Performing a future (in) performing a past: Identity, cultural performance, and the Utopian impulse

Abstract

This article examines three performances of cultural identity that occur or have occurred in three European cities that rely heavily on the tourism industry: Barcelona, Krakow, and Venice. Taking as its starting point the claim of tourism studies scholar John Urry that “social identities emerge … out of particular structures of feeling that bind together three elements—space, time, and memory,” the article analyzes how three cultural performances variously perform sentiments of nationalism, progress, and nostalgia to portray a specific image of cultural identity. In doing so, these performances provide a deep insight into the cultural values of the performers and how they wish their culture to be experienced by visiting outsiders. Furthermore, the article examines how all three of these cultural performances contain within them a Utopian impulse, or a wish to inscribe a new future for the given culture.