Being at home and away: transnational entanglements of tourism and migration in Sardinia, Italy

Abstract

In this study, we discuss the intersection between tourism and migration. In doing so we interrogate how tourism and migration meet, interrelate, overlap and merge in multifaceted and fluid ways. We draw upon literature on transnational migration and on Sarah Ahmed’s work on the relationship between ‘strange encounters’ and home. These theoretical perspectives enable us to move away from an ‘ontology of the stranger’ and polarised views on migration and tourism. We investigate these issues through semi-structured interviews with people with different migration backgrounds and migration-related experiences who revolve around the Sardinia tourism industry. Our discussion unveils the entrenched inequalities and unexpected resources that people with different experiences of migration live and mobilise to reconfigure and expand notions of home through their involvement in the tourism industry. Our discussion underlines how processes of regrounding and the shaping of transnational ties between countries of origin and migration can exceed the remit and frameworks of initiatives to ‘integrate’ migrants through tourism. Drawing on the participants’ accounts and experiences of uprooting and regrounding, we contend that different identities and multiple notions of home can emerge from the uneven relationship between tourism and migration.