Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 15651587, 20120160-7383/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Printed in Great Britainhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2012.04.007www.elsevier.com/locate/atouresDARK TOURISM AND SIGNIFICANTOTHER DEATH

Towards a Model of Mortality Mediation

Philip R. StoneUniversity of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom

Abstract: Dark tourism and the commodification of death has become a pervasive featurewithin the contemporary visitor economy. Drawing upon the thanatological condition of soci-ety and a structural analysis of modern-day mortality, this paper establishes theoretical foun-dations for exploring dark tourism experiences. The study argues that in Western secularsociety where ordinary death is sequestered behind medical and professional facades, yetextraordinary death is recreated for popular consumption, dark tourism mediates a potentialsocial filter between life and death. Ultimately, the research suggests that dark tourism is amodern mediating institution, which not only provides a physical place to link the living withthe dead, but also allows a cognitive space for the Self to construct contemporary ontologicalmeanings of mortality. Keywords: dark tourism, death, mortality, thanatology, media-tion. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort ofPhbased2HEarouaura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but throughwhich they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as whenthey were alive. It is as though they were travelling abroad.

Marcel Proust 1871-1922INTRODUCTION

The touristic packaging of death has long been a theme of the mor-bid gaze. For instance, visits to morgues in nineteenth century Paris iswithout parallel in the Victorian imagination. It is in this early exampleof what is now referred to as dark tourism (Lennon & Foley, 2000) thattourists were provided with an ostensible invitation to identify un-known corpses, which gave way to a macabre mise-en-scene. Yet, arguably,nineteenth century dark tourism, consumed within the confines ofRomanticism added to the propensity for secular death-related traveland, which continues today. In short, quixotic depictions of deathilip R. Stone is Executive Director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR)at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan, Faculty of Management, Preston PR1

, United Kingdom. Email ). His main research interests revolvend dark tourism and its fundamental interrelationship with contemporary society.

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1566 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587and dying in Romantic art and literature provided for a thanatopticmediation of death and, subsequently, (re)created death and the deadfor (re)evaluation and contemplation for the living (Seaton, 1999). Inturn, tourism of the day reflected these contemplative aspects andinvolved visits to sites of fatality depicted by the Romantic Movement(Seaton, 2010).

Importantly, however, modern-day dark tourism does not presentdeath per se, but rather represents certain kinds of death (Walter,2009). Thus, within Western secular societies that are often labelleddeath denyinga term rooted in life-prolonging medicinal techniquesand pharmacopoeia, as well as disposal of the dead managementor-dinary death has largely been removed from the public realm andreplaced with media inspired cultural representations of SignificantOther Death (Stone, 2011a). Pagliari (2004) laments that while the col-lective Self has been death-denying due to attitudes towards medicineand mortality, society has subtly transgressed to a death-defying era,where emphasis on health education carry promises of corporealextension. Pagliari also argues contemporary society is now enteringa death-deriding age, where death is mocked, commercialised and soldfor the sake of art and entertainment. Moreover, religious institutions,which once formed sacred canopies of mortality guidance, have largelybeen negated for the secular Self.

Dark tourism as a cultural representation of particular death hasbeen referred to as a contemporary mediating institution betweenthe living and the dead (Walter, 2009), whilst Stone (2011a, p. 25) sug-gests, dark tourism provides an opportunity to contemplate death ofthe Self through gazing upon the Significant Other Dead. Stone(2011b, 2012) also argues that dark tourism experiences, at least forsome people for some of the time at some sites, is not so much aboutconsuming narratives of death, but, rather, of contemplating life andliving in the face of inevitable mortality. Nevertheless, whilst dark tour-ism and the thanatoptic contemplation of death has been examined(Seaton, 1996, 1999, 2010; Stone & Sharpley, 2008; Stone, 2009a,2011a, 2011b, 2012), a comprehensive conceptual framework to locateand interrogate dark tourism as a mediating institution of mortality re-mains elusive. Questions remain as to the type and extent of interrela-tionships dark tourism has with the broader cultural condition ofsociety. Specifically, how is contemporary death and dying manifestedin secularised society? What potential role does dark tourism play inthe mediation of contemporary death and dying? In addition, whatare the potential consequences of consuming dark tourism within con-temporary society?

The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to address these questions.Focusing upon the thanatological condition of societythat is, soci-etys reactions to and perceptions of deaththis study examines darktourism within a structural analysis of mortality. Drawing on previouswork of dark tourism consumption within a thanatological framework(Stone, 2009a; Stone & Sharpley, 2008), and adopting a post-disciplin-ary approach to dark tourism research of increased reasonableness,flexibility and inclusivity (Stone, 2011c), this research seeks to augment

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1567theoretical foundations for exploring dark tourism experiences. Partic-ularly, this paper updates and expands earlier conceptual frameworksthat correlate dark tourism consumption with modern-day mortality(Stone & Sharpley, 2008). In so doing, the study suggests that withina thesis of death sequestration, a range of contemporary mediatingrelationships are evident between touristic representations of the deadand broader secular experiences of mortality, albeit to varying degreesand at various dark tourism sites. This study also offers contextualisa-tion of these relationships, rather than empirical testing, by citing fourshades of dark tourism (Stone, 2006) namely, the London Dungeonvisitor attraction, a Body Worlds Exhibition, Ground Zero, and Ausch-witz-Birkenau. Ultimately, the paper provides a conceptual basis forsubsequent theoretical and empirical research into dark tourism inparticular, whilst contributing to thanatology and the social scientificstudy of death more generally. First, however, an overview of dark tour-ism provides a context for the study.SHINING LIGHT ON DARK TOURISM: DEFINITIONS ANDPERSPECTIVES

Pilgrimages to places associated with death have occurred as long aspeople have been able to travel. In other words, it has always been anidentifiable form of tourism, though socio-cultural contexts in whichdeath-related travel transpired have obviously changed throughoutthe ages. This latter point is beyond the scope of the paper, thoughSeaton (2010) argues dark tourism was traditional travel that evolvedthrough profound shifts in the history of European culture and influ-enced by Christianity, Antiquarianism, and Romanticism. However, asgeneral participation in tourism has grown, particularly since themid-twentieth century, so too has the demand for and supply of darktourism (Sharpley, 2009a). For example, sites associated with the wardead probably constitute the largest single category of tourist attrac-tions in the world (Smith, 1998). Indeed, Thompson (2004, p. xii) pro-vides a comprehensive guide to the 25 Best World War Two Sites andnotes a battlefield where thousands died isnt necessarily a good place,but its often an important one (original emphasis). Slade (2003) rec-ognises this importance and suggests Gallipoli, the battlefield whereAustralia and New Zealand suffered massive casualties during WorldWar One, was where both countries, respectively, have their de factopsychological and cultural origins (p. 782). Chronis (2005) also rec-ognises how war landscapes, such as those at Gettysburg, the site ofone of the bloodiest battles during the American Civil War, can be sym-bolically transformed and used by service providers and tourists alike tonegotiate, define, and strengthen social values of patriotism and na-tional unity through the death of others.

Similarly, Carr (2010) notes how war-tourism sites can control or cen-sor dissonant accounts of the past. In particular, she examines touris-tification tensions within the Channel Islands war heritage and theNazi occupation it serves to represent. Ultimately, Carr suggests that

1568 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587wartime narratives in the Channel Islands, which are delivered throughfragmented and contested memorialisation at various bunker sites, aredirectly analogous to other formerly-occupied western European coun-tries, rather than being identified with a British Churchillian para-digmnamely, that the British were not a nation of victims, but ofvictors.

Yet war-tourism attractions, though themselves diverse, are a subsetof the totality of tourist sites associated with death and suffering. Refer-ence is frequently made, for example, to specific destinations, such asthe Sixth Floor in Dallas, Texas, site of one of the most infamous assas-sinations of the twentieth century (Foley & Lennon, 1996). Alterna-tively, reference is also made to specific forms of tourism, such asvisits to graveyards and cemeteries (Seaton, 2002), Holocaust sites(Beech, 2009), places of atrocity (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005), pris-ons (Wilson, 2008), and slavery-heritage attractions (Dann & Seaton,2001; Rice, 2009). However, such is the diversity of death-related attrac-tions, from the Dracula Experience in Whitby, UK or Viennas Fun-eral Museum to the sites of celebrity deaths (James Dean, BuddyHolly, Elvis Presleysee Alderman, 2002) or major disasters, that a fullcategorisation is extremely complex (but, see Stone, 2006).

Nonetheless, despite the diverse range of sites and tourist experi-ences, Tarlow (2005, p. 48) identifies dark tourism as visitations toplaces where tragedies or historically noteworthy death has occurredand that continue to impact our livesa characterisation that alignsdark tourism somewhat narrowly to certain sites and that, perhaps,hints at particular motives. However, it excludes many shades of darksites and attractions related to, but not necessarily the site of, deathand disaster (Miles, 2002; Stone, 2006). Consequently, Cohen (2011)addresses location aspects of dark tourism through a paradigm of geo-graphical authenticity and sense of victimhood. Meanwhile, Biran, Por-ia, and Oren (2011) examine sought benefits of dark tourism within aframework of dialogic meaning making (also Kang, Scott, Lee, andBallatyne, 2011). Jamal and Lelo (2011) also explore the conceptualand analytical framing of dark tourism, and suggest notions of dark-ness in dark tourism are socially constructed, rather than objective fact.Thus, for the purpose of this paper, dark tourism may be referred tomore generally as the act of travel to tourist sites associated withdeath, suffering or the seemingly macabre (Stone, 2006, p. 146).

Augmenting various typologies of dark tourism, alternative terminol-ogy has also been applied to the phenomenon. For example, Seaton(1996) refers to death-related tourist activity as thanatourism, whilstother labels include morbid tourism (Blom, 2000), black spot tourism(Rojek, 1993), grief tourism (see www.grief-tourism.com) or as Dann(1994, p. 61) alliterates, milking the macabre. More specifically,Bristow and Newman (2004) introduce the term fright tourism, a var-iation of dark tourism whereby individuals may seek a thrill or shockfrom the experience. Meanwhile, Dann (1998, p. 15) suggests thatdicing with deaththat is, seeking experiences that heighten tour-ists own sense of mortalitymay be considered a particular conse-quence of dark tourism. Dunkley, Morgan, and Westwood (2007)

http://www.grief-tourism.com

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1569add to the definitional debate and offer various categories, includinghorror tourism, hardship tourism, tragedy tourism, warfare tourism,genocide tourism and extreme thanatourism. The latter category,according to these authors at least, involve a marketable live-eventaspect of death and dying, and they cite (Western) visits to privatecremations in India or to public executions in the Middle East asparticular examples.

There is no universal typology of dark tourism, or even a universallyaccepted definition. That said, however, there has been an increasingtrend amongst scholars to use dark tourism as an academic lens inwhich to scrutinise broader socio-cultural considerations, managerialand political consequences, or ethical dilemmas. For example, Lee,Lawerence, Bendle, and Kim (2011) examine dark tourism within apeace paradigm between North and South Korea. They suggest Wes-tern hegemonic constructions of tourism generally and, dark tourismin particular, means that Euro-centric perspectives of dark tourismare not applicable to other indigenous (Oriental) perspectives. Specif-ically, they suggest that the recent killing of a South Korean tourist inthe North Korean Mt Kumgang tourist resortonce seen as a peacetourism site when policies of rapprochement guided inter-Korean strat-egyis now a heterotopian space, which combines dark tourism withidealised cultural narratives within a contradictory geopolitical place.Meanwhile, Seaton (2009) addresses how dark tourism sites may bemanaged, especially within the context of Other Death, and concludesthat thanatourism sites are unique auratic spaces whose evolutionarydiversity and polysemic nature demand managerial strategies that dif-fer from other tourist sites.

Likewise, Sharpley (2009b) examines notions of dissonant and theinfluence of political ideology conveyed in dark tourism interpretation,and goes on to outline a stakeholder model of dark heritage gover-nance. In particular, he suggests such a model provides a basis forencouraging harmony and reconciliation, as well as understanding orlearning through a more inclusive memorialisation and interpretationof dark heritage. Similarly, Sharpley and Stone (2009) examine(re)presentations of tragedy and, in particular, locate dark tourisminterpretation within a conceptual framework of kitsch and the com-modification of (tragic) memories. In so doing, they suggest that deathis inevitably vulnerable to kitschification, as it requires inoculationand thus rendering into something else that is comfortable and safe todeal with and to contemplate (original emphasisSharpley & Stone,2009, p. 127). They go on to conclude that concerns within dark tour-ism interpretations remain and revolve around interrelationships be-tween kitsch, nostalgia and melancholy and the meanings that areconsequentially projected and consumed. Stone (2009b) also recognis-es these concerns and suggests ethical ambiguities inherent withindark tourism are systematic of broader secular moral dilemmas in con-veying narratives of death. In particular, he proposes dark tourism sitesact as contemporary communicative spaces of morality, and that darktourism may not only act as a guardian of history in heritage terms, butalso as moral guardian of a contemporary society which appears to be

1570 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587in a midst of resurgent effervescent moral vitality (Stone, 2009b, p.72).

A full critique of dark tourism is beyond the scope of this study. How-ever, despite the diversity of sites and relative experiences, a commonfactor of the phenomenon appears to be an association, in one way oranother, between a tourist experience and the touristic representationof death. As Biran et al., 2011, p. 832 point out it is not death or thedead that should be considered, but living peoples perception ofthem. Consequently, dark tourism focuses upon a relationship be-tween tourism and mortality that, in turn, ameliorates the world inwhich we live and provides for potential understanding and interpreta-tion of specific phenomena at the individual and societal level. Hence,it is to a structural analysis of death within contemporary society and, inparticular, the relevance of mortality mediation to understanding thedark tourism phenomenon that this paper now turns.DEATH AND CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY: A STRUCTURAL ANAL-YSIS

Death is a fundamental underpinning to life and to the order oflife. As Metcalf and Huntington (1991, p. 2) note, life becomestransparent against the background of death. In short, death can re-veal the most elemental social and cultural processes and values and,consequently, becomes a catalyst that, when put into contact withany cultural order, precipitates out the central beliefs and concernsof a people (Kearl, 2009, p. 1). On an individual level, however,exposure to mass or significant death eventsor what Stone (2011a,2012) terms mortality momentscan crystallize and invigorate the Selfslife pathway (Kearl, 2009). Therefore, for the purpose of this study, itis assumed that death anxiety and experience of dying are stronglystructured by social environments and personal life-worlds (Tercier,2005). Thus, the logic moves from the cultural orderthat is, thebroad realm of social reality that augments and shapes our collectivecognitions, emotions, and behavioursto that of institutional orders,such as religion, politics, mass media, or indeed dark tourism. It isthese institutions that indirectly filters and moulds our mortality expe-riences and moments, and which directly influence the individualorder.

Of course, whilst death is universal, dying is not. In other words,death is a biological certainty for us all, yet the dying process is depen-dent on a range of environmental circumstances and socio-cultural rit-uals. Within the broad context of Western societies, Aries (1981)offered a seminal, if not criticised, social history of death and dying.Despite criticism of Aires linear and culturally restrictive approachto the social history of death, he concluded that modern mortalityhas been made invisible by the decline of religious institutions andthe social control they brought to bear over dying. Additionally, theinvisibility of death itself, according to Aires, was perpetuated bythe rise and influence of the medical establishment, which took death

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1571away from the public community gaze and located it under a privatemedical gaze.

Arguably, therefore, and despite obvious socio-cultural differences ofexperiencing death (of others) and managing dying (of the self), thefiltering process of modern-day mortality in many contemporary Wes-tern societies has been removed from civic discourse and public spaceand relocated as a personal issue (Mellor & Shilling, 1993). Mellor(1993) suggests a sequestration of death in contemporary society andconcludes that public legitimisations of death are becoming increas-ingly absent, thus ensuring the dread of death to an individuals senseof reality, personal meaningfulness and, ultimately, ontological secu-rity (Giddens, 1991). This ostensible absence of death from the publicrealm may help explain the intense confusion, anxiety, and even ter-ror which are frequently experienced by individuals before signs oftheir own mortality (Giddens, 1991, p. 160). Thus, thanatology hasdrawn attention to the institutional sequestration of death in contem-porary society. Thanatologists often concentrate on the privatisationand medicalisation of death whereby death, rather than being an open,communal event, is now a relatively private experience (Mellor, 1993;Mellor & Shilling, 1993; Shilling, 1993; Willmott, 2000; Winkel,2001). Indeed, death is now marked by an increased uneasiness overthe boundaries between the corporeal bodies of the living and dead(Howarth, 2000; Howarth, 2007; Turner, 1991). Hence, the moderndenial of death and the sequestration of the deathbed have beenblamed for deaths removal from daily life (Tercier, 2005), whilst griefis denied its due place in the psychology of the individual and mourn-ing in the social relations of culture (Seale, 1998; West, 2004).

A full analysis of death sequestration is beyond the scope of this re-search; yet, it is worth noting fundamental changes within contempo-rary society towards mortality. The absent death thesis, according toMellor and Shilling (1993), is conspicuous by the demise of communaland social events which, when combined into a series of ritual actions,contained death by ensuring it was open or public, yet subject to reli-gious and social control. Consequently, whilst death and dying in thepre-modern past was just as or even more unpleasant than it is now,the omnipresent religious order that encompassed human finitenessensured mortality was meaningful, and death was even consideredtame (Aries, 1981). However, modern death and the prospect of dyingis now unprecedently alarming because contemporary secular societyhas deprived increasing numbers of people with an overarching, exis-tentially meaningful, ritual structure (Giddens, 1991). In relation tomortality, contemporary society has not just emptied the sky of an-gels, but also has emptied tradition, ritual and, increasingly, virtuallyall-overarching normative meaning structures of much of their con-tent (Mellor & Shilling, 1993, p. 428).

The reflexive deconstruction of religious orders that promised post-corporeal life after death, and the lack of stable replacement meaningsystems, has tended to leave contemporary individuals isolated and vul-nerable in the face of their inevitable end. Baudrillard (1993), in hisinfluential work on semiology and mortalitySymbolic Exchange and

1572 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587Deathargued, little by little the dead cease to exist. They are thrownout of . . . symbolic circulation (p. 126). Put another way, religioussymbolism of the dead and the ontological power it conveys has beennegated as contemporary societies concentrate on individualisedhealth promotion, thus extending lives in practice, but also and per-haps more fundamentally, symbolically extending life itself. Mean-while, Bauman (1992), in another influential workMortality andImmortalityplayfully suggests that whereas people in traditional soci-eties ate their dead, incorporating them into the life of the living, mod-ern society vomits them out, designating them as Other (p. 131).

Crucially, however, it would be naive to suggest that death is whollyabsent or invisible within contemporary society. This is simply not thecase. Depictions of death and dying, including those represented bythe media, in popular culture, and indeed within dark tourism, arenear ubiquitous in contemporary societiesan extension, perhaps,of the Romantic Movement influences outlined earlier. Arguably,therefore, because of the revival of death in mediated popular culture,an absent-present death paradox is evident. Real death of the Self hasbeen institutionally sequestered, or made absent from the public gazeduring the past sixty years or so. Yet, in its place is (Re)created death of theOther, where the other dead cohabit the living world, or made present,through a plethora of popular culture channels (Harrison, 2003). AsBarthes (2000, p. 92) points out, death must be somewhere in society;if it is no longer in religion, it must be elsewhere; perhaps in imageswhich produce Death while trying to preserve life. On the one hand,therefore, absent death through privatisation of meaning and a reduc-tion in the scope of the sacred, the medicalisation of dying, and theprofessionalization of the death process is evident. On the other hand,however, death is very much present within popular culture and ofcourse very present since death is the single most common factor of life.It is, perhaps, because of the paradoxical position that death appearsinstitutionally hidden rather than forbidden.

Arguably, therefore, dark tourism plays a role in this absent-deathparadox by helping revive mortality, or at least a modern-day depiction,through a substitute of recreated situations and memorialisation(Stone & Sharpley, 2008). While consumption of death appears tobe in inverse ratio to our declining direct experience of death itself,dark tourism, within a thanatological framework, may help explaincontemporary approaches to mortality and its contemplation (Stone,2009a; Figure 1). Ultimately, dark tourism allows a reconceptualisationof death and mortality into forms that stimulate something other thanprimordial terror and dread (Stone & Sharpley, 2008). The increas-ingly socially acceptable tourist gaze upon death and its reconceptual-isation through dark tourism, by entertainment, education ormemorialisation, offers the Self a practical contemplative mechanismto help neutralise the impact of mortality.

In turn, dark tourism may engender personal meaningfulness andontological security. This may help minimise the intrinsic threat ordread that inevitability of death brings. The neutralizing effect is facil-itated and sustained by dark touristic exposures to death, where the

Absent / Present Death Paradox Present Death

Popular Culture Collective Grief

Mortality

Institutional sequestration of death

Creates ontological insecurity

Allows concept of dread to develop

Bracketing process

Social neutralization of deathContemplation of mortality moments

De-sequestration occursMaking absent death present

Personal meaningfulness & understanding enhanced

Purchase / maintenance of ontological security

Consumption of the dark tourism

experience

Consumption of the dark tourism

experience

Acceptance Confrontation

Consequential to the

experience

Absent Death

Professionalisation Medicalisation Privatisation

Thanatological Condition ofContemporary Society

Figure 1. Dark tourism consumption within a thanatological framework(Source: Stone and Sharpley, 2008)

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1573process of continued sensitisationor bracketingof dying ultimatelyresults in a sanitisation of the subject matter. This may create a per-ceived immunity from death for the Self, in addition to acceptingDeath. Thus, contemplating death through a dark tourism lens allowstourists to view their own death as distant, unrelated to the dark tour-ism product that they consume, and with a hope that their own deathwill be a good Romantic death and their lives will be meaningful andontologically secure (Stone, 2011a; Stone & Sharpley, 2008; Tercier,

1574 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 156515872005). Arguably, therefore, dark tourism further individualises andfragments the meaning of death. In doing so, dark tourism adds tothe multiplicity of reflexive cultural devices that the Self may drawupon to contemplate mortality. Furthermore, dark tourism experi-ences expose tourists to the causes of death and suffering of individualpeople, in individual circumstances, thus perhaps encouraging theview of death as avoidable and contingent. As Bauman (1992, p. 6)points out, these kind of deaths are therefore reassuring rather thanthreatening, since they orient people towards strategies of survivalrather than making them aware of the futility of all [life] strategiesin the face of mortality. Importantly, these touristically packageddeaths take on significance for the Self, particularly in terms of mediat-ing contemporary mortality and Other death.

Of course, the important point here is that real deaththat is, incon-spicuous normal death of the Ordinary Selfhas been sequestered toprivate and professional realms, but notable abnormal death of Signif-icant Others, whether unusual, untimely or violent, has very muchbeen revived and (re)created within the public domain, including withintourism. Of course, to be a Significant Other in death does not neces-sarily mean that the Self requires significance in life. It is particulardeaths that are perceived significant to the living that is important,and may include the deaths of famous people as well as ordinary citi-zens. In other words, deaths that are routine, normal and end-of-lifeare not packaged up and sold for consumptionapart from say, asnumber of fatalities within group mortality statistics. However, deaththat is either aberrant or simply perturbs the collective (media) con-sciousness and, thus, perceived as significant to an individuals life-world has potential for dark touristification (Stone, 2012). Therefore,in a contemporary age of institutional death sequestration, death reviv-alism must begin to include dark tourism in the private/public deathdichotomy. Dark tourism along with other popular culture representa-tions of death resurrects the Significant Other Dead for mediation withthe living and provides for a range of fundamental relationships. Thesemediating relationships can be built and maintained through the pro-vision of tourism information, entertainment, as well as education ofdeath, dying, and ultimately, mortality. Thus, it is to the mediationof death in contemporary society and subsequent mediating relation-ships of dark tourism that the study now turns.RESURRECTING THE DEAD: DARK TOURISM AS A NEW MEDI-ATING INSTITUTION

A dominant Freudian paradigm of contemporary Western bereave-ment studies has been for individuals to let go of their attachmentsto the dead and move on. However, Klass, Silverman, and Nickman(1996) suggest individuals better move on with, rather than without,the dead. The dead are not banished from the lives of individuals,nor are the dead, generally, seen as a threat or jeopardy to livingthough violent death may perturb a collective consciousness. Hence,

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1575the concept of mortality mediationdefined here, as a social filter thatprotects, maintains and influences life/death relationshipsis animportant one. The dead require a channel to communicate with the liv-ing, as do the living require a filter in order to communicate with thedead. However, the act of mediating with the Other deadthat is,transmitting information about dead peoplehas historical pedigree.The dead, especially the significant dead, have been long been medi-ated or filtered to the living through literature, folklore, architecture,the arts, archaeology, religion, and more recently through popular cul-ture, the mass media and the internet.

However, whilst secularism and the institutional sequestration ofdeath has largely denied meaningful relationships between the livingand the dead (Walter, 2009), a family of institutions that link the deadand living have evolved throughout history. A full critique of theseinstitutions is beyond the scope of this paper, but mediating institu-tions do include the family and the telling of ancestral tales, theinscription and recording of history, song writing and the musicalexpression of grief, the law and will making, as well as religion and pil-grimages (Walter, 2009). There are, of course, other and perhaps moreobvious mediators between the living and dead, including gravestones,cemeteries and ancient burial grounds, as well as an increasing numberof informal shrines at locations where people have been killed or mur-dered. Additionally, contemporary societies, exemplified by Diasporas,create sacrosanct dead heroes, such as Anne Frank, or even the dis-graced dead, such as Jack the Ripper, with which to connect and iden-tify. These dead heroes and villains go on to mediate both collectivelyand individually with the living and embrace meta-narratives throughpopular culture myth making. In either case, dead heroes and villainsbecome sacred ancestors whereby the living bestows immortality onthem by representing their image and deeds.

Much of this immortality arrives through another mediator that linksthe living with the dead. Particulary, the photograph is a vivid instru-ment of how the Self encounter the Other dead. As Barthes (2000) ob-serves, photography is a contemporary memento mori (reminder thatone will die), where images of the deceased or places where they diedprovide an aide memoire of inevitable mortality. Indeed, the photo-graph connects us both with the dead, and with our own death (Beloff,2007, p. 183). A principle progression of photography has been thegrowth of the mass media and its ability to (re)present and repeatdeath events. While the ideological function of religion traditionallyprovided the key social filter by which death could be glimpsed andapproached, Walter (2006) argues that this function has largely beentaken on by the mass media. In other words, the mass media (first)provides the information when atypical deaths occur. Walter (2005)further notes in terms of tragic events and making sense of mortalityand in linking society with the dead, secular individuals now turn tonewspapers and television programme makers, rather than the priest,in helping make sense of what has occurred.

Evidently then, there are a range of both contemporary and tradi-tional mediating institutions that connect the living with the dead.

1576 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587However, whilst religion is still important for many individuals whendealing with issues of private grief, it is popular culture representationsand the mass media that publically mediates Other Death. WhileSharpley (2009a) suggests possibilities for dark tourism have beengreatly increased by the advertising that mass media can provide,Walter (2009) argues there is a much closer link between the mediaand dark tourismthey [both] mediate sudden or violent death tomass audiences (p. 44). Importantly, however, whereas media report-ing of particular death and tragedy may be fleeting, dark tourismspaces link the living with the dead, sustain them, and as a result,new mediating places of mortality are developed and contemporarymediating relationships with the dead transpire. In turn, in an age ofdeath sequestration and where the contemporary deathbed is stillpervaded by Romantic ideals, dark tourism revives death in the publicdomain and mediates mortality, allowing the Self to construct ontolog-ical meaning (Stone, 2010). Indeed, Stone (2011b, 2012) argues thatsome dark tourism experiences provide for a contemporary thanatop-tic contemplation. However, what remains elusive is the range ofmediating relationships that dark tourism potentially has with thethanatological condition of society. Thus, by using contextualisingexamples, namely, the London Dungeon (a tourist attraction in theUK depicting death, disease and torture), Body Worlds (a globaltouring anatomy exhibition using real human corpses), Ground Zero,and Auschwitz-Birkenauwhich all, arguably, represent various shadesof dark tourism (Stone, 2006)dark tourism is now revealed as acontemporary mediator of mortality (Figure 2).Dark Tourism as Narrative

Narratives about both the long and recent dead are imparted at darktourism sites through formal interpretation. The dead are communi-cated and socially filtered through tourism information and (re)pre-sentations as well as marketing descriptions. Of course, broaderissues of authenticity, dissonance, and political imperatives are boundup within dark tourism interpretation and these have been coveredelsewhere (Sharpley & Stone, 2009). Nevertheless, the imparting of for-malised and specific narratives at dark tourism sites is a first step in theoverall mediation of mortality process, whereby death and suffering ispresented and interpreted in order to be consumed as a touristexperience.Dark Tourism as Education

By providing particular narratives, the dead can be encountered foreducational purposes. For example, at a Body Worlds exhibition, tour-ists congregate with the real dead and learn about not only death anddisease, but also about life and health (Stone, 2011b). In turn, touristshave an educative opportunity to learn about the human body through

Narrative

Education Entertainment

Haunting (Memories)

Memorialisation

Moral Instruction(s)

Memento Mori

Dark Tourism Site / Attraction / Exhibition

(Place of the Other Dead)D

ark

Tour

ist E

xper

ienc

e

(Vis

iting

the

Oth

er D

ead)

Figure 2. A model of mediating relationships of the dead with dark tourism

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1577a hands-on archaeology of the dead body (Hafferty, 1991, p. 10).Similarly, tourists to Ground Zero are presented with an opportunityto learn about the events leading up to, during, and after 9/11. It ishere where the Other Dead mediate their significant dreadful demisewith educative narratives of tolerance and forbearance. Likewise, atAuschwitz-Birkenau, the Holocaust Dead teach tragic tales of persecu-tion and genocide and display the conditions in which human survivalbecame almost impossible. Even at the London Dungeon, or what hasbeen termed the lighter side of dark tourism (Stone, 2009c), educa-tional narratives are integral to the overall death design of the tourist

1578 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587attraction. Particularly, the Dungeon attraction provides edutainmentto help comprehend past methods of torture and incarceration, as wellas learning about deeds of the disgraced dead such as Jack the Ripperor Dick Turpin.Dark Tourism as Entertainment

Death and tourism may appear an anomalous conjunction; yet, darktourism provides a safe socially sanctioned space to consume an other-wise taboo topic. The dead at some dark tourism sites, like much elsefrom the past, mediate their presence through the act of entertainingpresent-day visitors. The most obvious examples are, of course, thosetourist attractions that are fun-centric (Stone, 2006). For instance,the London Dungeon explicitly depicts death, dying and the dead.Consequently, visitors are entertained in Baudrillardian fashionthrough simulated acts of killing, including hanging and the cuttingof throats (Stone, 2009c). However, other types of dark tourism canalso act as entertaining death mediators. At Body Worlds, for exam-ple, the dead are artistically posed within an entertaining and educativeexhibitory space. In turn, Body Worlds corpses are turned into stars ofthe show and the morbid tourist gaze becomes a core activity.

Meanwhile, it would be discourteous to suggest tourism to eitherGround Zero or Auschwitz-Birkenau is deemed entertaining. Yet, how-ever, tourism at these sites is, for many, part of a broader leisure travelitinerary (Stone, 2010, 2012). Whether individuals are in New York tovisit other iconic landmarks, or in Poland to visit medieval Krakow,both Ground Zero and Auschwitz-Birkenau are, generally, consumedas integral elements of a wider leisure trip (Stone, 2010). Of course,neither the 9/11 Dead nor the Holocaust Dead provide entertain-ment in the accepted tourism sense. Nonetheless, both Ground Zeroand Auschwitz-Birkenau are now part of a broader visitor economy andoften packaged and promoted with other mainstream tourist attrac-tions (Stone, 2010). Ethical implications aside, as well as notions of sec-ular pilgrimage, the respective dead at both Ground Zero andAuschwitz-Birkenau are consumed by some tourists some of the timeas broader recreation and as a kind of dark leisure (Stone & Sharpley,forthcoming).Dark Tourism as Haunting (Memories)

The unquiet dead can haunt people; indeed, memories of murderedindividuals or groups of the collective dead who die in tragedies canhaunt society. For instance, the atrocities of 9/11 represented atGround Zero or the Holocaust at Auschwitz-Birkenau need to be incor-porated into a collective narrative with which individuals may identify.Likewise, past methods of execution or acts of infamous (unsolved)murder that still haunt, if not also thrill, contemporary individualsare (re)packaged and consumed at the London Dungeon attraction.

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1579Similarly, terminal illnesses that continue to perplex clinical sciencesuch as cancer or Alzheimers disease, which Body Worlds seeks to illu-minate, may haunt individuals as they face up to personal notions ofhealth and mortality. In turn, death anxieties levels may be elevatedas a myriad of mortality moments disturb the collective consciousness(Stone, 2011b). Walter (2009) suggests such unquiet deaths and theirmemories are the very stuff of dark tourism. In other words, and chro-nological distance issues aside, traumatic difficult-to-comprehenddeaths, murder and disasters, as well as causes of death provide a basisfor dark tourism. It is this very nature of haunting, or at least the no-tion of lingering, disturbing and evocative memory, at places such asGround Zero, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Body Worlds and even at theLondon Dungeon, that mediate, albeit at varying levels of intensity, be-tween the Self and the Significant Other Dead.Dark Tourism as Memorialisation

While disturbing death may haunt contemporary imaginations, theact of remembrance and memorialisation allows (darker) dark tourismto occur (Stone, 2006). As dark tourism may be typified by conceptualshades, then so too can different kinds of memory. While memoryand memorialisation studies is a vibrant transdisciplinary field of re-search, involving amongst others neurologists, psychoanalysts, anthro-pologists and philosophers, the debates are broad and too diverse todiscuss here; yet, it is different kinds of memory as generations passaway that is important to dark tourism and the mediation of mortality.Consequently, first-generation memory refers to events, places or peo-ple that are personally experienced. Whereas such memories are fluidrather than static, Olick (1999, p. 341) suggests first-generation mem-ories are cobbled together anew each time the memory comes tomind. Hence, recent atrocities such as 9/11 are termed first-genera-tion memories, and although most people were not present in NewYork at the time of the atrocity, television transmissions of the eventmeant that people were transported to the death site whilst remainingin their living rooms. Meanwhile, second-generation memories arethose of our parents and their generation, and are passed down toinfluence our understanding of the world.

For instance, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Holocaust survivor willremember the Holocaust in a different way than say their son or daugh-ter, or for unrelated individuals for whom it has become history. Thus,by third-generation memory (and later), the past enrols into our con-sciousness in different ways. One such way is history and through rep-resenting historical narratives. The important issue, however, is thatremembrance is not memory (King, 1998), and that remembranceentails commemoration and memorialisation of those whose sufferingand death one may not have personally witnessed (Walter, 2009, p.47). Therefore, when memory is not first hand, it evolves into remem-brance and as time transpires into memorialisation and eventually intohistory. Remembrance, memorialisation and historical representation

1580 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587through dark tourism are all ways of relating to and mediating with theSignificant Other dead, and/or contemplating their deaths. As Walter(2009, p. 48) notes, at the same dark tourist site, all may be present,for different visitors.

At Ground Zero, for example, remembrance of the 9/11 dead iswithin the realms of first-generation memory. Meanwhile, at Ausch-witz-Birkenau where the Holocaust dead are becoming chronologicallydistance, memory is third-generation or later for many visitors. Hence,memorialisation of the Holocaust occurs by maintaining Auschwitz-Birkenau as a tourist site/museum as well as formally constructingmemorials at the location and elsewhere. In terms of lighter darktourism, however, memorialisation narratives are largely omitted.Although the London Dungeon attraction is a place to package-upand remember the disgraced dead, the prostitute victims of Jackthe Ripper, for example, are identified and remembered but are notgiven a narrative in which to commemorate their lives. Similarly, atBody Worlds, the dead are not personally identifiable, therefore notremembered, but visitors do connect with illustrated causes of illnessand death and go on to identify with the corpses through their ownanatomy (Stone, 2011b). Ultimately, however, whatever the extent ofremembrance and memorialisation of Other Death at dark tourismsites, it is this mediating recall relationship that gives the dead theauthority to afford guidance and moral instruction to the living.Dark Tourism as Moral Instruction

Dark tourism either strategically deploy taboo subjects and commer-cially exploit macabre and tragic events, or offer memorialised narra-tives that connect the living with the dead. As a result, dark tourismsites exist within the broader visitor economy and are often marketedas mainstream tourist attractions. However, dark tourism sites are con-temporaneous cultural spaces that act as receptacles of highlycharged ideas and representations that appeal to mass-market demo-graphics. Therefore, dark tourism, to varying degrees, offer nihilisticnarratives of fear, death, horror, violence and disease, which are eithercommemorated and celebrated and (re)created through mimesis,kitsch and pastiche representations, or portrayed through stark anduncompromising bleak depictions. Cultural interplay is encouragedand sanctioned within dark tourism by tourists who, depending onthe eclecticism of their own life-worlds and perceived ordinariness/rel-evance of the exhibited victim(s)/cadavers, as well as the ethical con-duct of other tourists, construct relative meanings of moralitythrough the Significant Other Dead (Stone, 2009b). With embodiedand emotionally engaged tourists, dark tourism potentially offers theSelf an emancipatory place for reassessment and self-reflexivity that al-lows for a reconfiguration of outlooks and interpretative strategies.

For example, Body Worlds offer narratives of health, life, and moralinstruction on how to extend living both biologically as well as ontolog-ically. Similarly, at the Tribute WTC Visitor Centre at Ground Zero,

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1581moral narratives are provided to ideas of hope, tolerance and peace. AtAuschwitz-Birkenau, however, the poetic use of shock in order to gen-erate a rupture in visitor (pre)conditioning and expectations, providesa deeper, more critically alert awareness of things-as-they-were, and ananticipation that such genocide can never occur again. Even at theLondon Dungeon, the use of kitschified representations of deathand torture provide for morally illuminating moments from history,illustrating to some at least of how society has progressed (Stone,2009c). It is this premise of how things were and how things are nowthat psychosocial moral connections can be made by dark tourismexperiences, whereby death, disease and gruesome moments from his-tory are illuminated for the present day and, in turn, cast light onotherwise unseen mortality moments.Dark Tourism as Memento Mori

Whether through religion, art, folklore, ancestral tales, or literature,as well as other cultural mechanisms, reminders of deathmementomorihave a long history. However, Seaton (1996) highlights the de-cline of the medieval memento mori and its transformation throughRomanticism, including the idealistic depiction of death within thearts, which propelled a cult of sentimentality that was significantlybound up with responses to death. Conversely, Seaton (2009) alsohighlights the Romantic period as an era that was covert and slightlysadomasochistic, expressed through vicarious pleasures of terror andhorror, manifested by the sublime and gothic novels and architecture.As noted earlier, Seaton proposes modern-day dark tourism is anextension of Romantic reminders of mortalitythat is, cultural repre-sentations that remind people of their mortality even as they go abouteveryday living.

However, it is not simply representations of death that act as mementomori but, rather, the consumption of Significant Other Death throughdark tourism experiences that allows the Self to construct and mediatea meaning of mortality. However, Walter (2009, p. 48) notes, whetherdark tourism sites actually remind tourists of their mortality varies ...[Thus] we may encounter the dead in a way that shields us from ourown mortality, or the encounter may be liberally sprinkled with mem-ento mori. Conversely, dark tourism experiences do indeed remindsome tourists of their mortality, though Walter is correct in his assump-tion of thanatopsis variability (Stone, 2011a, 2011b, 2012). Conse-quently, the extent of thanatopsis is more pronounced, for example,at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Ground Zero, where tragic Other Death isnarrated through memorialisation, while at Body Worlds, mortalitycontemplation is accompanied with narratives of health and life. Evenat the London Dungeon, there are elements of memento mori as tour-ists consume simulated death at a safe socially sanctioned distance(Stone, 2009c). Ultimately, however, it is the nature and extent of mem-ento mori as a mediating relationship of mortality that is at the crux ofdark tourism.

1582 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587CONCLUSION

This study arises from a simple, yet fundamental interest in the socialreality of death. In particular, the paper set out to examine how andwhy dark tourism as a cultural representation of death and dying medi-ates modern-day mortality. Arguably, dark tourism is part of widerdeath revivalism within popular culture, whereby dark tourism experi-ences help to de-sequester mortality and to mediate a range of contem-porary relationships with the dead. Of course, to live is to die, yetwithin a secularised contemporary society we have, for many, becomedivorced from the social reality of death and dying. Instead, we havebecome enveloped with an almost ubiquitous (re)creation of death,where Other death is consumed at a distance and mediated throughpopular culture and the media. In lieu of traditional religious struc-tures that offer guidance, control and, ultimately, a social filter toour sense of finitude, contemporary mediating institutions of mortalityoffer (re)presentations of tragedy and death that have perturbed ourindividual and collective consciousness. Dark tourism is such an institu-tion and joins a family of institutions found in broader popular culturethat mediate mortality.

As such, dark tourism experiences, albeit to varying levels of intensityand at various sites, can engender a degree of thanatopsis and mean-ings of ontology, where visitors may reflect on dark tourism and con-template both life and death through a mortality lens. Of course,future research avenues remain as to whether dark tourism will invokea greater or lesser extent of ontological (in)security, and whetherpackaged-up death provides reassurance or threatens an individualslife-world. Nevertheless, against a conceptual framework of deathsequestration, dark tourism can help link the living with its dead.However, motivation to consume dark tourism is not to experiencedeath per se, but, rather, potential consequences of dark tourismexperiences revolve around mortality narratives and education, enter-tainment, memorialisation, and moral instruction, as well as mementomori. Indeed, in a contemporary age of institutionally sequestereddeath, (re)presenting Significant Other Death within dark tourismhas important relationships for meditating mortality and linking theliving with its resurrected dead.

Therefore, dark tourism as an institution is added to a range of con-temporary reflexive mechanisms that the Self may draw upon in orderto help construct mortality meaning. As the summative model in Fig-ure 3 illustrates, dark tourism is a new mediating institution of mortal-ity within secularised death sequestered societies. Indeed, dark tourismmay not only provide a physical place to link the living with the dead,but also allows a cognitive space for the Self to construct contemporaryontological meanings of mortality. It is dark tourism experiences thattourists may reflect and contemplate, however briefly, both life anddeath through consuming the Significant Other Dead.

Of course, the relationship of the living with its dead is complex andoperates within a milieu of religious edicts and secular assertions. Evenso, the living can mediate with its dead through a social filter of dark

Thanatological Condition of Contemporary Society

Institutional Sequestration of Death

Ontological Insecurity

Death Anxiety

Contemplation / Bracketing

De-Sequestration / Death RevivalismDark Tourism Experience

Mediating relationships

Narrative

Education Entertainment

Haunting (Memories)

Memorialisation

Moral Instruction

Memento Mori

Ontological Meaning

Life Living Death

Mediation of Mortality

(New

) Med

iatin

g In

stitu

tion

Absent Death

Professionalisation Medicalisation Privatisation

Present Death

Popular Culture Collective Grief

Mortality

Absent / Present Death Paradox

Figure 3. Dark tourism experiences within a theoretical mediating mortalityframework

P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587 1583

1584 P. R. Stone/Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 15651587tourism, though importantly, cultural differences and chronologicaldistance, as well as issues of age and health status of individual touristsmay limit this social filter. Consequently, the emergent theoreticalframework outlined in this paper might be used as a basis to framefuture phenomenological empirical research, within a variety ofsocio-cultural environments and at different dark tourism sites, therebytesting the level of support of dark tourism as a contemporary mediat-ing institution of mortality. Specifically, future research might addressdichotomic social scientific-religious tensions of how dark tourism notonly provides for mediation of mortality for the Self, but also how darktourism can cast a critical reflection of how secular societies deal withdeath. This is particularly so if the resurrected Significant Other Deadare conceived to represent various dichotomous socio-cultural or tech-nological relations that may collide within secular society and, thus,contest narratives of both living and dying.

Ultimately, however, in a contemporary secular age where ordinarydeath is hidden behind medical and professional facades, yet extraor-dinary death is recreated for popular consumption, dark tourism playsa potential mediating role between life and death. As such, the deadhave always been guardians of the living, either through religious ritu-als or by secular myth making. To that end, dark tourism in deathsequestered secular societies and the range of mediating relationshipsof mortality that may transpire, plays a unique role in our existentialsaliency.REFERENCES

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Submitted 14 June 2011. Resubmitted 8 July 2011. Resubmitted 20 July 2011. Resubmitted1 March 2012. Final version 19 April 2012. Accepted 30 April 2012. Refereedanonymously. Coordinating Editor: Deepak Chhabra.

http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/1870/http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2011.563839http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2011.563839

Dark tourism and significant other deathIntroductionShining light on dark tourism: definitions and perspectivesDeath and contemporary society: a structural analysisResurrecting the dead: dark tourism as a new mediating institutionDark Tourism as NarrativeDark Tourism as EducationDark Tourism as EntertainmentDark Tourism as Haunting (Memories)Dark Tourism as MemorialisationDark Tourism as Moral InstructionDark Tourism as Memento Mori

ConclusionReferences