Reading the Identity of Dark Heritage Sites: A Peircean Semiotic Methodology

Shared symbolism and ideology at dark heritage sites construct the narrative of a collective national destiny. Visitors’ experiences with such sites necessarily involve decoding signs and symbols. The commonality in interpretative practices is rooted in “collateral knowledge” and forms the identity of place. Yet, cultural materiality, collective identities, and semiotics have been overlooked by dark tourism academia. In broader tourism studies, semiotic attempts lack methodological homogeneity and congruence and efforts to transpose Charles Peirce’s semiotic theory into practical experiential methodologies are scarce. This study introduces a practical, systematic, and replicable semiotic methodology for reading the identity of dark heritage sites. This methodology revolves around three interconnected Peircean concepts: the sign, the collateral knowledge, and the sign’s relationship to its dynamical object. It is proposed that reading the indexical, iconical, and symbolical functions of signs through the filter of collateral knowledge can ensure a systematic meaning-making process and reveal subtle influences.