Museums and heritage

Résumé du document

The interest of tourists in death, disaster and atrocity is undeniable (Lennon and Foley, 2000). Dark sites are fashionable: tourists rush to visit Père Lachaise, San Vicente, or Highgate cemeteries (The Guardian, 2005), in-flight magazines talk of the "joy of prison museums" (Strange and Kempa, 2003), the Lonely Planet tipped the two post-conflict destinations, Belfast and Beirut, as "must-see" cities in 2007 (The Guardian, 2006). The list of such examples would be endless. This interest in death, disaster and atrocity is an area that has not been researched until recently; as a consequence, the terminology used differs according to the authors. Seaton (1996) called it "thanatourism", which is explained as "travel to a location wholly, or partially, motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death, particularly, but not exclusively, violent death". Seaton also divides "thanatourism" in the five categories of activities. In this document, we find answers to questions like: To what extent should collections or heritage sites deal with those aspects of the past which the society is less happy to remember? What issues need to be taken into consideration when presenting the heritage of inhumanity trough objects or sites?

Extraits

[...] (1999) War and thanatourism : Waterloo 1815-1914. Annals of Tourism Research, Vol.26 130-158 STRANGE, C.and KEMPA, M. (2003) Shades of dark tourism : Alcatraz and Robben island. Annals Tourism Research, Vol.30 386-405 WIGHT, C.A. (2006) Philosophical and methodological praxes in dark tourism : controversy, contention and the evolving paradigm. Journal of Vacation Marketing, Vol.12 119-129 Thesis YUILL, S.M. (2003) Dark tourism : Understanding visitor motivation at sites of death and disaster Texas A&M University[online] Available from : https://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/1969/89/1/etd-tamu-2003C-RPTS-Yuill- 1.pdf Press Articles CHARLET, C. [...]

[...] We will go through these problems, first with an analysis of the interpretation of Holocaust sites. To foil the difficulty of finding an adequate language to transmit the horrors that occurred in death camps, the interpreters largely used “visual representation” (Lennon and Foley, 2000). Lennon and Foley reckon that photographs or films evoke very powerful emotions which are unlikely to be succeeded with words. It seems that, on the whole, authors agree to say that interpretation in the former death camps is relatively poor. [...]

[...] Similarly, the local population of Dachau was growing tired of being linked with the Holocaust. Nevertheless, they did not want to lose the economic benefits generated by tourism. As a consequence, they tried to improve their image highlighting their actions against Nazism (Corsane, 2005). The examples abound. Every nation is more fervent on seeing itself as a victim, rather than an executioner. As Young (1993 : 21) notes : “only rarely does a nation call upon itself to remember the victims of the crimes it has perpetrated. [...]

[...] The government wanted to promote “multiculturalism”: diversity that unites Great Britain” (Tony Blair, Le Monde May 1999). enough memory” and much memory” can both serve political needs (Ricoeur in Chivallon, 2001). In presenting its slave trade past, much progress has been made in the UK. Even though there were many concerns about the bicentenary of the Act which abolished slave trade celebrated this year: from what were we celebrating exactly to what was the message and what was the aim of all the celebrations (Young, 2007). [...]

[...] (1999) Museum war exhibits : propaganda or interpretation ? [online] Available from : http://www.heritageinterpretation.org.uk/journals/j4b-war.html [Accessed 21 March 2007] Oradour sur Glane www.oradour.org [Accessed 16 February 2007] Auschwitz memorial and Museum http://www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl/ [Accessed 16 February 2007] Imperial War Museum www.iwm.org.uk [Accessed 27 February2007 ] Robben Island Museum www.robben-island.org.za [Accessed 6 March 2007] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum www.ushmm.org [Accessed 15 March 2007] Anne Frank Museum www.annefrank.org [Accessed 15 March 2007] Films Fight Club (1999) Directed by David Fincher. USA : UFD Saving Private Ryan (1998) Directed by Steven Spielberg. [...]