7 The scope of dark tourism-scapes: Exclusion zones and their creative boundedness from Chornobyl to Montserrat
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Jonathan Skinner
Abstract
This chapter advances work on the exclusion zone as a dark tourism attraction. 1 It examines the mobile nature of these traumascapes, concentrating on the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) and the Montserrat Volcano Exclusion Zone (MEZ). Both zones have been attraction points that move: they expand and they contract; their influence and significance, impact and riskiness vary according to politics, conflict, science and social scales of tolerance. Drawing upon first-hand, long-term ethnographic research at both very topical sites, these two case studies are used to examine “exclusion” as a dark tourism concept associated with Apocalyptic separation from everyday living. Rather than spaces empty of signification, Chornobyl and Montserrat are represented as places of creativity, and treated as spaces of containment and honoured by artists as Apocascapes linked to revelation - self-destructive, anti-capitalist, exclusive to the wealthy indulging in the post-Anthropocene eco-nightmare. With their ruins and ghost towns, their radioactive and pyroclastic threatenings, and their heavily restricted and policed rules for brief visitings, the sites are more than toxic tourism layovers. These exclusion zones relate to natural and man-made disaster phenomena with the principles of attraction tethered by restraint.
Abstract
This chapter advances work on the exclusion zone as a dark tourism attraction. 1 It examines the mobile nature of these traumascapes, concentrating on the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) and the Montserrat Volcano Exclusion Zone (MEZ). Both zones have been attraction points that move: they expand and they contract; their influence and significance, impact and riskiness vary according to politics, conflict, science and social scales of tolerance. Drawing upon first-hand, long-term ethnographic research at both very topical sites, these two case studies are used to examine “exclusion” as a dark tourism concept associated with Apocalyptic separation from everyday living. Rather than spaces empty of signification, Chornobyl and Montserrat are represented as places of creativity, and treated as spaces of containment and honoured by artists as Apocascapes linked to revelation - self-destructive, anti-capitalist, exclusive to the wealthy indulging in the post-Anthropocene eco-nightmare. With their ruins and ghost towns, their radioactive and pyroclastic threatenings, and their heavily restricted and policed rules for brief visitings, the sites are more than toxic tourism layovers. These exclusion zones relate to natural and man-made disaster phenomena with the principles of attraction tethered by restraint.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Foreword 1
- 1 Dark tourism: The need for a critical approach 5
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Part I: Dark tourism, affect and emotions
- 2 Atmospheric instability in dark tourism: Spatial construction of conflicting affective atmospheres at the Titanic Museum & Attraction, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (USA) 33
- 3 Understanding the emotions of visitors to Chernobyl 53
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Part II: Dark tourism and critical animal studies
- 4 Animals as dark tourism attractions: A prototype 77
- 5 Meet, greet and eat: Farmed animals as dark tourism attractions 89
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Part III: Dark tourism and critical memory studies
- 6 Trading paradise for Palestine: Dark tourism to refugee camps in the West Bank 109
- 7 The scope of dark tourism-scapes: Exclusion zones and their creative boundedness from Chornobyl to Montserrat 129
- 8 Exploring the intersections between dark tourism and Arctic traumascapes in the Anthropocene: The case of Finnish Lapland 147
- 9 “Despicable and disgusting”: Emotional labor, and the fear of dark tourism 163
- 10 Welcome to Revachol: Disco Elysium as virtual dark tourism 181
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Part IV: Dark tourism, power and identity
- 11 Sites of (dark) consciences: Investigating dark tourism cosmologies in a postcolonial landscape 203
- 12 Towards a postcolonial museum? Experiencing legacies of colonialism in dark tourism museum exhibits 219
- 13 Exhibiting power: Dark tourism and crime in the police museum 245
- 14 Representations in UK witches tours: Walking over the roots of misogyny 261
- 15 Critical theories in dark tourism: Over the years and beyond 277
- List of contributors 285
- List of figures 291
- Index 293
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Foreword 1
- 1 Dark tourism: The need for a critical approach 5
-
Part I: Dark tourism, affect and emotions
- 2 Atmospheric instability in dark tourism: Spatial construction of conflicting affective atmospheres at the Titanic Museum & Attraction, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (USA) 33
- 3 Understanding the emotions of visitors to Chernobyl 53
-
Part II: Dark tourism and critical animal studies
- 4 Animals as dark tourism attractions: A prototype 77
- 5 Meet, greet and eat: Farmed animals as dark tourism attractions 89
-
Part III: Dark tourism and critical memory studies
- 6 Trading paradise for Palestine: Dark tourism to refugee camps in the West Bank 109
- 7 The scope of dark tourism-scapes: Exclusion zones and their creative boundedness from Chornobyl to Montserrat 129
- 8 Exploring the intersections between dark tourism and Arctic traumascapes in the Anthropocene: The case of Finnish Lapland 147
- 9 “Despicable and disgusting”: Emotional labor, and the fear of dark tourism 163
- 10 Welcome to Revachol: Disco Elysium as virtual dark tourism 181
-
Part IV: Dark tourism, power and identity
- 11 Sites of (dark) consciences: Investigating dark tourism cosmologies in a postcolonial landscape 203
- 12 Towards a postcolonial museum? Experiencing legacies of colonialism in dark tourism museum exhibits 219
- 13 Exhibiting power: Dark tourism and crime in the police museum 245
- 14 Representations in UK witches tours: Walking over the roots of misogyny 261
- 15 Critical theories in dark tourism: Over the years and beyond 277
- List of contributors 285
- List of figures 291
- Index 293
