Heritage That Hurts: Tourists in the Memoryscapes of September 11

by Joy Sather-Wagstaff

Overview

Memorial sites, sites of “dark tourism,” are vernacular spaces that are continuously negotiated, constructed, and reconstructed into meaningful places. Using the locale of the 9/11 tragedy, Joy Sather-Wagstaff explores the constructive role played by tourists in understanding social, political, and emotional impacts of a violent event that has ramifications far beyond the local population. Through in-depth interviews, photographs, graffiti, even souvenirs, she compares the 9/11 memorial with other hurtful sites—the Oklahoma City National Memorial, Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, and others—to show how tourists construct and disperse knowledge through performative activities, which make painful places salient and meaningful both individually and collectively.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781315427515
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/16/2016
Series:	Heritage, Tourism, and Community
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	243
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Sather-Wagstaff, Joy

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Memory, Space/Place, Tourism: Paradigms and Problems; Chapter 3 Unpacking “Dark” Tourism; Chapter 4 Consumption, Meaning, Commemoration; Chapter 5 Marking Memorial Spaces, Making Dialogic Memoryscapes; Chapter 6 The Material Culture of Violence and Commemoration in Public Display; Chapter 7 The Social Life of Things: Material and Visual Culture of Travel and Personal Historiography; Chapter 8 Conclusion: The Contest of Meaning and Cultures of Commemoration;

Editorial Reviews

As an anthropologist, tourist, and artist, Sather-Wagstaff investigates the traumatic events of 9/11 as a site of contested meaning. Her exercise in visual ethnography examines the various social practices of tourists in their engagement with the tangible and intangible essence of 'heritage that hurts.' This innovative study adds substantively to the evolving role of the 9/11 events and, in doing so, embarks on new methodological and theoretical approaches. Appropriately illustrated, referenced, and indexed. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most levels/libraries.”

—CHOICE

"...the book leads us to consider the fascinating question of why and how we are driven to construct and visit sites that memorialize mass death and horrific tragedy, and what uniquely human needs are fulfilled when we do so."

—Museum Magazine

From the Publisher