Abstract

During the thirty-year period (1968–1998) known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, 3500 people died and thousands more suffered physical disabilities and psychological trauma. Belfast, among other conflict cities, helped inspire the term ‘dark tourism’ in 1989. The country continues to be in conflict but is officially in a period of peace. Northern Ireland has been the theme for much peace and reconciliation research, but literature to date concentrates on polarised discourses rather than rural representation. Toward meeting and expanding the UN SDG16 peace goals, this research explores how what we term emotive peace tourism can be used as a methodology to affect emotional reconciliation registers in a unique rural Northern Ireland visitor experience. Bringing domestic tourists from Catholic and Protestant communities into face-to-face contact through a liminal participative ‘out-of-place’ visitor experience, we choreographed and performed a series of “Troubles” events: a guided night walk through a checkpoint, an IRA Wake, a UDA Funeral, and a Mixed-Marriage. Contributing to the debate as to whether tourism is more of a ‘peacekeeper’ than a ‘peacemaker’, our research demonstrates that an in situ liminal, emotive peace tourism experience, can generate sustainable tolerance, respect, trust, sympathy, and empathy towards others in post-conflict Northern Ireland and likely elsewhere.

摘要

在被称为北爱尔兰麻烦的三十年期间（1968-1998），3500 人死亡，数千人遭受身体残疾和心理创伤。贝尔法斯特和其他冲突城市在 1989 年帮助激发了“黑暗旅游”一词。该国继续处于冲突之中，但正式处于和平时期。北爱尔兰一直是许多和平与和解研究的主题，但迄今为止的文献集中在两极分化的话语上，而不是农村代表。为实现和扩展联合国 SDG16 和平目标，本研究探讨了我们所说的情感和平旅游如何作为一种方法来影响独特的北爱尔兰乡村游客体验中的情感和解登记。通过有限的参与式“异地”游客体验，让来自天主教和新教社区的国内游客面对面接触，我们编排并执行了一系列“麻烦”活动：引导夜间步行通过检查站， IRA 唤醒、UDA 葬礼和混合婚姻。我们的研究促成了关于旅游业是否更像是“维和者”而不是“和平缔造者”的辩论，我们的研究表明，就地阈限，情感和平旅游体验，可以产生可持续的宽容，尊重，信任，同情和对冲突后北爱尔兰和可能其他地方的其他人的同情。