2020 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Uncovering the black-box of educational dark tourism: Comparative analysis of the mechanisms of packaging and perceiving of war narratives through war heritage sites between former enemies
| Project/Area Number |
18H03462
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| Research Institution | Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University |
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Principal Investigator |
吉田 香織 立命館アジア太平洋大学, アジア太平洋学部, 教授 (00550386)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
BUI ThanhHuong 立命館アジア太平洋大学, アジア太平洋学部, 准教授 (80711556)
YOUN SeungHo 立命館アジア太平洋大学, アジア太平洋学部, 准教授 (80804757)
DIMACHE ALEXANDRU 立命館アジア太平洋大学, アジア太平洋学部, 助教 (30870240)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2022-03-31
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| Keywords | war memory / educational tourism / memory studies / dark tourism / war heritage |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Research achievements in the last three years focus mainly on follow-up interviews with people at war-related heritage sites and (educational) war-related tourism, contacting with research assistant to collect war-related site visitors' comments and educational tour materials, participating data analysis workshops, updating literature review chiefly on theoretical/conceptual framework for discussing data in Asian context, and presenting research outcomes both orally at conferences and in written publications. More specifically, we achieved the following activities: 1)follow-up interviews with war-related site tourism organizers (Okinawa, Vietnam), 2)follow-up interviews with a school teacher in Fukuoka initiating educational tour, 3)follow-up interviews with former volunteer guide in war-related educational tours in Okinawa, 4)conduct fieldwork and interviews in Ookunoshima, Hiroshima, as a dark tourism site, 5)contact with research assistant in the DMZ in Vietnam to collect guest book comments for analysis in the final year of the project, 6)participating online workshops for data analysis (coding for qualitative analysis), 7)comprehensive review of literature on memories studies and history on: Vietnam War veterans from Vietnam and the U.S., as well as complexities of interpreting the Battle of Okinawa among different generations for upcoming book projects, 8)presentations of the research outcomes at various international conferences and book chapters.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Our project is considered to have been going fine overall, based on the completion of the following activities: 1)follow-up interviews with war-related site tourism organizers, a school teacher organizing educational dark tour, and former volunteer guide in war-related educational tours, to fill in some missing pieces, 2)fieldwork to lead to further research potentials related dark tourism, 3)collecting guest book comments for analysis, assisted by data analysis workshops, 4)comprehensive review of literature to incorporate or rearrange to update data interpretation, 5)presentations of the research outcomes orally and in a written form. In addition, on-going writings include: 1)a manuscript titled "Social Representations in Battlefield Tourism for submission" for Annals of Tourism Research" by H.Bui, K.Yoshida, D.Weaver(co-author); 2)a manuscript titled "Dark tourism revisitation: Evidence from Vietnam War Heritage" for International Journal of Tourism Research by H.Bui, P.M. Ngo(co-author), K.Yoshida; 3)a manuscript titled "Visitor experiences at the site of the Vietnam War" for Tourism Geographies by H.Bui, P.M. Ngo(co-author), K.Yoshida.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Our research approaches and direction, as well as our interpretations of the collected data, have been oriented in the (Western) concept of dark tourism. However, the results we have achieved so far indicate the need and potential of articulating a more appropriate approach or concept critical of dark tourism, in order to interpret and explain experiences of war-related tourism in Asian contexts. Therefore, we plan to (re)establish the interpretation of dark tourism and educational war tourism, by reinterpreting contents and interviews with relevant stakeholders at war-related tourism sites, and young generations' (school children) responses at the sites. We will also expand our perspective on educational war tourism, by examining how war memories among young generations are constructed along with various representations of wars they encounter, through collaborating closer to school teachers to collect more students' tour reports.
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Research Products
(10 results)
