Dark Tourism and Social Mobilization: Transforming Travelers After Visiting a Holocaust Museum

Abstract

A critical gap in the dark tourism literature concerns the possibility of social mobilization outcomes after taking part in dark tourism experiences. While a crucial driver behind the creation of museums focusing on war and genocide is to prevent their reoccurrence by socially mobilizing travelers, few studies look at whether travelers can become socially mobilized and take actions for human rights. We apply the Framing Theory of Social Action to investigate whether travelers employ framings in their discourse to reveal social mobilization outcomes after visiting exhibits at a Holocaust Museum. Travelers engage in photo-elicitation and in-depth interviews about their post-experience of visiting exhibits that are focusing on the Holocaust, women’s rights, and apartheid at Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center (IHMEC). Travelers suggest they engage in the main form of social mobilization outcomes: feeling empowered, pursuing remembrance and education, and identifying societal issues that warrant mobilization.

An Exploratory Study on the Motivations behind Visiting the Holocaust Museum of Porto

“…This similarity can be a motivating factor to visit the museum. Besides, Soulard et al [65] found that after visiting a Holocaust Museum, travelers felt transformed, "empowered, pursuing remembrance and education, and identifying societal issues that warrant mobilization" (p. 1).…”

Curatorial Dissonance and Conflictual Aesthetics: Holocaust Memory and Public Humanities in Greek Historiography

“…The current centres of Greek Jewry are Athens (3000) and Thessaloniki (1000) and a handful of smaller towns, amongst them Ioannina. 10 Recent conceptualisations of 'dark tourism' experiences through visits to sites that are associated with war, genocide and violence has suggested through new research that explorations of the darkest chapters in human history (such as the Holocaust) might become inspirational for people to act on social change and promote human rights (Soulard et al 2022;Bareither 2021). At the same time, this kind of exploitation of human trauma and tragedy triggers multiple moral conflicts.…”

A learning ecology-based approach for enhancing Digital Holocaust Memory in European cultural heritage education

“…As discussed above, the transmission of collective memory involves a series of communicative and educational interventions [ 107 ]. These measures include diverse activities such as official ceremonies and political speeches [ 108 ], visits to memorial sites [ 109 ], exploration of museums and memorials [ 110 , 111 ], travel experiences [ 112 ], and especially engagement with educational institutions and other spaces where individuals acquire knowledge and understanding through tangible and intangible means [ 39 , 40 ]. In this section, we use the theoretical framework of the learning ecology perspective to explore how individuals participate in both formal and informal learning settings.…”