Chernobyl, Fukushima… Why do we feel the sick need to visit these places of tragedy?

The phenomenon is as old as the world. Already in Roman times, funeral games excited the crowd. Like the executions afterwards. The condemned were tortured, burned alive, beaten, hanged or guillotined in front of an audience. The last avatar, and no less profitable than this fascination with death. “Dark tourism”. This “macabre tourism” consists of traveling to visit places closely associated with suffering or disaster. It has spread recently thanks to some Netflix series and the sensationalism cultivated by social networks. But how to explain this morbid curiosity, this need to see with our own eyes where others have experienced the worst?

“Man has always been fascinated by death. And for good reason, when he is born, he has only one certainty: he will die. However, he does not know the cause and date of his death.,” explains Violen-Patricia Galbert, a psychologist who specializes in the management of post-traumatic stress disorder. Two unknowns that drive him throughout his life to fantasize, fantasize, graze, observe and dramatize his own death. By visiting, for example, places that are associated with it. “It is a way to scare you, to put yourself in the script of the movie, but to imagine yourself “fake”. how could I escape the dead in this situation?“, the professional informs.

Surviving the death of JFK

In the Colombian city of Medellin, tour operators offering to uncover the past of murderer and drug lord Pablo Escobar are flourishing. Sulfur sales point.Learn the true, painful and bloody story of a drug lord. […] Come visit his grave“. It always blooms. In Dallas, some tour operators sell a tour “JFK Assassination Highlights:“. “Learn about the events and storylines of this historic day“, they announce on their website. The slums of Rio in Brazil or Johannesburg in South Africa are also popular with tour operators. Customers are guided through the alleys of the favelas. Some will even sign to sleep, there, in the heart of misery.

Many tourists in Latvia are drawn to spend a night at the former military prison in Karosta and treat themselves to the experience of a prisoner throughout the experience. “It has become a market in itself, new places are opening every year“, – says photographer Ambroise Tézenas, the author of the book Tourism., published in Actes Sud. Some don’t even bother with content anymore. “The walk, reminiscent of, for example, the trail of JFK’s assassination, is surreal. Apart from the cross, there is almost nothing to see“, he describes.

These sites of suffering provide an opportunity for tourists to empathize with the victims before returning to the cozy cocoon of their everyday lives.

Dr Philip Stone, Director of the BBC’s Dark Tourism Research Institute

A phenomenon that is still fueled by cinema. “Interest in organized crime, gangsters, “Cosa Nostra” is associated with Hollywood films, which gave them a certain aura.“, – describes economist and mafia specialist Clotilde Champeiras. The emergence of streaming platforms and the boom in social networks also explain this boom. Chernobyl is a textbook case. If the Ukrainian nuclear power plant has always been one of the main directions.dark tourism“, line Chernobyl, which repeats the disaster, pushed him straight to the top of the podium. When it was released, bookings increased by more than 40%, according to Reuters. Many then went there from their Instagram post to testify about being there.

Mise en abyme. The documentary series on “Dark Tourism” was produced by the Netflix platform itself. At the Khmer Rouge Genocide Museum in Cambodia, a visitor carved on a wall “i was here” (I Was Here): Narcissistic Behavior Violen-Patricia Galbert Regrets.”Once the consumer has felt their emotions, there is nothing left– he laments. When asked by the BBC, Dr. Philip Stone, director of the Black Tourism Research Institute, also sums it up.The sites of suffering provide an opportunity for tourists to empathize with the victims before returning to the cozy cocoon of their everyday lives.“.

Where does the duty to remember end, where does voyeurism begin?

But then, what is the difference between sites of memory that invoke history and those that serve only unhealthy voyeurism? ““Dark tourism” aims to be sensational and emotional, where memory tourism promotes homage– highlights Violen-Patricia Galbert. “When you visit Auschwitz, the message is: see what humanity is capable of. Understand how we got here and let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again“. Entrance to the camp is also free (except for guides).

On the other hand, when a Sicilian agency in 2017 offered to take a photo of you with a butcher knife in your hand, wearing an apron with the image of the godfather, all this was written in the background “long live Cosa nostra!“, “we are rather on an ambiguous proposition that shreds the mafia“, – describes Clotilde Champeirache. The Italian political reaction to this proposal was also very strong, so much so that the agency in question immediately changed its proposal. Instead of glorifying the mafia by returning to the birthplaces of its bosses, it now offers an educational tour of cooperatives seized from criminal organizations.