shown by some tourist attractions, where visitors
brings us to the third aspect of this contribution.
can train to virtually shoot down the enemy. In
some post-conflict situations, however, objectives
of reconciliation can shape the development of
remembrance tourism policies, as in Nothern
Ireland, Rwanda (Dumas, Korman, 2011) or in the
Balkans. For example, Causevic and Lynch have
shown that some tourist guides in Mostar or Sarajevo
wish to transmit messages of peace.
Studies raise the question of “counter-
memories” and resistance to dominant discourses
through remembrance tourism. In many countries,
activists develop alternative forms of tourism, where
mediation activities or itinaries connect places of
memory of minorities or invisibilized communities
3/ Places of memory and
tourists’ contributions: There
has been a growing body of
work on tourism practices, visits
and experiences. Many of them
seek to understand the role of
the place visit in the re-memory
process.
Researchers question the notion of collective
in the public space. Again the case of Israel memory (Halbwachs, 1950) by examining the
illustrates it, when Israeli NGOs propose alternative collective and individual practices that take place
“political tours” including destroyed Palestinian in places built and arranged to honor the dead
villages (mostly followed by foreign travelers). In and recall painful events. Practices of mourning,
France, the promotion of a State remembrance commemoration, and homage to the dead often lead
tourism policy (“tourisme de mémoire”) has to long journeys for survivors, veterans, and relatives
been criticized by those who have seen it as the of soldiers or victims of deportations or massacres.
expression of a national, dominant and official Distance and remoteness have been inherent in
conception, concealing the “plurality of memories” the birth of remembrance tourism, as shown by
of conflicts (in particular those of the “dominated” many historians. After the First War, because most
or the “voiceless” such as colonial soldiers, women, of the dead were buried on the battlefields and
etc). Thus during the 2000s, in a political – and not repatriated to their homeland, mourning and
academic – context marked by the challenges of homage to the dead was part of relatively long travel
“postcolonialism” and the new imperatives of practices for veterans and relatives. In Verdun or on
minority recognition, the notion of “tourisme des American necropole sites, “pilgrim hostels” were
mémoires” had been promoted by some activists, in built in order to welcome visitors from far away.
a clearly decolonial perspective. While many monuments and memorials were built
Expression of an official- or a counter-
in the countries of the belligerants nations, the
memory, tourism development appears to be one international dimension of conflicts during the 20th
of the modalities of exposing public narratives century (WWI and WWII, colonial wars, Cold War…),
about the past, yet in response to present or future explains the expansion of these long journeys to the
challenges. How tourism relates to places of memory battlefields and memorials often located abroad. The
shows the political dimension of tourism. How power dispersion of Jewish communities throughout the
struggles for space interact with conflicting memory world following the Shoah has led to international
in tourism development could be an interesting journey practices to the concentration camps located
perpective for further research. The “destination” in Europe.
making/invention gather different categories of
These journeys’ practices have different
stakeholders, at different levels of scales, who don’t temporalities. WWI remembrance tourism on the
necesseraly share the same conception of space and battlefields declined after the Second World War,
time – starting with the visitors themselves, which before undergoing a strong renewal from the 1990s
12
Observing Memories
ISSUE 3