Abstract

The home is the place where one’s sense of self, space and place first develop, and as such is a microcosm of the community and society at large.  To examine the two macro sides of tourism is to examine what it means to go to another’s home and what it means for them to come to yours.  In this paper, it will be examined how ideas of heritage and memory, which begin in the home, become policy and cultural practice through the choices of select community members.  These choices shape daily local life in education, living and workspaces, supported by daily reminders of who holds the greatest representational power, with branding of the area to visitors as their ultimate expression.  It will be argued that since the emotional reactions of both visitor and local to tourist products of contested heritage, increasingly expected to deliver a unique, transformative experience, are developed in the formative spaces of the home, these branding choices effectively reshape heritage.  Tourist products are curated by those with the greatest influence, sometimes representing non-local financial interests, which are at odds with those whose heritage it is being expressed.  This paper will show how marginalized members of the community experience an early exclusion, othering and devaluation in educational spaces, resulting in reduced decision-making power.  Using historical examples including the settler colonial practice of Yosemite Park’s ‘Field Days’ it will be proposed that the tourist product has not changed as significantly as believed.  Contemporary examples of how this problematic curation of contested heritage is currently being addressed through the bottom-up approach of prioritizing devalued voices in elementary education, to the emerging industry of community led tourism will be presented as both resistance and solution.  Technologies recently entering the tourist product catalogue like VR (Virtual Reality) tourism will be examined along with the ramifications of their base in affective politics.  This paper will argue that for tourist spaces to deliver an ethical and therefore sustainable product, the focus must be on the heritage and memory taught in the home, and the quality of daily life, including the educational experiences, of those whose heritage is on display for the tourist dollar.