ABSTRACT
Dark tourism is a phenomenon widely studied over the last decades. More substantial research has been advanced as fieldwork in dark tourism sites (Korstanje, 2011a; Korstanje & Ivanov, 2012; Seaton, 1996; Sharpley, 2005; Stone, 2012). However, such studies focused on methodologies that use tourists as the analysis’s starting point. Sometimes, interviewees do not respond with honesty, or simply are not familiar with the basis of their own behavior. In Latin America people in some regions with histories of mass death are reluctant to accept tourism as their main profitable resource. Some destinations exploit death as the site’s primary attraction, whereas other ones develop a negative attitude toward tourists. A more helpful way to advance this discussion, as relevant literature suggests, is that dark tourism is defined by the presence of “thanaptosis”: the possibility to understand one’s own (future) end through the death of others. This allows us to think of dark tourism as a subtype of heritage, even connect it to pilgrimage (Poria, 2007; Seaton, 1996; Cohen, 2011). Yet, even these studies ignore the real roots of the debate on thanatopsis and its significance for configuring the geography of dark sites. The concept of thanatopsis, which was misunderstood by some tourism scholars, such as Seaton or Sharpley, was originally coined by the American poet William Cullen Bryant (1817) to refer to the anticipation of one’s own death through the eyes of others. Those who have read Bryant’s poem, “Thanatopsis”, will agree that the death of other people makes us feel better because we avoided temporarily our own end. We both want to retain life and are suffering because death is inevitable. To overcome this existential obstacle, we have to listen to “nature.” Our death is a vital process in the transformation of the life cycle on earth. To be more precise, Bryant alludes to “thanaptosis” as the recognition that life is the primary source of happiness, which is possible only by accepting our own death. Yet, curiosity or meditation over other people’s death was not present in Bryant’s viewpoint-something that begs some more questions. We may ask for example: What is the connection of dark tourism and late capitalism in the First World? Is dark tourism a practice commonly accepted in “third world” cultures? What are the commonalities and differences between pilgrimage and dark tourism? Lastly, do “first world” and “third world” conceptual gaps
point to the generation of links between “dark” entertainment and racism? In this conceptual discussion, one of the primary aspects to take into consideration is the role played by death in our modern world. Thanatology has shed light on human interpretation and acceptance of death. Sociologically speaking, religion and religiosity are mechanisms that alleviate human beings from the trauma of their inevitable death-mechanisms that are absent from secular societies, in which there is no expectation of afterlife (Bardis, 1981). Death is neglected by the social imaginary of industrial societies, in which life is valorized to pathological levels. Phillipe Ariès (1975) contended that secularization has expanded the boundaries of the life expectancy but paradoxically uncovered the wilderness of death. In middle times, death was something that happened to others; its exotic qualities allowed people to accept it. Death’s nature was disciplined in modern societies with the help of religion, arts, science and social institutions dealing with it. Today mortality rates have diminished but death terrifies society more than ever. In his early work Phillip Stone explored why death has become a criterion of attractiveness. He argues that dark tourism has gradations ranging from darkest to lightest expressions of death. While the former are characterized by devotion to sites of extreme suffering, such as genocide, mass murders or disasters, the latter concern spaces of cultural entertainment, such as Dracula museums. Stone explains that darker and lighter products are differentiated according to the degree of suffering they offer to sightseers. Dark tourism may be defined as a sort of pilgrimage or experience of looking at sites of suffering, but what seems to be important is the function of sightseeing as an attempt to contemplate the death of the self (Stone, 2012). The visitors are not sadists enjoying the suffering of others; they experience only the possibility of death through that of the Other. This instills a message to society and allows us to learn a lesson from a tragedy, a trauma ever rememorized by survivors in visited sites of suffering. The fascination with death corresponds to a quest for new experiences that leads visitors to strengthen their social bonding with the suffering community (Stone & Sharpley, 2008). Nonetheless, a closer look suggests another interpretation. First and foremost, historians have not found any archaeological or historical evidence of dark tourism sites in medieval times or earlier. This means that tourist visits to sites of death and suffering are a new phenomenon. May dark tourism be comparable in terms of medieval pilgrims?
