Every year, thousands of people travel to meet physically places imagined through memories, stories and family heirlooms. In such a journey towards distant destinations that they abandoned, from which they were removed by force, or where never were, individuals (re)visit countries, cities, villages and neighborhoods searching for people, traces, street names, surnames, nicknames, houses and objects; but also traditions, smells, colors, textures and flavors. Such travels are never innocuous yet always dealing with particular identities which individuals desire to meet, discover, reinforce or refuse. Inspired by those physical, sensory and imagined mobilities, early scholars and established contributors working in the humanities and social sciences’ field, specifically sociology, social anthropology, geography, history, literature, culture, gender, media, tourism and travel studies are kindly invited to propose chapters for an edited volume tentatively titled Imagining Belongings, Rethinking Identities.Submissions addressing case studies with a special focus on the multiple cartographies, languages and narratives on family roots across the Luso-Afro-Brazilian space are very welcome as the book seeks to address this specific international and interdisciplinary perspective.

Contributors are invited to engage with the complexity of contemporary mobilities driven by family roots and to explore, deepen and widen, among others, the following themes and issues:

• globalization, transnational lives and the quest for family roots
• family roots, stories and narratives across the Luso-Afro-Brazilian space
• hidden, denied and desired family roots
• searching the family past across the Luso-Afro-Brazilian space: from archives to social media and professional agencies
• the guardians of the family memory: objects and resources
• “who do you think you are” from media to day-to-day experiences
• roots and genealogy tourism: power and appeal
• the synesthetic experience of traveling in the search for roots
• the journey of a lifetime: times and routes
• …

Submission guidelines