The politics of spectrality in earthquake ruins
Remaking Dark Tourism in Hauntology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5761735 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Qiaoyun Zhang (0000-0001-8072-5973, Department of Social Sciences, BNU-HKBU United International College), Shuru Zhong (0000-0002-5414-7820, Sun Yat-sen University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 49-67 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Tourism Geographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1461-6688 • E-ISSN: 1470-1340 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14616688.2024.2358330 |
| OpenAlex | W4399133843 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 40 |
This study asks how specters have made disaster sites enchanting and important places of dark tourism, resonating with the history of the site and reconciling its current existence. The research is situated in Yingxiu town, the epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China. Yingxiu is filled with haunted stories of the preserved ruins, but also carefully presented to tourists as a memorial and museum space. Drawing on the framework of spectral geography and hauntology, the article analyzes how disaster ruins serve as an extended expression of multiple temporalities, a space of affects shared by different agencies. Different yet intersecting interpretations of the three kinds of specters, including the spirits of the martyrs, purified souls, and invisible lives, have co-constructed the uniqueness and powerfulness of this monumental place of great death and rebirth. The persistent negotiation and rewriting of Yingxiu as a spectral site have cultivated alternative, materialized, and evocatively affirmative representations of the part of history significant and poignant at the same time. Thus, dark tourism can function as a rite of passage and provide a liminal space for community rebuilding and the reincorporation of one's social life. Keywords: Dark tourism, ghost tourism, spectral geographies, hauntology, Wenchuan earthquake, politics of affirmation
Art · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Tourism · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior
The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies
Age of Wild Ghosts
Industrial Ruins
What Is Hauntology?
Radical Atheism
[Walking through a] ghost town
From fighting against death to commemorating the dead at Tangshan Earthquake heritage sites
Gratitude Education
Investigating the motivation–experience relationship in a dark tourism space
Benefits of visiting a ‘dark tourism’ site
Progress in dark tourism and thanatourism research
Dark tourism and significant other death
Educational dark tourism at an in populo site
The time is out of joint
Dark tourism and affect
Heritagization of disaster ruins and ethnic culture in China
The spectral geographies of W.G. Sebald
JFK and dark tourism
The Ethos of Return
Touring memories of the erased city
Consumption, motivation and experience in dark tourism
Tourists' construction of diverse identities with natural disaster dark heritage sites
Affective spaces, sensuous engagements
Spectral geographies
Knowing', Absence, and Presence
On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of place
Governing the souls of Chinese modernity
Mundane hauntings
Inhabiting Ocular Ground
Blowing in the wind? Identity, materiality, and the destinations of human ashes
Ethnography for aging societies
The ghosts of place
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |