Dark tourism: a school visit to Flanders
Keywords:
war, catharsis, teenage bereavement, art, poetry, pet lossAbstract
AbstractNeither dark tourism nor bereavement research have examined how visits to sites of death and suffering (‘dark tourism’) can intersect with grief for deaths unrelated to the site. This autobiographical account by an undergraduate student recounts how a school visit to Flanders prompted a cathartic healing of her grief for a personal friend who had died some months earlier. Powerful and healing emotions were experienced not only at battlefields and cemeteries, but also in her encounters with soldiers’ art and poetry.
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