CfP Special Issue on Heritage and Dark Tourism

[Waleed Hazbun]

Begin forwarded message:
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> From: "Isaac, Rami" <Isa...@buas.nl>
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> I am very pleased to announce the Special Issue entitled ‘Heritage and Dark Tourism’,Journal of Heritage Tourism.
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> Call for Papers
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> Special Issue, Journal of Heritage Tourism
> ‘HERITAGE AND DARK TOURISM’
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> Guest editor: Rami K. Isaac
> Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport
> Breda University of Applied Sciences
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> Dark tourism (Foley & Lennon, 1996) and thanatourism (Seaton, 1996) involve traveling to sites associated with death, atrocities and other manifestations of human suffering. Dark tourism is now a well-established research field in which scholars examine a diverse range of death and atrocities-related topics and tourist-experience studies. As a rigorous academic field, dark tourism is still relatively young. In spite of the recent increasing number of research papers on the topic, much of the literature remains supply-side focused, especially as regards terminology and definitions of dark tourism, which provide little clarity or consent on the core of this unique form of tourism (Ashworth & Isaac, 2015; Hartmann, 2014). Studies on dark tourism have tended to focus on three main angles: the demand side, the supply side, or sometimes taking a more holistic view, examining both demand and supply of darkness. Some studies have accentuated the diversity and variety of dark sites, focusing on defining and classifying dark tourism manifestations based on the attributes of the sites (Kang et al., 2012).Miles (2002) distinguishes between dark, darker and darkest sites, and Stone (2006) proposes a spectrum of darkness ranging from lightest to darkest. Visits to dark tourism locations have been theorised and studied under wider frameworks, such as heritage tourism (Poria, Butler, & Airey, 2003), dissonant heritage tourism (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996), unwanted heritage (Isaac & Budryte, 2015), and pilgrimage (Belhassen & Santos, 2006), and they have been scrutinized from an interpretative standpoint (Uzzell & Ballantyne, 1998). Calls for more visitor-oriented research have resulted in studies that focus on the question of tourist motivations to visit dark sites (Stone & Sharpley, 2008; Hyde & Harman, 2011). Only a handful of studies have examined onsite tourist experiences. Most research on the motivations and experiences of dark tourism does not adequately leverage empirical data but rather is so far based largely on conceptual frameworks (Isaac & Çakmak, 2014). Isaac and Çakmak (2014, p. 176) point out that “conceptualisation should be based upon the links between site attributes and reasons why tourists visit the site”.
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> This special issue aims to encourage and advance theoretical, conceptual, and empirical research on heritage and dark tourism. Some indicative but not exhaustive themes for papers in the context of Heritage and Dark Tourism are:
> · Experience of emotions (positive and negative) at ‘dark’ sites
> · Mobile digital technologies and social media in ‘dark’ tourist experiences
> · Innovation in the design of ‘dark’ tourist experiences
> · Attributes of a ‘dark’ tourism site and motivations
> · De-marketing visitor demand to ‘dark’ sites
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> Submission:
> Abstracts of 300 words, which contribute to understanding Heritage and Dark Tourism, are required no later than July 1, 2019. Please submit your abstract to Dr. Rami K. Isaac: Isa...@buas.nl
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> Notification of outcome will be provided by July 10, 2019
> Submission of full manuscripts February 28, 2020
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> __________________________________________
> Dr Rami K. ISAAC
> Senior Lecturer in Tourism
> http://nhtv.academia.edu/RamiIsaac
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rami_Isaac
> https://www.cstt.nl/Staff/Rami-Isaac/19
>