A palimpsestic analysis of atmospheres at dark tourism

Adopting a documented introspective perspective, this paper explores the nature and meaning of felt atmospheres at a site of darkest tourism - a former concentration camp. It uses the concept of the palimpsest (a metaphorization of memory and a process of historical layering) as an enabling framework. It draws on a hauntological methodology involving a walk through the camp. It illuminates the various atmospheres attached to the multiple spaces within the camp. In so doing it explores such experiences as disorientation, haunted images and objects, ghost graffiti, silence and emptiness, and absence and presence. Our approach and findings align with the growing field of emotional tourism - a politics of feeling, that sits within the lexicon of critical tourism studies