Eden für jeden? Touristische Sehnsuchtsorte in Mittel- und Osteuropa (vom 19. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart)

Towards a system and theory of tourists’ Sehnsucht and tourism Sehnsuchtsorte. Unpacking tourists’ desires and places of longing in Central and Eastern Europe (19th century – contemporary times)
Interdisciplinary Workshop for Early Career Researchers
Basel, Switzerland, 19th and 20th October 2012

Organisers of the event: Chair of East European History, University of Basel & School of Social Sciences (Social Anthropology), The University of Manchester

A map cannot only be drawn from geographical, political, or ethnic angles: If we try to map tourism places and regions, we obtain a specific representation of space, which pictures geographical features and specific tourism infrastructures, and which reflects dreams and longings. By producing a map of tourism places of longing we can view immediate interconnections between physical and imagined spaces and trace their dynamics in times of socio-cultural, political and economic change in the past and today.

The question of Sehnsuchtsorten (tourism places of longings) promises new perspectives particularly on Eastern Europe, with its ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural diversity, and its past of multiple political realities: The diversity of the region did not only lead to conflicts, which generated lieux de mémoire, but it also created places of tourists’ imaginations and longings, which could also become matters of negotiations between different interpretations of multiple groups of society.

The study of tourism as a global phenomenon through the lens of Social Sciences and Humanities is hence of particular relevance for a better understanding of Eastern Europe. While the goal of this workshop is not producing an inventory of places of longing (Sehnsuchtsorten), it is concerned with two key aspects of the issue: firstly the documentation of processes of evolution and fracturing of longings in the societies of Eastern Europe and secondly the development of the idea of the Sehnsuchtsort into a theoretical tool for the multidisciplinary analysis of a trans-national phenomenon.

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