The first things that this article made me realize is that I have actually participated in quite a lot of dark tourism. Yankovska and Hannam’s use of the term ‘ghost town’ struck me, because I have specifically toured ghost towns in the Southwest with my family. Most of them follow the same general narrative – a mineral or metal was found, a mining community built up, the mineral was mined out, the mine closed, and the people left. Some ghost towns we visited had people living off the tourism, but others were truly abandoned. Rather than focus on the technological failure that Chernobyl embodies, these ghost towns represent the death of civilization because our technology works too well to fulfill our capitalist needs.
Another experience I’ve had with dark tourism took place while my sister and I were visiting Berlin in our teens—we were having lunch with one of my mom’s friends when we mentioned we were going to visit the graves of the Grimm brothers. My mother’s friend informed us that her husband was buried at the same graveyard. My sister and I were immediately contrite, uncomfortable in how we had conceptualized a space as a fun tourist destination, when in reality, it had a concrete impact on someone’s life. My sister and I knew how difficult the husband’s death had been on my mother’s friend and her son, and we felt we trivialized that pain in our quest for a cultural and historical experience. I’m sure I could tie that feeling to the toxic tourism in Chernobyl, in that visceral gut reaction of disgust regarding anyone who would participate.
Though the article does not engage with it, I found several implicit mentions of exploitation in the concept of Chernobyl tourism. The economic position of the tour guides combined with the assumed wealth of the tourists puts the tour guides in a very uncomfortable position. They have to present their pain and loss to the tourists who exploit it either for a thrill or for pity. The article mentions ‘environmental tourism,’ a specific form of tourism that I think is especially ripe for exploitation. The bourgeoisie is able to visit spaces of environmental and social degradation, imagine the catastrophe, and then leave, providing little economic or social compensation for those who must remain behind.
(photos pilfered from my sister’s facebook)