ABSTRACT
Chapter 11 analyses the range and diversity of performances of intergenerational communication. This performance has a range of variants and expressions from ‘imagined conversations’ with absent family members to reflections on self-worth and family identity to the communication of values, identities and affective practices and feeling rules of visiting to younger generations. This performance of heritage-making occurs at all genres of museums and heritage sites in the study, but particular variants of it are most frequent at sites of immigration and labour history. This complex and highly active performance can occur for its own sake – for example, those acts of quiet reflection or imagined communications with absent family members. Alternatively, it can, in the case of transmitting family values, underpin other performances such as reinforcement or affirmation (Chapters 9 and 10) and recognition or misrecognition (Chapters 12 and 13).
