Guest Editors: Eleonora Federici (University of Ferrara) and Marilena Parlati (University of
Padova)
From the European South invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to exploring dark tourism in colonial, postcolonial and decolonial contexts, with a particular focus on the role literature, language, museum culture and storytelling in general may have in representing, but also cordoning off, global topographies of suffering, such as sites of catastrophes, genocide, environmental change and neocolonial exploitation. The editors of this issue aim to critically examine the complex relationships between dark tourism and colonial legacies, postcolonial realities and imagined communities, and also the possibilities entailed by decolonization processes. We specifically seek contributions that analyze how dark tourism sites are experienced, consumed and represented, especially in relation to the Global South.
With reference to publications about dark tourism (Lennon and Foley, Dark Tourism, the Attraction of Death and Disaster 2000; Sion, Death Tourism Disaster as Recreational Landscape 2014), we wish to analyse how sites associated with death and disaster (assassination, slavery, genocide, war, tragic events) become tourist attractions. Linguistic, visual and multimodal elements help to create a representation of these sites as places of memory, education, but also, quite controversially, leisure.
We are also interested in the ways in which the consumption of ‘shadow zones’ shapes these processes, both in the present and in a future-oriented perspective. We are aware that no singling out of ‘one’ memory is less than intensely debatable, since any past idea about national memory as cohesive and intrinsic has luckily often – although not everywhere – been dismantled. Thus, we would also welcome papers that help usher in discussions on the risk that memory sites (dark, in particular) may serve to reinforce overpowering ‘invented traditions’ and monolingual master narratives (see Derrida, The Monolingualism of the Other 1998).
We suggest a few potential areas of focus which include, but are not limited to:
● The influence of literature on the experience, interpretation and discursive
representation of dark tourism sites
● The impact of colonial and postcolonial literatures on dark tourism site representation
and vice versa
● The role of fiction and non-fiction in shaping visitor expectations and experiences
● Written narratives, on-site storytelling, multi-format (including digital) narratives in
dark tourism
● Digital consumption of dark tourism places: virtual tours and social media
representations
● Linguistic and multimodal strategies in tourism texts (on site texts; leaflets,
brochures, websites, blogs, social media)
● The role of art and tourism discourse in commemorating and interpreting sites of
trauma, also in relation to reconciliation processes
● Resistance, resurgence and/or reconciliation in dark tourism sites: mapping
topographies of suffering in colonial and postcolonial contexts
● Tourism and postcolonial memory: the commodification of traumatic pasts, and the
role of dark tourism in (postcolonial) nation-building and place branding
● Indigenous tourism and dark sites: negotiating consumption, sacredness, and
resistance
● Shadow zones: Conflicting narratives and dissonant memories in colonial,
postcolonial, decolonial dark tourism sites
● ‘Authenticity’ and staged experiences in colonial/postcolonial/neocolonial dark
tourism sites
● Intergenerational transmission of guilt, shame, and responsibility through dark
tourism
● Dissonant memories: managing, re-presenting, revisiting conflicting historical
narratives
● Indigenous cosmologies and their integration in (or exclusion from) dark tourism
narratives
We welcome contributions from various disciplines, including but not limited to: anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, geography, history, literary studies, media studies, museum and heritage studies, philosophy, political science, postcolonial studies, religious studies, sociolinguistics, sociology, translation studies, tourism studies, urban planning.
Please submit your abstract (500 words) and a brief bionote by Wednesday 1 October 2025 to both Eleonora Federici (eleonora.federici@unife.it) and Marilena Parlati (marilena.parlati@unipd.it).
Notification of acceptance will be communicated by Monday 1 December 2025, with completed papers due 1 March 2026.
FES 19 will be published in Fall 2026.