This conceptual article brings to the attention of tourism scholars new possibilities to theorize dark tourism as an affective socio-spatial encounter. To do so, we frame dark tourism within theories of affect and, in particular, geographies of affect. We show how debates around dark tourism terminology and taxonomies, in most cases underlie considerations on felt, affective aspects of the dark tourism experience. We critically debate the concept of affect, the distinctions between affects and emotions, and the complex issue of representability of affect. Our perspective is underpinned by a necessity to consider the context and limitations that frame the affective experience of the tourist and the resulting encounters. This offers a deeper layer of understanding tourists' experiences in death and disaster places as well as the political and ethical charge imbued in such encounters.

This paper contributes methodological discussions on collecting and analysing international tourists' affects and emotions. The method of data collection used is electronic mail interviews, in some instances corroborated by participant observation in the field, whereas the methods of data analysis employed are affective mapping and emotionality of texts. Such methods of analysis capture the on-flow and contingency of the tourist's experience in post-disaster places. E-mail interviews are becoming an increasingly widespread method of data collection. In post-disaster contexts, the potential of email interviews allows researchers to conduct fieldwork even when they cannot obtain face-to-face interviews, or in cases in which participants feel more at ease answering from their home and can take their time to respond. Twelve semi-structured e-mail interviews have been conducted in 2016 with international tourists who visited the Tohoku region, Japan, hit in 2011 by a triple disaster: an earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. To explore and better understand participants' affective and emotional experiences, we exemplify affective mapping and emotionality of texts drawing on tools like linguistic features of e-mails, imagework, short stories and anecdotes.

This article discusses the case of Rikuzentakata, a town almost completely destroyed by the 2011 tsunami provoked by the Great East Japan Disaster. It shows how the town has directed some of its recovery efforts toward the development of a specific form of post-disaster tourism. Two main strategies implemented by the local authorities are analyzed in detail: first, the celebration of Ipponmatsu, or the Miracle Pine, a symbol of resilience in the face of devastation; second, the promotion of Rikuzentakata as the 'Hiroshima of the North'. Both these discourses were based on the engineering and the apprehension of specific affective post-disaster atmospheres and perceived by residents and local authorities as key for attracting international visitors. Our analysis highlights how a politics of affect built around the tsunami has been spatialized and grounded using material landmarks (The Miracle Pine), but also narratives of hope and resilience based on comparisons with Hiroshima. Such affective atmospheres, we conclude, were planned and performed as an attempt to facilitate cross-cultural communication and allow visitors to contemplate death and disaster on their own terms, while at the same time involving them in a broader processes of healing from trauma and recovery for Rikuzentakata and its residents.Rencontres affectives du tourisme noir: Rikuzentakata après la catastrophe de 2011 au nord-est du Japon RÉSUMÉ Cet article discute du cas de Rikuzentakata, une ville presqu'entièrement détruite par le tsunami de 2011 provoqué par le séisme de la côte pacifique au Japon en 2011. Il montre comment la ville a dirigé certains de ses efforts de relèvement vers le développement d'une forme spécifique de tourisme de l'après-catastrophe. Deux stratégies principales mises en place par les autorités locales sont analysées en détail: tout d'abord, la célébration d'Ipponmatsu, ou du « pin miracle », un symbole de la résilience face ARTICLE HISTORY

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