Post-holiday memory work: Everyday encounters with fridge magnets

Byrom, John ORCID: 0000-0001-9274-5322, Light, Duncan, Medway, Dominic, Parker, Cathy and Zenker, Sebastian (2024) Post-holiday memory work: Everyday encounters with fridge magnets. Annals of Tourism Research, 105. p. 103724.

Text
1-s2.0-S016073832400001X-main.pdf - Open Access published version
Download (2MB) | Preview

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2024.103724

Abstract

While souvenirs have generated considerable interest within tourism research, less attention has been paid to their post-holiday ‘afterlife’. Utilising perspectives from memory research and more-than-representational theory, this paper focuses on interactions with a ubiquitous souvenir: the fridge magnet. Drawing on semi-structured interviews we illustrate how, because of their embeddedness within everyday domestic rhythms, magnets are active agents in the stimulation of post-holiday memory work. We show how magnets work to generate and protect memories, triggering a diversity of (usually positive) emotional and affective responses. They can also be associated with ambivalent memories; with their role sometimes being more about forgetting. Although being seemingly banal objects, fridge magnets have a complex capacity to affect everyday life long after a holiday ends.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Management
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	23 Jan 2024 09:19
Last Modified:	03 Mar 2024 14:36
DOI:	10.1016/j.annals.2024.103724
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3177959