9 “Despicable and disgusting”: Emotional labor, and the fear of dark tourism
-
Alena Pirok
Abstract
In the early 1990s the historical city of Williamsburg, Virginia entered a period of interpretive change, both in the formal institution that called the city home, Colonial Williamsburg, and in the many small local tour businesses that depended on it. Most notably both entities began to embrace what is now called “dark tourism” offerings, witch and pirate trials, mock hangings, ghost tours, and a slave auction. This chapter will focus on the last two: the ghost tours and the slave auction and illustrate how commodification transformed reality into darkness, and the intentionally dark into an ataractic. Colonial Williamsburg’s slave auction was one program within a larger effort by the museum’s African American Interpretation Program to address the reality of race and class that the interpreters, and scholars, felt was missing from the institution’s predominantly elite white presentation of eighteenth-century Virginia life. These new offerings challenged white visitors who felt that the narrative of slavery sullied the celebration of the United States’ intellectual foundations. The Black community expressed a measured acceptance of the new African American cultural programs but found the all-too-realistic presentation of a slave auction inside of the increasingly commercial historical site to be wildly inappropriate. By the end of 1994, it was clear that the reality of slavery was too dark for the American audience. At the same time, Colonial Williamsburg’s interpretive staff were challenging their day-time guests to look directly at eighteenth-century life, private tour companies began offering night-time ghost tours that promised hidden or alternative histories but delivered the familiar, overwhelmingly white, consensus history that the museum’s interpreters sought to challenge. In practice, the ghost tours offered guests a way to engage with the eighteenth century under the guise of rebellious dark tourism, without having to face the history that day-time audiences found to be too dark to truly engage with. When placed together the public outcry before, during, and after the mock slave auction, and the popularity of the ghost tours highlight the inherent darkness of critical historical interpretation, and the lightness, or pacifying nature of what is more often deemed dark tourism.
Abstract
In the early 1990s the historical city of Williamsburg, Virginia entered a period of interpretive change, both in the formal institution that called the city home, Colonial Williamsburg, and in the many small local tour businesses that depended on it. Most notably both entities began to embrace what is now called “dark tourism” offerings, witch and pirate trials, mock hangings, ghost tours, and a slave auction. This chapter will focus on the last two: the ghost tours and the slave auction and illustrate how commodification transformed reality into darkness, and the intentionally dark into an ataractic. Colonial Williamsburg’s slave auction was one program within a larger effort by the museum’s African American Interpretation Program to address the reality of race and class that the interpreters, and scholars, felt was missing from the institution’s predominantly elite white presentation of eighteenth-century Virginia life. These new offerings challenged white visitors who felt that the narrative of slavery sullied the celebration of the United States’ intellectual foundations. The Black community expressed a measured acceptance of the new African American cultural programs but found the all-too-realistic presentation of a slave auction inside of the increasingly commercial historical site to be wildly inappropriate. By the end of 1994, it was clear that the reality of slavery was too dark for the American audience. At the same time, Colonial Williamsburg’s interpretive staff were challenging their day-time guests to look directly at eighteenth-century life, private tour companies began offering night-time ghost tours that promised hidden or alternative histories but delivered the familiar, overwhelmingly white, consensus history that the museum’s interpreters sought to challenge. In practice, the ghost tours offered guests a way to engage with the eighteenth century under the guise of rebellious dark tourism, without having to face the history that day-time audiences found to be too dark to truly engage with. When placed together the public outcry before, during, and after the mock slave auction, and the popularity of the ghost tours highlight the inherent darkness of critical historical interpretation, and the lightness, or pacifying nature of what is more often deemed dark tourism.
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
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
