Memory tourism in a contested landscape : exploring identity discourses in Lviv, Ukraine

Abstract

The study explores divergent representations and cultural identity in a historically contested landscape. The first form of representations includes politically amended place marketing. It is analysed how public discourse on a city’s development and regeneration articulate inscriptions of local authorities to pursue political-economic agendas. The second form of representations is diaspora’s imaginary of a pedigree place that derives from genealogical research and travel. In this way, genealogy enables counter-memories to uncritical marketing and ‘alternative’ voices in recast of local history. A contested landscape is conceptualized in the framework of politics of past to reflect stakeholders’ present-day preoccupations. Two forms of representations conceptualize spaces of dominance and resistance in Lefèbvre’s (1991) production of space. The empiric study is conducted in Lviv, a city with complicated past and national identity due to interchangeable powers. The fieldwork comprises the ongoing marketing campaign in Lviv launched in connection to Euro-2012, and the Polish, Jewish, and West Ukrainian diasporic representations. The findings show how the national and the Eurocentric meta-narratives embed the identity discourses of the official élite, and how diasporic texts suggest a genre of resistance to the marketing scripts