ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the absence of research on residents’ experiences of ancestral tourism. It presents findings from one strand of a multi-sited ethnographic study focused around two locally organised ‘Homecoming weeks’ held in the Hebridean island of Tiree. The chapter describes the dominant narratives around ancestral tourism and the heritage(s) of emigration in Scotland through a brief sketch of existing research in the area. it explores the term ‘heritage work’ is used in the context of ancestral tourism both to describe the efforts around selecting or performing aspects of the past as ‘heritage’ and to refer to the effects of the process on creating and maintaining a sense of identity or belonging. Tiree’s Homecomings emerged in part from local dynamics around heritage, and heritage work centred on An Iodhlann. Cultural heritage tourism to Tiree has been locally identified as a key source of revenue for the sustainable development of the island.
