Dark Tourism

This morning, a BBC article  highlights the rise in popularity of genocide memorials around the world.

This short film by Philip Stone aims to answer the question why people are compelled to visit disaster sites. He has also written a new article entitled 'Dark tourism and significant other death: towards a model of mortality mediation'. It's published in the Annals of Tourism Research (2012, Vol 39, No 3, pp.1565-1587); here's the abstract

'Dark tourism and the commodification of death has become a pervasive feature within the contemporary visitor economy. Drawing upon the thanatological condition of society and a structural analysis of modern-day mortality, this paper establishes theoretical foundations for exploring dark tourism experiences. The study argues that in Western secular society where ordinary death is sequestered behind medical and professional façades, yet extraordinary death is recreated for popular consumption, dark tourism mediates a potential social filter between life and death. Ultimately, the research suggests that dark tourism is a modern mediating institution, which not only provides a physical place to link the living with the dead, but also allows a cognitive space for the Self to construct contemporary ontological meanings of mortality.'

Dark Tourism Study Centre

This BBC story details the launch of the new Dark Tourism Study Centre at the University of Central Lancashire. Dr Philip Stone, Director of The Institute for Dark Tourism Research which opened this week, said researchers want to examine why people "feel compelled to visit sites like Auschwitz or Ground Zero". CNN also ran a story on the opening.

Today's Thought of the Day on Radio 4 (1:49:10) was also on the topic of dark tourism; Vishvapani, an ordained Buddhist, talks about his own experience of visiting Aushwitz.

On 4th May, Dr Stone will be interviewed by Radio 4 You & Yours Programme (between 12.00-1.00pm).

The Titanic Disaster - 100 years on...

In the days when the concept of leisure cruises was still in its infancy, RMS Titanic was not only built to be one of the largest cruise ships at the time, but also the most luxurious.

It set out on its maiden voyage on 10th April 1912, stopping briefly at Cherbourg, France and then Cobh (formerly Queenstown), Ireland to pick up more passengers, before setting off for its long journey across the Atlantic to New York. Four days days later during the night of 14th April, disaster struck in the form of an iceberg. The ship finally sank in the early hours of the following morning, taking over 1500 lives. New research has revealed the atmospheric conditions that may have caused the disaster.

The approach of the 100th Anniversary of the tragedy revived much interest in the story;  the Titanic Memorial cruise on the MS Balmoral, which attracted 1309 passengers has taken the same route as the Titanic and following a slightly shaky start, is now well on its way. The ship is expected at Halifax next Monday 16th April, to finally complete its journey to New York a few days later, on 19th April. Special memorial services will be held on board this weekend.

Areas associated with the Titanic have also been marking the anniversay in various ways. In Belfast, the dockside where the ship was built by Harland and Wolff, has been redeveloped and rebranded the ‘Titanic Quarter’. The recently opened Titanic Belfast museum, allows visitors to 'experience' life on board and the sinking of the ship. Of course, there are plenty of souvenirs that can also be purchased there too. 

One academic has recently claimed that the disaster has been exploited as a dark tourism attraction, which is disrespectful to the victims. However, the Lord Mayor of Belfast, disagrees, "For too long, Belfast's part in the Titanic story, and the role of the people of Belfast in bringing Titanic to life, has been neglected". Here's an interesting article on the issues surrounding the Titanic as a dark tourism atttraction.

A permanent exhibit on the Titanic, containing a vast collection of artifacts from the ship itself,  was opened at the The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia,  in 1998.

Anyone researching the Titanic may be interested in  a 14 day free trial offered by Ancestry.co.uk, allowing access to a range of new records of the people who sailed onboard.  There is the official passenger list, which reveals the names, ages and occupations of those who bought the sought-after tickets as well as details of paid staff. 

The Titanic disaster is compared to the recent plight of the Costa Concordia

Institute of Dark Tourism Research

The world’s first academic centre for dark tourism research will soon open at the University of Central Lancashire. The Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) aims to become the global hub for dark tourism scholarship.
 

The iDTR aims to advance knowledge about the contemporary nature and consequences of visitation to tourist sites of death, disaster or the seemingly macabre. It will bring together scholars who seek to deliver internationally recognised research that contributes to the ethical and social scientific understanding of dark tourism and heritage, as well as to the appropriate development, management, interpretation and promotion of dark tourism sites, attractions and exhibitions.

The iDTR will be launched at a special one-day symposium at 

UCLan’s Westleigh Conference Centre on 24 April 2012.

Find out more and register here

 

Seminar

The Centre for Death in Society (University of Bath), will be hosting a morning seminar tomorrow, 9th December, on Death Education in the UK. If you are unable to make it, Dr Philip Stone will be making his lecture slides available on his website next week.

The Witching Hour at BMAG

Art of Ideas, hosted this year by artist, writer and TV broadcaster Matthew Collings, is a major arts events taking place from  11th - 14th November, at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Instigated by Arts Council England West Midlands and led by Arts & Business, it will focus on the cultural life of Birmingham, specifically the idea of contemporary art collecting, collections and collectors.

One of the features of the event will be the 'Witching Hour’ exhibition, (the Waterhall, BMAG) showcasing photography, painting, sculpture, printmaking, film, animation and installation. It will explore darkness and the uncanny in the work of more than 20 artists from, or based in, Birmingham and the West Midlands. For more details click here...

Short Course - Dark Tourism

The University of Cambridge are delivering a short course entitled: From Auschwitz to Ground Zero - dealing with heritage that hurts. The course shall run from 24-26 September 2010, and will be hosted at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall.

Click here for more info...

Dark tourism

Interesting conversations have been taking place on the dark tourism research forum, such as whether slum tourism can be considered to be dark tourism, the motivation for dark tourism, topics used for research on dark tourism, the prevalence of the London Dungeons and Auschwitz as focuses for study and ideas for dark tourism in Paris.

A Discussion Paper Tourism to Places with a Difficult Past discusses recent research trends and concepts in heritage Tourism, dissonant heritage tourism, thanatourism, dark tourism and holocaust tourism. There is a call for papers for the Death, Commemoration and Memory conference which will take place on 24-25 June at University of Edinburgh and a Titanic Memorial Cruise is planned for 8 April 2012.

The Sage Handbook of Tourism Studies by T. Jamal (available in Quick Ref at 911 JAM), includes a chapter by T. Seaton entitled "Thanatourism and Its Discontents".

An archive of The War Tourist newsletter is available here. It concerns itself with recounts of places visited by a war tourist, focussing on the great fortifications of the two World Wars and provides practical information for those who may be interested in visiting the places themselves.

An article in the Guardian discusses the experience of a group of young people in Auschwitz. Another article follows pupils travelling to Auschwitz as part of their study, here.

Dark Tourism

There have been a number of articles spotted on this topic recently. In 'Travelling to the dark side', the author talks about dark tourism in general; Philip Stone's 'A dark tourism spectrum: towards a typology of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and exhibitions' is available online or in Ebscohost (Athens) in fulltext. Another which may be of interest is based around the Ustica Disaster in 1980; Terezin in the Czech Republic comes under the spotlight in this article which lists the top 10 darkest attractions in the region.

There is a page of links to places which have a connection to historical figures; another article discusses the experience of visiting old houses and stonewalls. The website Post-Conflict Heritage looks at the restoration and politics at cultural sites such as Angkor.

Latest articles...

Read some views on extreme tourism in this blog; this article tries to answer the question of who's participating in this activity and why. From extreme to dark tourism, Hitler lost his head soon after the heavily criticised waxwork was unveiled at Tussauds in Berlin. There have been a number of abstracts and articles on Chinese tourists and how destinations are marketing and catering for them in Leisuretourism.com recently (non-Athens passwords apply). Also included are various reports on the Beijing Olympics as well as articles with a special focus on medical tourism, wildlife tourism and impact of tourism on World Heritage sites.

Dark Tourism - KZ

The KZ DVD can now be found on the Multimedia shelf at 940.53 SHO. There are extra copies, please ask counter staff. As always, these can be viewed in the Library with earphones which can be collected from the counter.
Watch the trailer...