Title: Ukrainian localities meet Jewish guests: negotiation of Jewish heritage and ethnic tourism in the former Pale of Settlement

Authors: Marina Hakkarainen

Addresses: Department of Anthropology, European University at Saint-Petersburg, Gagarinskaya3, Saint-Petersburg 191187, Russia

Abstract: In the late Soviet time activists of the Jewish ethnic revival movement began a dialogue with local communities in the former Pale of Settlement in Ukraine about Jewish heritage. Nowadays many localities take into account Jewish heritage as a resource to attract visitors, first of all researchers of Jewish tradition, Hasidic pilgrims and people of local origin who emigrated abroad. It could be a foundation for the development of tourism. However, communities use different discursive strategies concerning Jewish heritage and the article examines three of them. The central topic of such discourses is the relationship between host and visitors, and how it produces different attitudes to tourism and different degrees of involvement with it. Tourism here serves as a metaphor to examine how localities experience processes of globalisation.

Keywords: ethnic relations; ethnic revival movement; cultural diversity; tourism generating situations; globalisation; Ukraine; Jewish heritage; ethnic tourism; Pale of Settlement; culture.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2011.040433

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2011 Vol.1 No.2, pp.173 - 187

Published online: 31 Jan 2015 *

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