Lithuanian genocide heritage as discursive formation

Wight, A. Craig

Abstract

This paper presents a synthesis of Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge and the concept of discursive formation to critique museums and sites of memory as spaces in which competing discourses of cultural identity emerge. The research context is the troublesome place of genocide and victimhood in discourses of occupation in Lithuanian museums and sites of memory. Analysis suggests that these exhibitions produce a rarefied field of knowledge around the ideas and concepts that they reveal, and, as discursive tourism texts, they play a role in maintaining the cultural identity of Lithuania. The contribution offers a novel, post-structuralist framework for understanding exhibitions as sites of discourse production, since it is the first study to deploy the ideas from Archaeology of Knowledge into an analysis of specific heritage sites.

Citation

Wight, A. C. (2016). Lithuanian genocide heritage as discursive formation. Annals of Tourism Research, 59, 60-78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2016.04.002

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 11, 2016
• Online Publication Date: May 12, 2016
• Publication Date: 2016-07
• Deposit Date: Dec 10, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 19, 2019
• Journal: Annals of Tourism Research
• Print ISSN: 0160-7383
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 59
• Pages: 60-78
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2016.04.002
• Keywords: Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, Discursive formation, Heritage tourism, Lithuanian museums and sites of memory, Genocide and holocaust
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1351516
• Related Public URLs: https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/anture/v59y2016icp60-78.html