IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/anture/v116y2026ics0160738325002087.html

Social interaction and dark tourism in prison museums

Author

Listed:
  • Ironside, Rachael
  • Wyatt, Brianna
  • Wight, Craig
  • Roitershtein, Alona
  • Lehn, Dirk vom

Abstract

This study explores how prison tourism experiences are co-constructed through situated visitor interactions. Penal heritage sites are decommissioned prisons, transformed into immersive educational attractions, drawing upon multiple interpretative practices to engage visitors with historic and contemporary issues of crime and punishment. Using ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA), this research examines how gestures, talk, gaze and bodily position influence how visitors see, interpret, and emotionally negotiate difficult heritage. Findings reveal that visitors co-produce dark tourism experiences and negotiate the perceived darkness of sites through embodied practice. Situating visitors as active social agents, this study provides insights into the co-construction of dark tourism experiences, emphasising interpretation as an emergent process shaped by interaction rather than predetermined by site design or individual motivation.

Suggested Citation

  • Ironside, Rachael & Wyatt, Brianna & Wight, Craig & Roitershtein, Alona & Lehn, Dirk vom, 2026. "Social interaction and dark tourism in prison museums," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:anture:v:116:y:2026:i:c:s0160738325002087
    DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2025.104102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738325002087
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.annals.2025.104102?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:anture:v:116:y:2026:i:c:s0160738325002087. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/annals-of-tourism-research/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.