ABSTRACT
This chapter describes dark tourism and some of its key issues, as well as to suggest that the sociology of death, grief, and bereavement may not only benefit from, but make meaningful contributions to, the study of this phenomenon. Dark tourism may play a role in the mediation of death as it involves the movement of people to sites at which encounters with the death of others becomes a significant experience. A significant portion of the dark tourism literature explores the motivation of tourists to visit dark sites, the interpretation of these sites and, increasingly, the manner in which these sites may evoke reactions or emotions that may mediate the relationship between the collective or individual self and death. While dark tourism as a phenomenon may date to the Middle Ages, the study of dark tourism is still relatively new. Arguably its academic and conceptual boundaries are still being established and are open for exploration by a number of disciplines.
