Why do Emotions Matter in Museums and Heritage Sites?

Watson, Sheila

doi:10.2307/j.ctvss40kr.8

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, Italians and Slovenes account for about twothirds of the annual visitors. Thus, following Watson's (2016) reasoning, we investigated whether each national group experienced different emotional states at this site.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the supply side, a feature shared by many dark heritage sites is that they seemingly strive to instrumentalise empathy and deliberately elicit emotions, such as pride, pity and anger (Weaver et al, 2018). Indeed, museums are emotionally driven sites (Munro 2014;Savenije and de Bruijn 2017) often designed to stimulate specific affective responses, triggering feelings associated with past events or indeed fostering new emotional connections among individual visitors (Watson, 2016). In particular, dark heritage sites often strive to elicit strong emotions such as shock, pain, anger, fear as well as wonder and excitement (Martini and Buda, 2018).…”

Section: Modes Of Remembering and Emotions In Dark Heritage Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, we should not assume that emotions, including empathy, are experienced equally by all visitors irrespective of their social and national backgrounds. Researchers such as Watson (2016) and Ahmed (2004) describe emotions as being linked to a specific cultural or national context. That is to say, each cultural group attributes an affective value to historical events, individuals or places, including heritage sites and naturally associates a set of affective experiences to collective emotions at such sites (Fortuna, 2013).…”

Section: Modes Of Remembering and Emotions In Dark Heritage Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Emotions and critical thinking at a dark heritage site: investigating visitors’ reactions to a First World War museum in Slovenia

Bull

Angeli

2020

Journal of Heritage Tourism

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This paper explores the connection between memory study theories (antagonistic, cosmopolitan, and agonistic) and emotions in a dark heritage site. It does so by investigating Italian and Slovene visitors' emotional reactions to the permanent exhibition of the Kobarid Museum. The museum is located in a dark heritage site in Slovenia that was the epicenter of a series of bloody conflicts during the First World War. Relying on a cosmopolitan narrative, the museum promotes a clear antiwar message, aiming to elicit emotional responses such as empathy and compassion for the victims to connect with visitors. However, our analysis brings to light antagonistic emotions among Italian and Slovene visitors, raising important issues concerning the role of emotions and multiperspectivity in dark heritage sites. Hence, we discuss how these emotions could instead promote critical thinking, self-reflection, and crossnational dialogue.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modes Of Remembering and Emotions In Dark Heritage Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modes Of Remembering and Emotions In Dark Heritage Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Emotions and critical thinking at a dark heritage site: investigating visitors’ reactions to a First World War museum in Slovenia

Bull

Angeli

2020

Journal of Heritage Tourism

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“…Visitors were seen as active consumers and producers of emotions in museums, not vessels to be filled with information (Bangall 2003, 87). Emotions, thus, became understood as central in heritage-making in terms of how visitors were both engaging and disengaging with emotions (Gregory and Witcomb 2007;Smith 2006Smith , 2010Smith , 2015Smith , 2016Watson 2015Watson , 2016Smith and Campbell 2016;Dudley 2017). The sensory nondiscursive level and how affect is provoked by the museum atmosphere was also understood as interwoven in the museum experience (Gregory and Witcomb 2007;Witcomb 2013;Schorch 2014; Tolia-Kelly, Waterton and Watson 2017; de Jong 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions in the Museum of Medicine. An investigation of how museum educators employ emotions and what these emotions do

Rodéhn

2018

International Journal of Heritage Studies

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The aim of this paper is to explore how museum educators employ emotions when they are doing guided tours and to investigate what these emotions do. The paper explores five guided tours in the Museum of Medical History (Uppsala, Sweden) located in the former Ulleråker psychiatric hospital and asylum. The guided tours take place in the exhibitions focusing on surgery, nursing and mental care, but this paper focuses on guided tour in the exhibition displaying mental care. The guided tours were filmed and documented using participant observation. The material is analysed with the help of Sara Ahmed's queer-feminist phenomenological approach to emotions. The paper shows that the museum educators used a multitude of emotions to orient the students' emotional experiences and their knowledge about mental care and mental illness. Emotional restraint, fear, antipathy and sympathy were expressed in relation to patients, and this contributed to an othering of patients. The depiction of patients was used to express empathy in relation to caretakers. The study reveals that the appropriation of emotions works along sanist norms that largely contribute to a further marginalisation of patients. The paper, therefore, calls for a further examination of sanist norms in cultural heritage productions.

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“…At the same time, in this age of commemoration pressure, it is also expected that people attribute socially recognized meanings to commemorations or show indignation about historical representations (Van Nieuwenhuyse & Wils, 2012). Hence, we have to be aware of what Watson (2016) calls an 'emotional scale' (p. 75) in every culture. She argues that the past is accorded an emotional register and that the present is understood -in part -through feelings associated with events and individuals from a long time ago.…”

Section: Violating the Past Or Popularizing Violent Pastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Popular uses of violent pasts and historical thinking (Los usos populares de los pasados violentos y el razonamiento histórico)

Grever

Nieuwenhuyse

2020

Journal for the Study of Education and Development

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Historians increasingly acknowledge that popular media representing violent pasts reach large audiences, which in itself is a phenomenon worth investigating. Schoolteachers in particular experience on a daily basis the impact of popular genres on their students' ideas of history. Young people read graphic historical novels, watch quiz shows on television or on YouTube, play (video) games, post selfies on Instagram or participate in living history activities. The way they gather and process information about the past is increasingly built on popular representations they encounter outside the classroom. The articles in this special issue seek to question how popular media represent sensitive issues from violent pasts in modern history -e.g., decolonization processes, civil wars, World War I/II, the Holocaust -and under what conditions these popular media can contribute to critical historical thinking. After all, while historians and educators wonder if and how historical violence should be represented, the fact is that many popular media -particularly commercial films and video gamesactually place heroic battles and wars at the centre of their representations. Consequently, there is a likely risk of sanitizing and romanticizing violence and atrocities. RESUMENLos historiadores reconocen cada vez más que los medios populares que representan pasados violentos llegan a grandes audiencias, y esto en sí constituye un fenómeno merecedor de estudio. En particular, los educadores son testigos a diario del impacto que los géneros populares tienen sobre las ideas del alumnado acerca de la historia. Los jóvenes leen novelas históricas gráficas, ven concursos televisivos o en YouTube, juegan videojuegos, publican selfis en Instagram o participan en actividades de historia viva. La manera en que recopilan y procesan información sobre el pasado se basa cada vez más en representaciones populares fuera del aula. Los artículos de este número especial intentan cuestionar cómo los medios populares representan en la historia moderna temas delicados de los pasados violentos -e.g., los procesos de descolonización, las guerras civiles, la Primera y Segunda Guerra Mundial, el Holocausto -y en qué condiciones pueden contribuir ARTICLE HISTORY

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Why do Emotions Matter in Museums and Heritage Sites?

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Emotions and critical thinking at a dark heritage site: investigating visitors’ reactions to a First World War museum in Slovenia

Emotions and critical thinking at a dark heritage site: investigating visitors’ reactions to a First World War museum in Slovenia

Emotions in the Museum of Medicine. An investigation of how museum educators employ emotions and what these emotions do

Popular uses of violent pasts and historical thinking (Los usos populares de los pasados violentos y el razonamiento histórico)

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