Dark tourism is about more than a simple fascination with death, it is also a powerful lens that ... more Dark tourism is about more than a simple fascination with death, it is also a powerful lens that allows contemporary life and death to be witnessed and relationships with broader societies and culture recognized (Stone, 2013; Allman, 2017). Information about disasters and their effects to the human being draws attention to the people whoever interested to death and disaster and play very important role to attract and motivate the visitors to those places. So far, disaster tourism is also popular as dark tourism because historical and cultural identity is devasted and violent death of a large number of people occurs in the seismic memorial sites. Individuals who are participating in disaster tour are very much curious to see the impact of disaster. This article focuses on Dark Tourism: A Preliminary Study of Barpak and Langtang as Seismic Memorial Site of Nepal. Barpak was the epic entre of earthquake 2015 which caused huge suffering in the western and middle part of Nepal. Langtang ...
Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Education, 2021
A unique and increasingly pervasive feature within the tourism landscapes in the post-modern worl... more A unique and increasingly pervasive feature within the tourism landscapes in the post-modern world is the special interests of tourists in death and anything associated with death. It is often believed that those who indulge in death and disaster site tours could potentially awaken their spiritual journey. The visitor immersions, in the spaces of death, and the events that have taken place or are re-created, triggers social conscience, or some shared emotion or an experience of involvement, with the death event. Reckoning to this facet, Pashupatinath temple- a place of pilgrimage for the followers of Santana Vedic religion which shows the comprehensive aspect of Hindu death rituals, symbols and processes has been chosen. The study proposes the site as a dark tourism destination and explores the convergence of cultural heritage site, pilgrimage and death rituals in the area that is associated with its characterization- particularly with reference to the witnessing of live open pyre b...
On 25th April 2015 at 11:56 am local time, a devastating earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter ... more On 25th April 2015 at 11:56 am local time, a devastating earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale shook Nepal. It is considered as one of the most fatal disasters in Nepal, ensuing aft restocks; avalanches and landslides triggered in the aftermath killed over 9,000 people. The most damage occurred when the earthquake triggered a destructive avalanche composed of ice, snow and soil, burying the entire Langtang village- a huge settlement of the popular adventure tourism destination of Nepal and killing at least 253 people. This study envisions to explore the scopes of special-interest dark (thanatology) tourism in the post-disaster scene, and it is used as a vehicle for self-reflection and education. This paper also explores the tourism prototype for an adventure tourism destination that has been severely impacted by a disaster. The paper adapts sociological theory, experience, and participant observation to complete a vanity ethnographic study of a “post-disaster tour” in the La...
This paper is a treatise on how citizen diplomacy between Nepal and China could be leveraged by a... more This paper is a treatise on how citizen diplomacy between Nepal and China could be leveraged by adapting tourism industry as a track two intermediary sector. Believing that the apparent insufficiencies and repudiation created during inter-governmental deliberation through track-one diplomacy could be enhanced through track-two diplomacy as an effective measure, this paper attempts to recognize the role of tourism industry in establishing alternative political channel of communication which pulls the cooperation of track one decision-making that benefits people of Nepal and China. Both nations can draw strength from the diversity that prevails irrespective of uneven size, power potential, historical complexes and different speed in the development. This paper also tries to address the gap in the academic arguments regarding the conceptualization, essence, and practicability of citizen diplomacy in foreign policy processes and explores multiple micro-level themes and actors enhancing ...
Dark tourism is a youngest subset of tourism, introduced only in 1990s. It is a multifaceted and ... more Dark tourism is a youngest subset of tourism, introduced only in 1990s. It is a multifaceted and diverse phenomenon. Dark tourism studies carried out in the Western countries succinctly portrays dark tourism as a study of history and heritage, tourism and tragedies. Dark tourism has been identified as niche or special interest tourism. This paper highlights how dark tourism has been theoretically conceptualized in previous studies. As an umbrella concept dark tourism includes than tourism, blackspot tourism, morbid tourism, disaster tourism, conflict tourism, dissonant heritage tourism and others. This paper examines how dark tourism as a distinct form of tourism came into existence in the tourism academia and how it could be understood as a separate subset of tourism in better way. Basically, this study focuses on deathscapes, repressed sadism, commercialization of grief, commoditization of death, dartainment, blackpackers, darsumers and deathseekers capitalism. This study generate...
Barpak is one of the largest and self-reliant villages of Nepal, situated at an altitude of 1900m... more Barpak is one of the largest and self-reliant villages of Nepal, situated at an altitude of 1900m of Gorkha district the village is popularly known for home-stay based tourism destination in the mountainous region of Nepal. At present, Barpak has been garnering attention as epicenter of Earthquake 2015. The earthquake transformed the former traditional homogeneous architectural attraction into seeming architectural repulsion. There is confusion among the locals about their identity that was predominantly related with their homogeneity. There is an upsurge of cognitive dissonance and locals see the present context as tourism impossibility and are quite hopeless about post-disaster tourism development. This article adapts synchronic approach to highlight the tourism dynamics of Barpak in the aftermath by contemplating on the fact that disaster-led repulsion could be turned into attraction via an alternative paradigm. Developing both dark and non-dark (leisure) attractions that include...
Dark tourism is about more than a simple fascination with death, it is also a powerful lens that ... more Dark tourism is about more than a simple fascination with death, it is also a powerful lens that allows contemporary life and death to be witnessed and relationships with broader societies and culture recognized (Stone, 2013; Allman, 2017). Information about disasters and their effects to the human being draws attention to the people whoever interested to death and disaster and play very important role to attract and motivate the visitors to those places. So far, disaster tourism is also popular as dark tourism because historical and cultural identity is devasted and violent death of a large number of people occurs in the seismic memorial sites. Individuals who are participating in disaster tour are very much curious to see the impact of disaster. This article focuses on Dark Tourism: A Preliminary Study of Barpak and Langtang as Seismic Memorial Site of Nepal. Barpak was the epic entre of earthquake 2015 which caused huge suffering in the western and middle part of Nepal. Langtang ...
Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Education, 2021
A unique and increasingly pervasive feature within the tourism landscapes in the post-modern worl... more A unique and increasingly pervasive feature within the tourism landscapes in the post-modern world is the special interests of tourists in death and anything associated with death. It is often believed that those who indulge in death and disaster site tours could potentially awaken their spiritual journey. The visitor immersions, in the spaces of death, and the events that have taken place or are re-created, triggers social conscience, or some shared emotion or an experience of involvement, with the death event. Reckoning to this facet, Pashupatinath temple- a place of pilgrimage for the followers of Santana Vedic religion which shows the comprehensive aspect of Hindu death rituals, symbols and processes has been chosen. The study proposes the site as a dark tourism destination and explores the convergence of cultural heritage site, pilgrimage and death rituals in the area that is associated with its characterization- particularly with reference to the witnessing of live open pyre b...
On 25th April 2015 at 11:56 am local time, a devastating earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter ... more On 25th April 2015 at 11:56 am local time, a devastating earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale shook Nepal. It is considered as one of the most fatal disasters in Nepal, ensuing aft restocks; avalanches and landslides triggered in the aftermath killed over 9,000 people. The most damage occurred when the earthquake triggered a destructive avalanche composed of ice, snow and soil, burying the entire Langtang village- a huge settlement of the popular adventure tourism destination of Nepal and killing at least 253 people. This study envisions to explore the scopes of special-interest dark (thanatology) tourism in the post-disaster scene, and it is used as a vehicle for self-reflection and education. This paper also explores the tourism prototype for an adventure tourism destination that has been severely impacted by a disaster. The paper adapts sociological theory, experience, and participant observation to complete a vanity ethnographic study of a “post-disaster tour” in the La...
This paper is a treatise on how citizen diplomacy between Nepal and China could be leveraged by a... more This paper is a treatise on how citizen diplomacy between Nepal and China could be leveraged by adapting tourism industry as a track two intermediary sector. Believing that the apparent insufficiencies and repudiation created during inter-governmental deliberation through track-one diplomacy could be enhanced through track-two diplomacy as an effective measure, this paper attempts to recognize the role of tourism industry in establishing alternative political channel of communication which pulls the cooperation of track one decision-making that benefits people of Nepal and China. Both nations can draw strength from the diversity that prevails irrespective of uneven size, power potential, historical complexes and different speed in the development. This paper also tries to address the gap in the academic arguments regarding the conceptualization, essence, and practicability of citizen diplomacy in foreign policy processes and explores multiple micro-level themes and actors enhancing ...
Dark tourism is a youngest subset of tourism, introduced only in 1990s. It is a multifaceted and ... more Dark tourism is a youngest subset of tourism, introduced only in 1990s. It is a multifaceted and diverse phenomenon. Dark tourism studies carried out in the Western countries succinctly portrays dark tourism as a study of history and heritage, tourism and tragedies. Dark tourism has been identified as niche or special interest tourism. This paper highlights how dark tourism has been theoretically conceptualized in previous studies. As an umbrella concept dark tourism includes than tourism, blackspot tourism, morbid tourism, disaster tourism, conflict tourism, dissonant heritage tourism and others. This paper examines how dark tourism as a distinct form of tourism came into existence in the tourism academia and how it could be understood as a separate subset of tourism in better way. Basically, this study focuses on deathscapes, repressed sadism, commercialization of grief, commoditization of death, dartainment, blackpackers, darsumers and deathseekers capitalism. This study generate...
Barpak is one of the largest and self-reliant villages of Nepal, situated at an altitude of 1900m... more Barpak is one of the largest and self-reliant villages of Nepal, situated at an altitude of 1900m of Gorkha district the village is popularly known for home-stay based tourism destination in the mountainous region of Nepal. At present, Barpak has been garnering attention as epicenter of Earthquake 2015. The earthquake transformed the former traditional homogeneous architectural attraction into seeming architectural repulsion. There is confusion among the locals about their identity that was predominantly related with their homogeneity. There is an upsurge of cognitive dissonance and locals see the present context as tourism impossibility and are quite hopeless about post-disaster tourism development. This article adapts synchronic approach to highlight the tourism dynamics of Barpak in the aftermath by contemplating on the fact that disaster-led repulsion could be turned into attraction via an alternative paradigm. Developing both dark and non-dark (leisure) attractions that include...
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Papers by Neeru Karki