Dark tourism as a commodification of heritage of suffering and pain

Samovojska, Robert. (2017). Dark tourism as a commodification of heritage of suffering and pain. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Information Science > Chair of museology and heritage management. [mentor Vujić, Žarka and Stublić, Helena].

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Abstract

The thesis seeks to answer the questions “What is meant by the term “dark tourism"?”, “Which are the heritage values that difficult heritage can communicate to visitors?” and “Who accordingly to certain heritage values visits places of difficult heritage and for what reasons?”. Theoretical considerations on different typologies of dark tourism are shown as an attempt to try to define this phenomenon that is not universally defined. Endeavor to define the area of dark tourism seems is made by bringing important theoretical considerations in the last twenty years about the types of attractions of dark tourism, the behavior and motivation of visitors, and the connection of types of attractions with different types of visitors. Thesis also considers the negative sides of visiting the dark and light places. Furthermore, thesis brings theoretical guidelines for the management and interpretation of difficult heritage as one of the main activities in the development of dark and light attractions. In the research part, thesis brings four foreign researches of motivation for visiting the sites of difficult heritage. The main goal of the research is to present positive examples of world-wide research of the dark heritage sites and thus encourage, enable and facilitate future researches of difficult heritage in the Republic of Croatia which can and must contribute to the development of better design of catharsic and educational experiences per visitor.

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