Post-holiday memory work: Everyday encounters with fridge magnets

Byrom, John, Light, Duncan, Medway, Dominic ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6102-1716, Parker, Cathy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8072-269X and Zenker, Sebastian (2024) Post-holiday memory work: Everyday encounters with fridge magnets. Annals of Tourism Research, 105. 103724. ISSN 0160-7383

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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.