Roots, Bodies and Places: Embodied Geographies of Genealogical Tourism

Genealogical tourism is defined as ‘travel aimed at visiting birthplaces of one’s ancestors and getting acquainted with distant relatives’ (Garraway, 2006).

This spatial, social and temporal phenomenon is an aspect of the various forms of global diasporic mobilities. Relatively little academic attention has been given to study tourism in relation to the specific theme of genealogy and diaspora.

I focus on genealogical tourism undertaken by Singaporean Chinese to their ancestral villages (jia xiang or qiao xiang). Drawing on non-representative and performative theories, I explore the constitutive and relational interactions, connections and encounters between the embodied, sensuous and performative tourist (in actualizing genealogical longings and desires) and the ‘hosts’ in tourist places (jia xiang) with ethnographic research involving specific case studies in particular site(s).

I probe the immanent nostalgic emotional ambiguity and ambivalence of tourist experience(s) by grappling with the embodied practices, performances and enactments of genealogical tourism as well as mulling on the potential transformative affectivity of tourist places like jia xiang when considering issues like nostalgia and authenticity. Informed by postcolonial arguments, I stress that the geographical and historical specificities of tourism(s) undertaken by diasporic communities is crucial in understanding the phenomenon.

In conclusion, this research hopes to illustrate the fluidity and complexity of touristic practices, performances, encounters and places so as to caution against foreclosing and essentializing tourist subjectivities, motivations and experiences in genealogical tourism.