Heritage sites and schoolchildren: insights from the Battle of the Boyne

Quinn, Bernadette; Roche, Dervilia

doi:10.1080/1743873x.2016.1201086

Cited by 10 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…To illustrate, Bowman and Pezzullo (2010) and Carr (2011) observed young tourists playing war at battlefields and abandoned bunkers. Similarly, Roche and Quinn (2017) watched young adolescents play on the structures and rubble of former battlefields. Yet, youthful play may provoke censure by adult critics.…”

Section: Dark Tourism and The Complexities Of Young Touristsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this context, dark tourism sites offer online activities, videos and readings (e.g. the U.S. Smithsonian Latino Center’s Theatre of the Dead and the Greenwich, UK Royal Museum’s Death in the Museum Trail) – an influence documented by Roche and Quinn (2017), who note that a site’s media and social media images inform pre-teens’ preconceptions of dark tourism.…”

Section: Preparation For a Visitmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In summary, dark tourism researchers have yet to explore how, when and where young tourists learn about dark sites or events, even though these prior messages may be more influential than the site itself (Roche and Quinn, 2017). As a starting point, researchers might consider comments young tourists record on social media and visitor book pages (Kerr et al, 2017b).…”

Section: Preparation For a Visitmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Young tourists’ experiences at dark tourism sites: Towards a conceptual framework

2020

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While dark tourism aimed at adults reminds them of past tragic fights, faults and follies, thousands of children and youth also consume inherent memorial messages at dark tourism sites. This paper addresses these unnoticed childhood encounters, about which scholarly discourse remains conspicuously silent. At present, dark tourism research focuses almost exclusively on adults and does not adequately explain young tourists’ experiences. How children experience dark tourism sites has much to do with their understanding of death. Because younger children may not possess an adult-like knowledge of death, they are unable to experience a site as dark. Other theoretical disparities include children’s limited agency in choosing their destinations and their unique and often playful exploration of dark places. To address the inadequacy of current dark tourism conceptualisations, we propose a new framework to encourage scholarly interrogation of children’s experiences at dark tourism sites. Drawing from multiple sources including archival studies and original research with youth, we offer a rationale for considering four major, intersecting influences on a young tourist’s experience: understanding of death, visit preparation (at home or in school), site and interpretation features and dynamics of the specific visit (e.g. group membership, norms and itinerary). Ultimately, this paper uncovers potential research avenues to bring children’s perspectives and experiences to the core of dark tourism research.

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Section: Dark Tourism and The Complexities Of Young Touristsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Preparation For a Visitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Preparation For a Visitmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Young tourists’ experiences at dark tourism sites: Towards a conceptual framework

2020

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“…On the other hand, young children such as those portrayed in the photograph lack agency to choose their travel destinations. They may seek different ways to explore a memorial, as several authors have observed (Kerr & Price, in press;Bowman & Pezzullo, 2010;Carr, 2010;Khoo-Lattimore, 2015;Knudsen, 2011;Roche & Quinn, 2016;Sutcliffe & Kim, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently interviewing children who visited heritage sites in Ireland, Roche and Quinn (2016) found that children most fondly remembered those sites where they could "run around and climb a lot" (p. 7). Such play behavior gave rise to the debate we analyzed in social media.…”

Section: Children's Play At War Memorials and Other Dark Heritage Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child’s play at war memorials: insights from a social media debate

Price

Kerr

2017

Journal of Heritage Tourism

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Each year, thousands of children visit memorials and other heritage sites during family or school trips, yet heritage scholars possess little understanding of their experiences. Despite its absence from the scholarly literature, children's exploratory play at war memorials recurs frequently in the popular media. Extensive social media interest suggests that public sentiment, often emotional and vividly expressed, deserves study as a potential influence on children's experiences at these and other dark heritage sites. This paper provides new insights of behavioral expectations for children at memorials, based on content analysis of 150 comments on a viral social media post picturing children playing on the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington DC. Conducting a stance analysis of comments, we considered commenters' behavioral expectations, meanings they ascribed to memorials, and rationales for their intensely worded positions. Commenters shared several values: that memorials represented soldiers' sacrifice, veterans' service, general places for respect or to do what is right, or artistic value. Yet despite these shared rationales, many commenters expressed polarized opinions of children's play at memorials. Commenters also referenced memorials and battlefields worldwide. This study provides greater understanding of the cultural context of children's visits to memorials and other sites of painful heritage.

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