Affective authentication: Transforming strangers into family

Abstract

We present a qualitative study of amateur genealogists' first encounters with newly-discovered co-descendants as tourist objects on the move in Israel, Hungary and the United States. Interviewees' intersubjective interaction and heritage ‘doing’ disclose ancestral mutuality of being transforming strangers into affectively authenticated family. Data depicts a dialectical process between cool and hot authentication unique to the tourist context of distance/proximity and home/away together activating family-relatedness. Reconceptualizing the binary of cool-hot authentication, we propose a gradational authentication process whereby the “warming effect” of affect fuels transitions between cold, warm and hot authentication constituting intersubjective tourist moments and dyadic existential identities. Findings problematize disciplinary framing of family tourism and genealogical tourism while contributing to research on non-familial local-tourist relations and hospitality/experiential tourism.