RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 The Irish Hills of Michigan JF Departures in Critical Qualitative Research FD University of California Press SP 68 OP 100 DO 10.1525/dcqr.2018.7.1.68 VO 7 IS 1 A1 Gratch, Lyndsay Michalik YR 2018 UL http://dcqr.ucpress.edu/content/7/1/68.abstract AB Grounded in the Irish Hills of Michigan, this essay offers performative curation as a method to address the complexities of virtual tourist experiences, in terms of postindustrial, rural, roadside tourism and nostalgic memory. Performative curation juxtaposes tourist accounts, “official” histories, autoethnography, tall tales, dramatic scripts, descriptions of physical artifacts, images, and other texts. As a hybrid of performative writing, collage, and digital content curation, the method is reflexive about the mediation involved in visiting, representing, and remembering tourist locations, and asks the reader to take an explicitly active and ethical role in the virtual tour and meaning-making process.