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Abstract
While emotionally laden, sites of death could also be places of spiritual transformation and sacredness. In recent years, the ‘emotional’ turn in geography and tourism studies has called for more research on co-activation and the impact of mixed emotions at these places. In order to address the research gap in how negative/ambivalent emotional experiences could be negotiated, transformed, and constructed into place meaning, we report the findings from 460 questionnaires completed by visitors to one of the darkest tourism places—the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre. The obtained data were used to build a structural equation model, which aimed to examine the subtle relationship between mixed emotional experience (e.g. fear, shock, depression, appreciation) and the spiritual meaning of dark places. Findings corroborated that certain negative emotional experiences also have the potential to broaden-and-build; however, they were not able to directly broaden one’s thoughts and add meaning to life as positive emotional experiences do. Positive emotional experiences (i.e. appreciation) have a direct positive effect on spiritual meaning. In contrast, the negative emotional experience of ‘fear’ has neither a direct nor indirect impact on spiritual meaning, while sorrow, shock, and depression only indirectly create meaning through the full mediating effect of learning benefit. Our empirical results reveal how a site of death becomes meaningful from the tourist’s perspective through a particular focus on the impact of ambivalent emotional experiences in dark tourism. In this sense, the findings provide implications for maintaining attractiveness and sacredness of the darkest tourism sites as temporal distance increases.
摘要：
尽管承载着沉重的情感, 死亡和苦难纪念地也可能成为人们获得精神洗礼的神圣地方。近年来, 地理和旅游研究中的“情感转向”呼吁对黑色旅游中正负向情绪交织的体验及其效应进行更多的研究。然而, 总体而言, 黑色旅游负向/矛盾的情绪如何被协商、转化并建构神圣地方意义的研究较为薄弱。为弥补这一差距, 本研究收集了460份南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆参观者填写的问卷, 通过构建结构方程模型, 分析黑色旅游中正负向混合的情绪体验（如恐惧、震惊、压抑、感恩）如何转化为纪念地的意义, 并探究学习获益在这一过程中所扮演的角色。结果发现, 尽管负向情绪体验也可以建构起地方意义, 但无法像正向情绪体验那样直接拓宽一个人的思想并为生活增添意义。在黑色旅游情绪体验转化为地方精神意义的机制上, 正、负向情绪体验存在显著的差异。正向情绪体验（即感恩）对精神意义产生直接的积极影响。然而, “恐惧”这一负面情绪对精神意义既不产生直接影响, 也不产生间接影响, 而悲伤、震惊和压抑则只通过学习获益的完全中介效应间接地创造精神意义。本实证研究从旅游者感知这一视角切入, 通过关注黑色旅游中矛盾情绪的转化, 探究了死亡遗址地如何建构起地方意义。随着时间距离的增加, 本研究发现可以为保持黑色旅游地的吸引力和神圣性提供参考。
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in China Project of Humanities and Social Sciences [grant number 17YJC790209]; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [grant number 41801135, 41171121, 41801144 and 41871126].
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Chunhui Zheng
Chunhui Zheng, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Tourism at Guangzhou University, China. She received Ph.D. in Tourism Geography and Tourism Planning from Nanjing University. Her research interests include heritage tourism, tourists’ behaviour and tourism geography.
Jie Zhang
Jie Zhang, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Land Resources and Tourism Sciences at Nanjing University. His research interests include tourism geography, tourist flow, and Chinese calligraphic landscape.
Mengyuan Qiu
Mengyuan Qiu, PhD, is a lecturer in the Nanjing Forestry University, China. She received Ph.D. in Tourism Geography and Tourism Planning from Nanjing University. Her research interests include tourism landscape, tourists’ experience and tourism geography.
Yongrui Guo
Yongrui Guo, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of History Culture and Tourism at Jiangsu Normal University, China. He received Ph.D. in Tourism Geography and Tourism Planning from Nanjing University. His research interests include tourism community resilience, tourist flow analysis and tourism economics.
Honglei Zhang
Honglei Zhang, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Land Resource and Tourism Sciences at Nanjing University, China. He received Ph.D. in Tourism Geography and Tourism Planning from Nanjing University. His research interests include tourist behaviour and tourism geography.