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invent other products in the future. This equiva-
lence of different experiences is not necessarily
shared by the nostalgic visitors searching
for consolation in Heidiland, be they Swiss,
American or Japanese, as they clearly hope to
fi nd a realm of memory there that is in asso-
nance with their way of feeling, and not just an
occasion for entertainment or amusement. Per-
haps they feel they can fi nd it there and nowhere
else; and yet, this is precisely the point of view
of individuals, not of the market.
their consumption, East Germans affi rmed an
individual and collective memory and an iden-
tity that was positive, in which the history of
these goods and personal biographies could no
longer be separated. In this process of transfor-
mation, which is both material and symbolic at
the same time, the products of the East have
been transformed into 'East brands'. These
brands have become effective markers of an
identity that is no longer proposed as inferior or
as a losing contender against Western goods.
Instead, these brands assert their specifi city
through positive values that range from simpli-
city to authenticity, unaffectedness, naturalness
and solidity. These characteristics are presented
as common not only to the products but also to
the consumers of the East, and this phenome-
non is part of the much vaster phenomenon of
'Ostalgia', that is, a nostalgia for the old East
Germany which can be seen, above all, in con-
sumption habits and consumption practices.
Ostalgia is therefore a feeling of nostalgia
that appeared soon after German reunifi cation
and can be understood as a sense of loss regard-
ing the everyday life led in the former East
Germany. I will argue that Ostalgia is not a sense
of longing for the socialist past, but rather a
sense of loss of a material culture that was rele-
vant in constructing cultural meanings and per-
sonal identities (Douglas and Isherwood, 1979).
This nostalgia for embodied memories and
consumption experiences of East Germans
inspired the construction of an 'Ostalgia market'
and in particular of 'Ostalgia tourism' that offer
nostalgic experiences to Western tourists, who
can experience the consumption practices of a
disappeared world. The reconstructed former
GDR world proposed to Western tourists is in
reality mostly stereotyped and sometimes gro-
tesque. Western tourists may desire to experi-
ence it because it represents a way of life and
consumption that is alternative or simply differ-
ent from that of Western capitalistic societies.
However, these commodifi ed experiences are at
the same time at the disposal of the former citi-
zens of the GDR themselves, who can become
tourists in their own land, a particular kind of
tourist: tourists in the past - in their own past -
and in their own memories. Therefore, in the case
of German Ostalgia, memory tourism is based
on embodied memories - in this case that of the
former GDR citizens - but it offers nostalgic
Case study 2 - Nostalgia for a disappeared
everyday life and material culture: Ostalgia
tourism in former East Germany
The second paradigmatic case study is that of for-
mer East Germany (German Democratic Repub-
lic), where the disappearing of a way of life after
1989 was the occasion to create a market supply-
ing nostalgia experiences and nostalgia objects.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a
general devaluation of East Germany's past in
the public narratives of the re-unifi ed Germany.
This devaluation is also refl ected in the fate that
its products at fi rst met: after 1989 most of the
typical goods of the GDR went into decline,
many companies went bankrupt and factories
closed, and the East German goods were
replaced with goods from the West. The prod-
ucts of the East were, however, part of a much
wider-ranging material culture that dissolved
together with the GDR, producing a strong feel-
ing of disorientation in East Germans. However,
already as early as the early 1990s, the citizens
of the former East Germany began to show
signs of resistance, and of going back to cherish
their own goods. Perhaps one could even say
that they began to love them as they had never
loved them before. The reason is clear: East
German consumers recognized these goods as
symbols in their own biography, whose value
was underlined and reinstated through con-
sumption. Products of the East became tools to
use in re-affi rming their own identity (Behrdal,
2001; Bach, 2002; Bartoletti, 2007, 2008).
Consumption goods thus became the tools used
to tell a counter-narrative in the fi eld of consump-
tion and tastes in contrast with the traditional
one implying an inferiority of the products and
citizens of East versus West Germany. Through
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