Abstract
The quinquennial World Acadian Congress/Congrès mondial Acadian (henceforth, CMA) has, from its inception in 1994, acted as an ideological festivity orchestrated around three main poles: genealogy, community, and arts and culture. The CMA, initially established by André Boudreau and Jean-Marie Nadeau, maintains as its original mission “to develop closer links with Acadians of the diaspora.” (Cyber Acadie) Its role, as a festivity that brought Acadie into the globalized world through the intermediary of patrimonial tourism, has been to provide Acadians of the entire diaspora with a collective time and place to construct/develop/enhance their feeling of collective membership (Lefebvre 2012, McLaughlin and LeBlanc 2009) and has been called “one of the most important cooperative developments for Acadians at the end of the 20th century.” (LeBlanc and deGranpré 2010, 3) This study details the evolution of the CMA in Acadian cultural tourism, the power it holds in determining community membership of a cultural minority, how the 2014 CMA touted an economically-oriented Acadia yet failed to be inclusive, and what to expect in 2024.
Presenters
Christina KeppieDirector of the Center for Canadian-American Studies, Western Washington University, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Changing Dimensions of Contemporary Tourism
KEYWORDS
French, World Acadian Congress, Cultural tourism, Ideology, Community Membership, Canada
