Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture

Using an interdisciplinary and transhistorical framework this book examines the cultural, material, and symbolic articulations of Irish migration relationships from the medieval period through to the contemporary post-Celtic Tiger era. With attention to people’s different uses of social space, relationships with and memories of the landscape, as well as their symbolic expressions of diasporic identity, Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture examines the different forms of diaspora over time and contributes to contemporary debates on home, foreignness, globalization and consumption. By examining various movements of people into and out of Ireland, the book explores how expressions of cultural capital and symbolic power have changed over time in the Irish collective imagination, shedding light on the ways in which Ireland is represented and Irish culture consumed and materialized overseas. Arranged around the themes of home and location, identity and material culture, and global culture and consumption, this collection brings together the work of scholars from the UK, Ireland, Europe, the US and Canada, to explore the ways in which the processes of movement affect the people’s negotiation and contestation of concepts of identity, the local and the global. As such, it will appeal to scholars working in fields such as sociology, politics, cultural studies, history and archaeology, with interests in migration, gender studies, diasporic identities, heritage and material culture.

’This work is a collection of very interesting, imaginative, and sometimes fascinating, interdisciplinary essays that range widely over the varied temporal and spatial aspects of the Irish Diaspora, from Viking Dublin to the Celtic Tiger in Collapse.’ Kerby A. Miller, University of Missouri, USA 'Nititham and Boyd’s text does much to push the boundaries of Irish migratory studies. Material culture scholars will be impressed by its array of approaches ... The goals of Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture ultimately are methodological, and, in challenging its readers to rethink a standard narrative, it is a success.' H-Net Reviews

Diane Nititham is a professor of sociology at Murray State University, USA. She specialises in migration, diaspora, and transnational communities, and is the author of Making Home in Diasporic Communities.Rebecca Boyd is an archaeologist specialising in the Viking world, the development of towns in non-Roman Europe and the archaeology of the household