American Journal of Tourism Management 2014, 3(1B): 10-19 DOI: 10.5923/s.tourism.201402.02 Balkan Dissonant Heritage Narratives (and Their Attractiveness) for Tourism Milena Dragićević Šešić * , Ljiljana Rogač Mijatović Institute for Theatre, Film, Radio and Television, Faculty of Dramatic Arts, University of Arts in Belgrade, 11000, Serbia Abstract The paper deals with the question of scientific and practical treatment of dissonant cultural heritage in the Balkan region and the way in which this heritage can be used for the development of tourism in the region. Cultural heritage is often seen as an important factor in explaining the post-socialist landscape of the Balkans. In terms of symbolic geography, the Balkans has been and still remains inserted in the long standing binary oppositions East - West, Europe - Asia, Christianity - Islam, Centre - Periphery, etc. These are in variations present also in travel writing through the dominant negative label of Western travel accounts. In investigating the historical heritage of the Balkans and its dissonant narratives, we put focus on those that left the deepest imprint on the region's multilayered identity: the Byzantine, the Ottoman and the communist / socialist. The main question put in this research is: How “dissonant heritage” of the Balkans together with its stigmatized image and identity can be interpreted for tourism? This research is done from an interdisciplinary interpretative approach, using a combination of methods such as narrative and discourse analyses. The research shows that Balkan discourse provides a full range of dissonant heritage narratives that can be used in creating tourism routes and narratives and it suggests the possibilities in order to overcome problems of conflicting interpretation of common cultural heritage. Keywords Dissonant heritage, Narrative, The Balkans, Culture of memory, Tourism 1. Introduction Cultural heritage is often seen as an important factor in explaining the post-socialist landscape of the Balkans. The destruction of socialist identity and common heritage, as well as inventing new traditions and interpretations of the past is a part of the general process of political, economic and cultural transition together with processes of European integration of the region. As the consequence of discrepant historical contexts as well as Western symbolic geography, the image of the Balkans has remained full of dichotomies – it is a misread, forgotten and isolated region, the “other” rejected Europe, the periphery – and it is adorned as an incredible phantasm of the Orient with passion, colours and emotions. Heritage itself is not a relic of the past but an increasingly instrumental field in steering sustainable development and the well-being of communities, very often through tourism. Tourism is a phenomenon of great importance in the globalizing world – not only because it runs on the patterns of global economies, but also that it produces an interest in the specific experience, artefacts and narratives in local * Corresponding author: msesic@gmail.com (Milena Dragićević Šešić) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/tourism Copyright © 2014 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved contexts. Aim and relevance of the research. This research is done starting from the thesis that it is very important for social and cultural development of the countries in the Balkan region, especially for the development of tourism, not to conceal any of the conflicting interpretations of heritage which is disputed, but, on the contrary, to use dissonant heritage with all its complexities and ambiguities in order for it to become a very important asset in the development of tourism. This is particularly important, bearing in mind that tourism is at the same time globalizing and localizing (in the case of the Balkans “orientalizing”) national identities or “nation brand” products of different tourist destinations. Core questions in this context are: How “dissonant heritage”, “rejected heritage” or even “dark heritage” of the Balkans together with its stigmatized image and identity can be interpreted for tourism? What kind of common narratives and tourist routes can be produced out of cultural heritage and cultural memory in order to create a joint tourist product of the Balkans? In this sense, we are not dealing to a larger extent with the notions of the Balkans as “the other” in relation to Europe, but putting in focus the heritage which is “dissonant”, contested or forgotten and which has a significant potential importance for tourism development in the region as a whole. Research methods and outcomes. This research is done from an interdisciplinary interpretative approach. We have