Navigating contested memories in a commercialised setting: conflict avoidance strategies in Kyiv city tour guiding

Abstract

While the tourism industry is oriented towards creating attractive images of destinations, histories of violence and suffering have increasingly been incorporated into tourism offers and are often actively promoted by states and tourism organisations. A growing body of scholarship has focused on how difficult pasts have been represented and have analysed the driving factors behind the rise of such heritage. Commercial tourism offers such as guided city tours have however largely been overlooked as arenas for communicating difficult pasts. This article provides an in-depth examination of memory work of commercial guides, focusing on the example of Russian-language tour guiding in Ukraine's capital Kyiv. Drawing on participant observations of 20 guided city tours and interviews with 18 tour guides, the article identifies a wide range of narrative strategies that guides adopt to navigate pasts that have been subject to memory conflicts. During tours, guides adjust how much they say, what evidence they provide, what aspects of the past they present as relevant as well as their manner of speaking. These conflict avoidance strategies are part of a pragmatic approach to memory that deserves greater attention in the study of difficult pasts.

Uncovering disciplined pasts: Tour guiding through Kyiv's changing place names

“…We should however be careful seeing tour guide's often ironic engagement with the current version of city-text as resistance. Rather than engaging in controversy, tour guides employ a pragmatic approach to memory (Schlegel and Pfoser 2020). They are interested in avoiding conflicts and conveying a good story that their audience will remember, and tourists are looking to be entertained not instructed about the currently dominant view on history.…”

What might they ask? Tourists’ questions directed to tour guides due to their information-giver role

“…Eventually, referencing during interpretation enhances the authority of tour guides and strengthens their image of having done research in various sources. Photographs, archived newspapers, letters, and official documents can be presented in a folder or computer to legitimate the information in interpretation (Schlegel & Pfoser, 2021).…”

“…Therefore, the presence of questions is an indicator of a successful excursion from the tour guides' perspective (Holloway, 1981). Hence, tour guides prefer that their customers ask questions rather than sit silently (Schlegel & Pfoser, 2021). Therefore, tour guides can use tourists' questions as a doorway to new content of narratives (Salazar, 2006).…”

“…This role is their prime function, and tour guides show their expertise through it (Holloway, 1981). On the other hand, tour guides' information-giver role engages them in dialogues with tour participants, and they answer tourists' questions (Schlegel & Pfoser, 2021). Questions help tourists link the interpreted content to their experiences (Reisinger & Steiner, 2006); thus, the audience goes beyond passive listening (Best, 2012).…”

“…Tour guides' answerable attitude towards tourists' questions is declared to be crucial for tour guiding services (Caber & Albayrak, 2016;Kalyoncu & Yuksek, 2017). Furthermore, tour guides' perceptions of questions (Holloway, 1981;Schlegel & Pfoser, 2021) and their hassles with challenging questions are identified in the literature (Zhu & Xu, 2021;Larsen & Meged, 2013). However, the context of tourists' questions is under-studied despite their prominent involvement with tour guides' information-giver role, thus tourist satisfaction.…”