Heritage That Hurts

Memorial sites, sites of “dark tourism,” are vernacular spaces that are continuously negotiated, constructed, and reconstructed into meaningful places. Using the locale of the 9/11 tragedy, Joy Sather-Wagstaff explores the constructive role played by tourists in understanding social, political, and emotional impacts of a violent event that has ramifications far beyond the local population. Through in-depth interviews, photographs, graffiti, even souvenirs, she compares the 9/11 memorial with other hurtful sites—the Oklahoma City National Memorial, Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, and others—to show how tourists construct and disperse knowledge through performative activities, which make painful places salient and meaningful both individually and collectively.