Memory and Justice: www.memoryandjustice.org

Tourism

Tourism and Memory Sites

Tourism is typically associated with pleasure and fun, vacation and escape. What happens, then, when a memorial to mass atrocity becomes a tourist site? In Cambodia, for example, two mass atrocity memorial sites – Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng – are among the most popular tourist destinations in the country. Both are visited far more frequently by foreigners than by locals. Are these tourists morbidly attracted to evil? Are they voyeurs? Or is there a wider range of complicated motivations at play? As mass tourism continues its incredible and unprecedented growth worldwide, these questions are increasingly important.

Tourism that involves going to the sites of genocide, crimes against humanity, or "radical evil" is obviously complicated. Commentators have called it "dark tourism," "negative sightseeing," or "thanatourism," which A.V. Seaton defines as "traveling to a location wholly, or partially, motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death, particularly, but not exclusively, violent death." Why are tourists attracted to these sites? The authors of the book Dark Tourism have one answer: they see the phenomenon as a pathological but logical extension of unfettered capitalism or commercialism. There is a fear that sites of evil can all too easily be transformed into Disney-like theme parks, robbing them entirely of educational or spiritual meaning.

In some cases, criticisms of "dark tourism," whether made by academics or journalists, are snide and indirect, impugning the motives of tourists without ever articulating what is actually so bad about visiting challenging memorials. It's easy to judge tourists, but it's very difficult to sort through their complicated motivations and reactions – even for the tourists themselves. Based on her interviews with visitors to Cambodia's Tuol Sleng museum, Rachel Hughes found that the tourists were "variously supportive, studious, disturbed, self-effacing, sympathetic, ambivalent, uncomfortable, apologetic, cynical, deferential, frustrated, skeptical, derogatory, prescriptive and excited." After all, tourists come to memorials with a wide range of intentions. While some may be drawn by a taste for morbidity, many others are students, historians, or scholars, politicians or passersby, descendants of perpetrators or victims – or some combination of these categories. What is interesting is how these varied interests are addressed by the site itself, and how the space is shared.

While tourism always runs the risk of trivializing, commercializing, inadequately understanding, and poorly representing the objects of its attention, there is no doubt that tourism can also be a positive presence at sites of memory. The best memorial sites seek to educate tourists about past atrocity, drawing lessons from the past in hopes of creating informed, democratic citizens. But what do tourists actually learn at such sites? How do these sites influence their thoughts and actions in the long term?

Another question is how memory tourism affects the countries in which atrocity memorials occur. Some sites are "negative memorials," commemorating events with a sense of regret and self-indictment. It could be a lost war (like the Vietnam War Memorial in the US), a genocide perpetrated by the former regime of a state (like Germany's numerous Holocaust memorials), or other war crimes (like Argentina's memorials to those who were disappeared by the military dictatorship). Such memorials can be an opportunity for a state to redefine its national identity after troubled years. In the eyes of tourists, how is the image of the state altered by these sites of remembrance? How does a state promote a site of tourism that criticizes the state itself? In post-Apartheid South Africa, for example, the state aggressively promotes tourism sites such as Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was jailed for 30 years), District Six Museum (a neighborhood wiped off the map), and other memorials that remind visitors of the darkest days of South African history. To what purpose, and with what effect?

The inherent complexity of these sites often leaves visitors confused about how they are expected to behave. Cambodia's Tuol Sleng museum has signs admonishing visitors not to smile; at Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, children routinely ignore instructions that the site is not playground. Memorials are many things at once: sites for mourning and reflection, architectural or artistic landmarks, political statements, public spaces for social gatherings, and educational venues, as well as tourism destinations. With all these competing functions, does memory remain the focus?

When memorials become tourist sites, marketing inevitably becomes a question. The advertisement of memorials requires a delicate negotiation between staying true to a site's serious memorial purpose and promoting it as an attractive destination that repairs the image of a country burdened with negative history. What kind of publicity material is tasteful? Do memorials belong in guidebooks? Should memorials be rented as spaces for private activities, such as parties or conventions? What are the limits of what is acceptable – and who decides?

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References

Bickford, Louis. "Transforming a Legacy of Genocide: Pedagogy and Tourism at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek." Memory, Memorials, and Museums (MMM) Program, International Center for Transitional Justice, February 2009.

Hughes, Rachel. "Dutiful tourism: Encountering the Cambodian genocide." Asia Pacific Viewpoint 49, no. 3 (December 2008): p318-330.
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