About this Research Topic
Dark tourism (DT), also known as thanatourism, is a sector of the tourism industry where tourists travel to visit sites of human death and suffering caused by human and/or environmentally induced events. Experiences are vast and can include visits to dungeons, cemeteries, battlefields, former notorious prisons, shrines, as well as sites of genocide, atrocity, and catastrophe. Tourists' motivations to visit are equally vast and can include feelings of simple curiosity, empathy, moral duty, and remembrance, as well as a fascination with death and violence. While most tourism studies have focused on the human perspective of DT, more recent studies have linked the death and suffering of non-human animals used in tourism with notions of DT experiences. This Research Topic seeks to explore issues of ethics and morality related to the use of non-human animals from a DT perspective.
A review of the literature reveals that dark tourism is mostly explored from a human-animal perspective (Fennell, et al., 2021). This Research Topic will broaden the current anthropocentric research focus on dark tourism attractions and experiences to include non-human animals. Specifically, we seek to gather a collection of papers that explore and apply a prototype of non-human animals as dark tourism attractions and experiences, as first proposed by Fennell et al. (2021). This prototype encompasses three main categories (characteristics of animal suffering and death; the subjective and normative nature of animal-human relationships leading to suffering and death; and, the tourism industry's supply of and the tourists' demand for such attractions and experiences). Papers will further develop this prototype by linking it to a foundation of ethical and moral considerations (anthropocentrism, contractarianism, ecocentrism, utilitarianism, ecofeminism and care ethics, post-humanism, rights, and welfare), particularly as it relates to theories of animal ethics.
We invite papers that explore these issues in the following areas:
- Theories of primary and animal ethics (eg. anthropocentric, contractarianism, ecocentrism, welfare, utilitarianism, ecofeminism/care ethics, rights, posthumanism);
- Status & Setting (eg. dead and/or captive live animals in built, semi-built, and wild settings);
- Sources of suffering/death (eg. natural, unknown, human, and/or environmentally induced);
- Role of animals (eg. part of nature, pest, worker, competitor, entertainment, education, science & research, spirituality, Indigenous perspectives, companionship, other);
-Temporal period (prehistoric, historic, contemporary, or combination of);
- The scale of suffering and/or death (individual, population, community, ecosystem);
- Tourist attitudes toward animals (scientific, humanistic, moralistic);
- Dark tourism products/supply/demand
- Other related themes
A review of the literature reveals that dark tourism is mostly explored from a human-animal perspective (Fennell, et al., 2021). This Research Topic will broaden the current anthropocentric research focus on dark tourism attractions and experiences to include non-human animals. Specifically, we seek to gather a collection of papers that explore and apply a prototype of non-human animals as dark tourism attractions and experiences, as first proposed by Fennell et al. (2021). This prototype encompasses three main categories (characteristics of animal suffering and death; the subjective and normative nature of animal-human relationships leading to suffering and death; and, the tourism industry's supply of and the tourists' demand for such attractions and experiences). Papers will further develop this prototype by linking it to a foundation of ethical and moral considerations (anthropocentrism, contractarianism, ecocentrism, utilitarianism, ecofeminism and care ethics, post-humanism, rights, and welfare), particularly as it relates to theories of animal ethics.
We invite papers that explore these issues in the following areas:
- Theories of primary and animal ethics (eg. anthropocentric, contractarianism, ecocentrism, welfare, utilitarianism, ecofeminism/care ethics, rights, posthumanism);
- Status & Setting (eg. dead and/or captive live animals in built, semi-built, and wild settings);
- Sources of suffering/death (eg. natural, unknown, human, and/or environmentally induced);
- Role of animals (eg. part of nature, pest, worker, competitor, entertainment, education, science & research, spirituality, Indigenous perspectives, companionship, other);
-Temporal period (prehistoric, historic, contemporary, or combination of);
- The scale of suffering and/or death (individual, population, community, ecosystem);
- Tourist attitudes toward animals (scientific, humanistic, moralistic);
- Dark tourism products/supply/demand
- Other related themes
Keywords: dark tourism, non-human animals, ethics, morality, thanatourism, animals
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
