Cosmopolitan Memory in Europe’s ‘Backwaters’ reconsiders the definitional relationships of ‘national character’ and ‘national heritage’ in the context of Western industrial modernity. Taking as a case study the Greek islands of Skiathos and Skopelos which served as cinematic locations for the blockbuster Mamma Mia! (2008), the book explores how national identity - once shaped by political, cultural and religious practices - can now be reduced to little more than an ideal, created and sold globally by Western industries such as tourism and film. Tzanelli argues how the film encouraged the development of regional competitions that further enhanced the emotive potential of a Greek nationalist discourse that projects the blame for regional favouritism onto Western agents and the nation-state itself. It also takes into consideration the historical background of this controversy, which finds roots in the religious heritage of the South-eastern Mediterranean region – in particular, the notions of Byzantine Christianity which the Greeks used to set against the Islamic traditions of their Ottoman colonisers to affirm their European civility.

This groundbreaking book investigates the clash between a desire for unfettered mobility and the prevalence of inequality, exploring how this generates frictions in everyday life and how it challenges the ideal of just cosmopolitanism. Reading fictional and popular cultural texts against real global contexts, it develops an ‘aesthetics of justice’ that does not advocate cosmopolitan mobility at the expense of care and hospitality but rather interrogates their divorce in neoliberal contexts.

This book charts and traces state-mandated or state-encouraged “patriotic” histories that have recently emerged in many places around the globe. Such “patriotic” histories can revolve around both affirmative interpretations of the past and celebration of national achievements. They can also entail explicitly denialist stances against acknowledging responsibility for past atrocities, even to the extent of celebrating perpetrators. Whereas in some cases “patriotic” history takes the shape of a coherent doctrine, in others they remain limited to loosely connected narratives. By combining nationalist and narcissist narratives, and by disregarding or distorting historical evidence, “patriotic” history promotes mythified, monumental, and moralistic interpretations of the past that posit partisan and authoritarian essentialisms and exceptionalisms. Whereas the global debates in interdisciplinary memory studies revolve around concepts like cosmopolitan, global, multidirectional, relational, transcultural, and transnational memory, to mention but a few, the actual socio-political uses of history remain strikingly nation-centred and one-dimensional. This volume collects fifteen caste studies of such “nationalizations of history” ranging from China to the Baltic states. They highlight three features of this phenomenon: the ruthlessness of methods applied by many state authorities to impose certain interpretations of the past, the increasing discrepancy between professional and political approaches to collective memory, and the new “post-truth” context. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of international politics, the radical right and global history. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.

What happens to traditional conceptions of heritage in the era of fluid media spaces? ‘Heritage’ usually involves intergenerational transmission of ideas, customs, ancestral lands, and artefacts, and so serves to reproduce national communities over time. However, media industries have the power to transform national lands and histories into generic landscapes and ideas through digital reproductions or modifications, prompting renegotiations of belonging in new ways. Contemporary media allow digital environments to function as transnational classrooms, creating virtual spaces of debate for people with access to televised, cinematic and Internet ideas and networks. This book examines a range of popular cinematic interventions that are reshaping national and global heritage, across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Australasia. It examines collaborative or adversarial articulations of such enterprise (by artists, directors, producers but also local, national and transnational communities) that blend activism with commodification, presenting new cultural industries as fluid but significant agents in the production of new public spheres. Heritage in the Digital Era will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, film studies, tourist studies, globalization theory, social theory, social movements, human/cultural geography, and cultural studies.

In today’s world, the need to eliminate natural and human-made disasters has been at the forefront of national and international socio-political agendas. The management of risks such as terrorism, labour strikes, protests and environmental degradation has become pivotal for countries that depend on their economy’s tourist sector. Indeed, there is fear that that ‘the end of tourism’ might be nigh due to inadequate institutional foresight. Yet, in designing relevant policies to tackle this, arts such as that of filmmaking have yet to receive due consideration. This book adopts an unorthodox approach to debates about ‘the end of tourism’. Through twenty-first century cinematic narratives of symbolically interconnected ‘risks’ it considers how art envisages the future of humanity’s well-being. These ‘risks’ include: migration as an infectious disease; alien incursions as racialized labour mobilities; cyborg rebellion as the fear of post-colonial otherness; and zombie anthropophagy as the replacement of rooted identities by nomadic lifestyles. Such filmic scenarios articulate the futuristic survival of community as the triumph of the technological human over otherness, and provide a means to debate societal risks that weave identity politics into unequal mobilities. This book will appeal to researchers and students interested in mobilities theory, tourism and travel theory, film studies and aesthetics, globalisation studies, race, labour and migration.

Through methodological elaborations on case studies, Tzanelli explains that we have entered a new era of tourism and hospitality mobilities dominated by crises of cultural representation and host presence.

This unique book considers COVID-19 as one pandemic amongst many, forming an episodic era of ebbing and flowing crises: the Virocene. Investigating COVID-19 in the context of the phenomenology of the crisis, it offers critical exploration of key theses in the study of mobility and futures, travel and citizenship. Through thought-provoking and insightful analysis Rodanthi Tzanelli suggests that COVID-19, and any highly infectious virus that follows, evolves into the new self-governing principle of various forms of movement, acting as an ontological magnet: as mobilities become reshaped by remote technologies, the very order of reality changes.

Atmosphere, the elusive ambiance of a place, enables or hinders its mobility in global consumption contexts. Atmosphere connects to social imaginaries, utopian representational frames producing the culture of a city or country. But who resolves atmospheric contradictions in a place’s social and cultural rhythms, when the eyes of the world are turned on it? Mega-Events as Economies of the Imagination examines ephemeral and solidified atmospheres in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the handover ceremony to Tokyo for the 2020 Games. Indeed, highlighting the various social and cultural implications upon these Olympic Games hosts, Tzanelli argues that the ‘Olympic City’ is produced by aesthetic "imagineers", mobile groups of architects, artists and entrepreneurs, who aesthetically ‘engineer’ native cultures as utopias. Thus, it is explored as to how Rio and Tokyo’s "imagineers" problematize notions of creativity, cosmopolitan togetherness and belonging. Mega-Events as Economies of the Imagination will appeal to postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and professionals interested in fields such as: Globalization Studies, Mobility Theory, Cultural Sociology, International Political Economy, Conference and Event Management, Tourism Studies and Migration Studies.

In June 2014, Brazil opened the twentieth FIFA World Cup with a spectacular ceremony. Hosting the World Cup was a strategic developmental priority for Brazil: mega-events such as these allow the country to be ranked amongst the world’s political and economic leaders, and are supposed to propel the country to its own unique modernity. But alongside the increased media attention and publicity, came accusations of governmental ‘corruption’ and overspending. In Socio-Cultural Mobility and Mega-Events, Tzanelli uses Brazil’s 2014 World Cup to explore how mega-events articulate socio-cultural problems. Critically examining the aesthetics and ethics of mobilities in the mega-event, this book explores these socio-cultural issues and controversies: the background of staging mega-events, including the bidding process and the host’s expectations for returns; ceremonial staging and communications between artistic representations and national symbolism; the clear reaction mega-events almost always generate in national, regional and global activist circles, including accusations of overspending and human rights violations. This interdisciplinary study will appeal to scholars and students of the sociology of mobility, sociology of globalisation, cultural sociology, social and anthropological theory, as well as the sociology of sport, human and cultural geography, and leisure and tourism studies.

Being mobile in today's world is influenced by many aspects including transnational ties, increased ease of access to transport, growing accessibility to technology, knowledge and information and changing socio-cultural outlooks and values. These factors can all engender a (re)formation of our everyday life and moving - as and for lifestyle - has, in many ways, become both easier and much more complex. This book highlights the crossroads between concepts of lifestyle and the growing body of work on 'mobilities'. The study of lifestyle offers a lens through which to study the kinds of moorings, dwellings, repetitions and routines around which mobilities become socially, culturally and politically meaningful. Bringing together scholars from geography, sociology, tourism, history and beyond, the authors illustrate the breadth and richness of mobilities research through the concept of lifestyle. Organised into four sections, the book begins by dealing with aspects of bodily performance through lifestyle mobility. Section two then looks at how we can use mobile methods within social research, whilst section three explores issues surrounding ideas of mobility, immobility and belonging. Finally, section four draws together a number of chapters that focus on the complexities of identity within mobility. Often drawing on ethnographic research, contributors all share one common feature: they are at the forefront of research into lifestyle mobilities.