Seeking roots and tracing lineages: constructing a framework of reference for roots and genealogical tourism

Travel for the purpose of seeking roots, or roots tourism, is understood to be focused on the descendants of a diaspora living in contemporary multicultural societies and travelling to ancestral homelands in search of identity and belongingness. It is an almost negligible niche segment of heritage tourism due to an obscure amalgam of contextual concepts. The primary purpose of this review is to construct a conceptual framework of reference based on sociological and psychological literatures concerning identity and belongingness. This framework is then employed to synthesize contributions to roots tourism from scholars both within and beyond tourism studies. On the basis of a unique conceptual overlap with seeking roots, travel for the purpose of tracing lineages, or genealogical tourism, by diasporic descendants is concisely discussed with respect to tourism scholarship. It is recommended that researchers in tourism studies systematically develop the contributions of this review by continuing to draw from established disciplines and closely aligned fields of study.