Thus, ‘moments of home’ is proposed in order to allow a more complex and dynamic understanding of the relationship between diaspora tourism and home.

摘要

尽管在旅游文献中对离散社区与旅游的关系已有所探讨, 但是总体来讲, 对这种关系的讨论是以对家概念的不充分理解为基础的。基于在新西兰南岛一个伊朗离散社区的民族志研究, 本文探讨了这个离散社区通过参与旅游生产、复制以及感受家的不同方式。本文认为, 在旅游背景下家的概念是不完整的、临时的以及流动的, 而不是固定的和永恒的。本文提出“家的瞬间”这个概念意在说明离散社区在远离故土时如何利用旅行和旅游寻找家的感觉、维持与家的联系甚至制造家的感觉。因此本文提出“家的瞬间”这个概念目的在于更全面、更动态地理解离散旅游与家的关系。

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora tourism
• home
• Iranian diaspora
• New Zealand
• moments of home
• VFR

关键词:

• 离散旅游
• 家
• 伊朗离散社区
• 新西兰
• 家的瞬间
• 探亲访友旅游

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mitra Etemaddar

Mitra Etemaddar is the director of the Master of Entrepreneurship programme and is based in the Department of Marketing at the University of Otago. Her research interests include entrepreneurial opportunities, the internationalisation of firms and business networks. She is also interested in mobility and travel. She holds a Ph.D. in Tourism from the University of Otago.

Tara Duncan

Tara Duncan is a lecturer in the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago, New Zealand. With a background in geography, her research interests focus on lifestyle mobilities, the complexities of young budget travel and more recent, academic mobility, specifically framed within climate change and mobilities literature. She is the co-editor of Lifestyle Mobilities (Ashgate, 2013).

Hazel Tucker

Hazel Tucker is an associate professor of tourism in the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. She has a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Durham University, UK. She is the author of Living with Tourism (Routledge, 2003), and co-editor of Tourism and Postcolonialism (Routledge, 2004) and Commercial Homes in Tourism (Routledge, 2009). Her other areas of research interest include tourism and gender, world heritage and emotional dimensions of tourism.