Shades of Dark Tourism - Alcatraz and Robben Island

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 386–405, 2003 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Printed in Great Britain0160-7383/03/$30.00www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

doi:10.1016/S0160-7383(02)00102-0

SHADES OF DARK TOURISMAlcatraz and Robben Island

Carolyn StrangeUniversity of Toronto, Canada

Michael KempaAustralian National University, Australia

Abstract: Former sites of punishment and incarceration have become a popular touristexperience as defunct prisons are converted into museums or heritage sites. Among the mostprominent are Alcatraz in the United States, and Robben Island in South Africa. While sometheorists might categorize such practices as “dark tourism,” this paper argues for an analysisthat accounts for the multiple shades of penal history marketing and interpretation. Drawingon policy documents, onsite observations, tourist surveys, and interviews with museum staff,the paper explores how multi-hued forms of interpretation have been produced, not onlythrough shifting priorities of memory managers, but also the expectations of tourists andthe agendas of external interest groups. Keywords: prison, dark tourism, heritage, Alcatraz,Robben Island. 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Resume: Les teintes du tourisme sombre : Alcatraz et Robben Island. Les anciens sites dechatiment et d’incarceration sont devenus des lieux populaires de l’experience touristique,et les prisons desaffectees deviennent des musees ou des sites patrimoniaux. Alcatraz auxEtats-Unis et Robben Island en Afrique du Sud figurent parmi les exemples les plusimportants. Tandis que certains theoriciens pourraient classer ce genre de tourisme commedu « tourisme sombre », cet article temoigne en faveur d’une analyse qui rend compte desmultiples nuances dans le marketing et l’interpretation de l’histoire penale. En se basantsur des documents de politique, des observations sur place, des enquetes de touristes et desinterviews avec le personnel des musees, l’article examine comment les divers tons dans lesformes d’interpretation ont ete produits, non seulement a travers les priorites changeantesdes gestionnaires de la memoire mais aussi selon les attentes des touristes et les idees desgroupes d’interet exterieurs. Mots-cles: prison, tourisme sombre, patrimoine, Alcatraz,Robben Island. 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

In a recent in-flight magazine, the kind that publishes glossy picturesof exotic and intriguing places on an airline’s route, passengers aretempted with a feature on “the joy of prison museums.” The articleopens by reassuring readers that a taste for touring former places ofsuffering and death is nothing to be ashamed of. After all, sites such

Carolyn Strange (Center of Criminology and Department of History, University ofToronto, Toronto M5S 3H1, Canada. Email <[email protected]>) is the principal investi-gator on a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Can-ada: “From Sites of Punishment to Tourist Sites.” Michael Kempa is a doctoral candidateat the Australian National University. With others, he conducted the fieldwork at RobbenIsland Museum.

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as the Roman catacombs have been respectable tourism spots for cen-turies. Defunct penal institutions “give us a thrill,” according to theauthor, but these sites also provide matchless opportunities for spiri-tual and political reflection: “once we can imagine this deprivation, welearn to cherish freedom” (Dobbs 1999:36). In sum, touring old placesof punishment may be “gruesome” but is also “good” (Dobbs 1999:35).

While tourism literature focuses on the marketing and consumptionof pleasant diversions in pleasant places, scholars who have begun toexplore the phenomenon of “dark tourism” provide a starting pointfor the study of prison history tourism (Lennon and Foley 2000). Dur-ing the 90s other terms (“thanatourism,” “black spot” tourism and“atrocity heritage”) were coined to make sense of the packaging andconsumption of death or distress as a tourist experience of both thedistant and recent past (Rojek 1993; Seaton 1996; Tunbridge and Ash-worth 1996). The most studied places in these works are battle sitesand death camps (Seaton 1999; Young 1993), which have literally andfiguratively fixed the memory of collective violence to the places wheresuffering occurred. The death sites of famous individuals (such asMother Teresa or President Kennedy) have also become religious orsecular tourism shrines (Foley and Lennon 1996; Rojek 1993). Whileextraordinary disasters (such as the PanAm plane crash at Lockerbieor the destruction of the World Trade Center) draw the curious fromaround the world, everyday crime scenes and traffic accident locationscan also become impromptu attractions, where people pay theirrespects or simply gather to gawk at tragedy’s aftermath (Foote 1997).

The curious connection between the sad and the bad and their tour-istic representations has generated academic and ethical debate aboutthe ways in which leisure and pleasure are mixed with tragedy (Rojek1993:170; Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996:112). Some heritage industrycommentators, concerned generally about the inauthenticity of popu-larized “theme park” history, have denounced tourism as an inappro-priate and even immoral vehicle for the presentation of human suffer-ing and troubling events (Hewison 1987; MacCannell 1992; Urry 1995;Walsh 1992). More recently scholars have questioned these critics’ dis-tinction between “bogus” and “authentic” history by calling for moreattention to the authorial intentions and authenticating devices at workin heritage sites (Macdonald 1997:156–157). The commodification ofhistory for mass consumption frequently leads to trivialization (inspooky dungeon tours of castles, for instance) but it does not precludethe presentation of counter-hegemonic stories or tales of injustice. AsSeaton’s work stresses consumption of the disturbing past is driven bytourists’ tastes and marketing ploys but it is also subject to changes inpolitical and cultural climates (1999:155). The thanatouristic gazeshifts as events (such as wars or the fall of regimes) transpire, and asnew “files of representation” (memoirs, films, novels, etc.) lend moralmeanings to sites of violence and death (Rojek and Urry 1997:53).

If the presentation and public commemoration of the painful pasthas a long history, its growth as a commercialized attraction in recentdecades is notable. According to key theorists of the phenomenon,sites of “death, disaster, and depravity” have become increasingly fre-

388 PENAL HISTORY TOURISM

quent stops on the international tourism itinerary (Lennon and Foley2000:3; Seaton 1996; Urry 1990). Former sites of incarceration—placeswhere the intentional state-sanctioned infliction of punishment, painand privation took place—are among the most popular. Curiosityabout the hidden features of punishment is not new but opportunitiesfor prison history tourism have recently mushroomed. As the late-20thcentury prison industry has rendered obsolete prisons erected duringthe 19th century penal building boom, decommissioned buildingshave been turned to new uses, including hotels and condominiums(Watson 1997). Many of the most famous abandoned prisons(Pentridge in Melbourne, Pudu in Kuala Lumpur, Port Blair on theAndamans, and the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia) havebeen converted into museums and tourism sites only in the last twodecades.

Alcatraz and Robben Island, two of the most famous historic penalsites, provide the focus for the comparative analysis reported here.Together they exemplify the multiple ways in which dark tourism isrepresented, marketed, and consumed. The presentation of RobbenIsland’s and Alcatraz’s penal histories has altered over time; in additionthe intervention of external stakeholders and storytellers and the press-ures of audience expectations have shaped and reshaped distinctiveinterpretive moulds. Although both sites are operated by state heritageagencies (the National Park Service and the South African Departmentof Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, respectively) official heritagemanagers and tourism marketers do not control interpretation; rather,the presentation of the penal past is the product of site-specific andhistorically contingent convergences in the heritage context.

THE MULTIPLE SHADES OF PRISON TOURISM

At first glance, Alcatraz and Robben Island appear to have little incommon, other than their historical functions: they served distinctpenal regimes and philosophies; their captive populations differed;their transitions to tourism sites occurred in starkly contrasting circum-stances and times; and they are interpreted within a framework of twonations’ distinct histories and contemporary political landscapes. Yetviewed together, they illustrate that many shades of dark tourismdevelop and co-exist at penal tourism sites. At Alcatraz, rangers’ effortsto educate tourists into informed “visitors,” and to represent theisland’s non-penal history are constantly undermined by Hollywood-tutored tourists, whose expectations are primed by commercializedimages of “the Rock.” In the “new” South Africa, the successful fightagainst apartheid gave the Robben Island Museum a sacred mission atits outset, largely crowding out oppositional stories and eclipsing theisland’s broader history. In spite of official interpretation guidelinesset at both places, onsite heritage interpreters and external pressuregroups have lobbied to introduce alternative and in some cases discor-dant strains into site interpretation. As a result, Alcatraz’s 1969–1972Indian occupation has been officially recognized, while at Robben,efforts to stretch interpretation beyond the stories of famous apartheid


opponents have been implemented, so that more nuanced (and some-times less optimistic) appraisals of the struggle for democracy arebeginning to challenge triumphalist accounts.

Study Methods

Fieldwork entailing site visits, archival research, participant obser-vation, and semi-structured interviews of heritage personnel and pol-icymakers was undertaken at both locales between 1999 and 2001. Par-ticipant observation entailed walking through the various exhibits andtours offered at each respective site. Over 30 employees were inter-viewed in a semi-structured fashion, and were recruited through asnowball sampling method. The interviews were recorded and sub-sequently transcribed and analyzed for their content. These data wereused to supplement and extend the existing archival record of docu-ments.

In addition, a tourist survey was undertaken at Robben Island inDecember 1999 and January 2000 (the National Park Service providedsurveys of Alcatraz). A questionnaire consisting of multiple choicequestions and open-ended written short answers that enquired intopeople’s subjective impressions and emotions experienced afterattending the Robben Island Museum was distributed to a non-randomsample of 1,008 tourists, who completed the survey after their tourson the 30 minute ferry ride back to the mainland. Respondents werelimited to those who were able to complete the forms in English. Thesedata were analyzed for their empirical and qualitative content and sub-sequently compiled into a market research report by KPMG SouthAfrica (a major international accounting and business consulting firm)and shared with the Management of the museum.

“Hellcatraz” versus “The University of Robben Island”

Heritage site is only the latest of identities for Robben Island andAlcatraz. Although the islands served a variety of carceral purposes overseveral centuries (including the confinement of military prisoners, lep-ers, and the mentally ill), their preservation and reconfiguration ashistoric sites owes most to their penal pasts. Consequently, their chiefdraw is a highly emotional and politically charged heritage product—easy to market but tricky to interpret (Shackley 2001:361; Strange2000b). Heritage theorists note that “dark” places are especially mar-ketable if they were notorious, if the perpetrators of death or painwere especially cruel, if the historic regime was manifestly unjust, orif those who suffered were famous or especially sympathetic victims(Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996:104–105). In contrasting measures,both former prisons supply these marketable qualities, yet their uniquepenal pasts account only partially for the contrasts in their subsequentrepresentations. Once they shed their penal functions for new touristicidentities, their historic relevance was interpreted within nationally dis-tinct and dynamic cultures of memorialization.

The fame of Alcatraz’s and Robben Island’s prisoners provides a


recognizable tourism product at both sites, albeit for different reasons.The former’s were ordinary criminals, men who had violated statepenal codes and federal laws, whereas the latter acquired its infamousreputation as a prison for apartheid’s enemies. At Alcatraz’s founding,FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover boasted that “the Rock” would punish the“worst of the worst.” A handful of famous gangsters boosted Alcatraz’snotoriety and helped it earn its nickname, “Hellcatraz.” Aside fromAl Capone, the famous racketeer, rum runner, and money launderer,Hoover’s G-men helped to put away Doc Barker, Machine Gun Kelly,and Alvin “Creepy” Carpis. By labeling such men “public enemies” theFBI helped to turn them into public figures (Ruth 1996). Still, Hoov-er’s publicity machine on its own could not have elevated Alcatrazabove all other US prisons: a symbiotic relationship evolved betweenAlcatraz’s mythic status and its unique population long before theisland became a tourism site.

In contrast to Alcatraz’s captives, their crimes, and the penal philo-sophy that determined their punishment, Robben Island’s most fam-ous prisoners were self-declared and officially-branded politicalopponents. The state portrayed the men incarcerated as the mostdangerous and misguided of terrorists who subscribed either to anarch-ist or communist doctrine. At the same time, these men’s status intheir own communities was typically influential and in some celebratedcases massive (Buntman and Juang 2000). Among the earliest arrivalsat the politically focused prison were the leadership of the AfricanNational Congress, the so-called “Rivonia Trialists” of 1964, whoincluded such illustrious names as Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada,Walter Sisulu, and Govan Mbeki.

While the apartheid government intended to isolate the dissidentpolitical leadership, and to turn the captives into forgotten men, thestrategy backfired (Committee Chair Kathrada interview 1998). At whatbecame known as “the University of Robben Island”, political edu-cation continued and spread among prisoners, whose influence andstatus thereby expanded, both in their own communities as well asinternationally (Buntman 1997; Hutton 1994). Although Mandela andthe other central members of the Governing Council of the AfricanNational Congress (ANC)—South Africa’s largest anti-apartheid andpro-democracy political party—were transferred to mainland insti-tutions in 1982, Robben Island continued to stand as a symbol of thepersecution of freedom fighters within South Africa and beyond(Bologna 1999; Buntman 1997, 1996a, 1996b; Deacon 1996; Rioufol1999, 2000). Thus, the international notoriety of the apartheid regime,coupled with the status of prisoners as martyrs-cum-victors, providedprime ingredients for dark tourism.

Shot through the dark histories of Robben Island’s and Alcatraz’spenal pasts is evidence of cruelty and suffering. The apartheid regimeclearly involved the imposition of racist injustice, while the harsh deter-rent philosophy of Hellcatraz became an embarrassment to liberalpenal reformers by the 60s. Yet representations of both places havenever been unrelievedly dark. Indeed lighter and even light-heartedinterpretations of the penal past have circulated from their earliest


days as attractions. How those darker and lighter elements have beenrepresented and consumed at these icons was the outcome of theirhistories as shaped and reshaped by political, cultural, and economicforces. To imagine site interpretation as a palimpsest, a metaphor oftenused to describe the temporal layering of meanings, inadequatelyaccounts for the complexity of the two islands’ representations. At anygiven moment, multiple and sometimes conflicting interpretations ofthe penal past have coexisted. Although the state agencies that main-tain these heritage sites play a critical role in interpretation, unofficialstorytellers and consumer expectations criss-cross the transmission andreception of site representations.

Political Imperatives and Heritage Policy Initiatives

Heritage practices distinguish the past from the present, but the waysin which those distinctions are drawn inevitably express contemporarypreoccupations (Bennett 1995:109). The “frames of remembrance” inwhich former prison sites are interpreted are dynamic and culturallycontingent (Foote 1997:27; Irwin-Zarecka 1994:7). In the cases ofRobben Island and Alcatraz, political imperatives and heritage policyinitiatives that emerged in the aftermath of their transition to heritageplaces deliberately steered these former punishment sites away fromtheir earlier associations with pain and suffering.

When Alcatraz was closed in the mid-60s, the idea of turning it overto tourists as a “prison museum” was one of the least favored schemesfor its reuse. Much more viable were commercial or recreational devel-opments that would have erased its history as a place of punishmentor merely featured it as a colorful setting for shops and amusements(Loo and Strange 2000:35–36). Policymakers argued that allowingpeople to inspect the former prison would be ghoulish and vaguelydisrespectful. In 1969, Indian activists occupied the island anddemanded a reparative future for Alcatraz, as an Indian cultural andeducational centre (Smith and Warrior 1996). But giving in to theagenda of a counter-cultural group of protestors was not what Presi-dent Nixon had in mind. Turning the former prison site over to theNational Park Service in 1972, after the government removed the lastremaining protestors, was a compromise on “the establishment’s”terms.

The challenge for the park service was to drain the site of its sen-sationalistic and shameful associations and to fill visitors’ (rangers’ pre-ferred term) minds with its multi-layered history, including its uniquenatural history, its significance as the west coast’s first lighthouselocation, and its importance as a military fort (Loo and Strange 2000).The Director of the National Park Service during Alcatraz’s transitionfelt it necessary to downplay punishment as an attraction: As hedeclared in 1973, the park service “certainly will not preserve this islandsolely as a memorial to a century of military and civil confinement”(Champion 1973). Accounts of Alcatraz’s bird life, the bureaucratshoped, were to eclipse “the Birdman’s” story.

Evasion was the first interpretive tack, but it proved to be no match


for the strong currents of popular interest in Hellcatraz. Park rangers,who felt that they had become little more than prison tour guides,pressed for opportunities to weave more strands into their story-telling(ranger Martini interview 1999). Once the audio taped cellblock tourwas implemented in 1987 (Figure 1), rangers had more time to estab-lish specialized tours that could tap Alcatraz’s history for alternativestorylines that had nothing to do with the Rock’s penal past. The mostcontroversial of these was the account of the Indian occupation, firstdelivered on a ranger tour in 1988 (ranger Glassner interview 1999a).Prior to that point tourists could easily have spent a day on the islandwithout hearing a word about its significance as a protest site. Theprovocatively entitled tour, “Alcatraz is Indian land,” recounted theoccupation of 1969–1972, and linked that moment to the longer his-

Figure 1. Tourists Following Stations Narrated in the Taped Cellblock Tour


tory of native resistance to American colonization and land dispos-session (ranger Glassner interview 1999a). People on this tour areintroduced to the island’s rubble piles and tumbledown buildings(damaged in the last days of the occupation) not as evidence of mind-less destruction, but as an

event that went to the heart of the American experience, in spite ofbeing quite controversial…It was the one event on the island thatchanged the course of history…everything else pales in comparison(ranger Glassner interview 1999b).

Incorporating the Indian history of Alcatraz in official story tellingconformed to the National Park Service’s emerging commitment tointerpret the nation’s “ethnic heritage,” but determining how tounderstand the history of imprisonment remained a challenge(Strange and Loo 2001:67). Every ranger interviewed stresses that theirmission is to “interpret: not to take sides” (ranger Martini interview1999). But in the late 80s, the park service seemed to favor a left wing,prisoners’ advocacy perspective. For instance, the 1988 installation,“Artists on the Rock” pleased rangers, who felt it prompted tourists toponder “psychological and emotional freedom and … internationalissues like political prisoners and human rights” (Solnit 1988). Bureau-crats in the Bureau of Prisons charged that the display was inaccurateand unduly critical. One exhibit featured barbed wire and electricchairs while another interactive exhibit allowed tourists to listen to for-mer captives talk about corruption and brutality in contemporary pri-sons. This was an instance when one state agency (National ParkService) had invited outside players to participate in site interpretation,to the dismay of another government department (Bureau of Prisons)driven by its own image management objectives. The resultant interag-ency compromise, a permanent bureau-approved display called “Alca-traz and the American Prison Experience,” framed Alcatraz as a chill-ing detour on a broader American journey toward increasingly civilizedmodes of penal reform. The closure of Alcatraz, according to this ano-dyne reading, put the United States back on the road to penal pro-gressivism.

By the mid-90s, the history of imprisonment at Alcatraz was moldedanew within the “freedom-seeking framework.” Whether it wasaccounts of inmates risking it all to swim to freedom, or videotapesof native activists boldly repossessing “Indianland,” the National ParkService and its employees cast Alcatraz in a brighter light by the late-90s. In contrast to its initial decades of dark sensationalism, forexample, a 1994 parks service curriculum guide for teachers provideda positive interpretive framework: “as an island, as a prison and as acenter for Native American activism, Alcatraz has witnessed the ongo-ing struggle to define freedom” (n.a. 1994:ii). Like liberty-loving Amer-icans who had suffered on famous battlefields, a less likely cast ofcrooks and Indians became star players in this civic-minded reimagin-ation of the Rock.

Unlike the genesis and development of Alcatraz’s representationsover the past forty years, the transition of Robben Island from prison


to museum was conducted rapidly in a national context of nearlycalamitous political circumstances (Shackley 2001:356). Following thedemocratic transition in 1994 in South Africa, the new governmentwas hard pressed to establish initiatives designed to promote reconcili-ation, nation-building, and civil peace. Since Robben Island had playeda central role in the legacy and ultimate collapse of apartheid, therewas little question in government circles that Robben Island was anapt symbol of hope and reconciliation. Alternative proposals madethrough public submissions to the Future of Robben Island Committee(established in 1995) included establishing an adult leisure retreatfilled with casinos and hotels. These were dismissed in favor of estab-lishing a museum that would serve as a monument to the defeat ofapartheid and to the broader resilience and power of the human spirit(Director Odendaal interview 1999; Committee Chair Kathrada inter-view 1998).

Once this approach was confirmed, the transition to museum wasswift: the property was transferred from the Department of Correctionsto the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology inDecember 1996 and the museum opened to the public the next Janu-ary. The rapidity and scope of the Island’s reinvention signaled thesea change to the newly democratized South Africa. But the transitionalso underlined the pressures of implementing the new institutionsand practices of the fledgling democratic state. This pressured contextof reinvention operated at several levels. Cultural policymakers agreedthat apartheid’s mentalities and institutional arrangements had to beundone. Political parties of the resistance era that had been under-ground for many years were suddenly thrust in the position of leadingthe nation, and thus were faced with the challenge of implementingtheir democratic ideologies into workable policies (Committee ChairKathrada interview 1998). To maintain political stability, the insti-tutions required to support the rise and spread of such mentalities andvalues had to be built immediately (Deegan 2001). Two initiatives standout in this regard: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and thecommemoration of Robben Island as a museum (Tutu 1999; Rioufol1999:7–9, 2000). These complementary projects bore the burden ofofficial designation as cathartic mechanisms designed to pave the wayfor political and cultural transformation.

Like the reconciliation commission, the commemoration of RobbenIsland deployed the “healing” logic of “restorative justice,” acknowledg-ing the past but oriented to future possibilities (Tutu 1999:33-36). TheMuseum was designed to communicate and promote the master narra-tive of reconciliation and the capacity of the oppressed to survive andovercome, qualities necessary to contribute to South Africa’s nation-building enterprise. In the words of Ahmed Kathrada, chair of theFuture of Robben Island Committee, former political prisoner, long-time friend and adviser to President Nelson Mandela:

…we will not want Robben Island to be a monument to our hardshipand suffering. We would want it to be a monument reflecting thetriumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil, a triumph offreedom and human dignity over repression and humiliation; a tri-


umph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and petti-ness; triumph of courage and determination over human frailty andweakness; a triumph of non-racialism over bigotry and intolerance; atriumph of the new South Africa over the old (Kathrada 1997:10-11).

This broader reconciliatory and nation-building purpose is referencedin all manner of Robben Island internal policy documents, intra-staffpublications and communications, and press statements. The vision isarticulated perhaps most clearly in the Museum’s successful appli-cation to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status. The applicationemphasized Robben Island’s educative potential and the site’s relatedsymbolic power to inspire political and social reinvention not only inSouth Africa but also across the globe. It declared that Robben Islandoffers the world, “struggling under social injustices and intolerance,the example of the indomitable nature of the human spirit” (RobbenIsland Museum 1999:4). This conception of “heritage,” one whichmuseum management argued is founded upon an “African” concep-tion of the significance of the meaning of a space and its history,explicitly challenged Eurocentric notions of “architectural” and/or“natural” significance. Ascendance to World Heritage status, along withthe international exposure that this brings, reinforced Robben Islandmanagement’s strategic cultivation of the image of the museum as aspace which signals the triumph of the human spirit. The image ofNelson Mandela lighting an eternal flame in his former prison cell,televised globally at a Millennium New Years’ celebration event, dra-matically confirmed the power of light over darkness.

Both the guided tours and the physical set-up of the Museum conveythe message that brutality can be resisted and overcome. At the levelsof both representation and consumption the resistance movement’svictory over apartheid is crystallized in Nelson Mandela’s story, whichby all accounts remains the touring public’s primary fixation (Figure2). Large crowds congregate around Mandela’s tiny cell to see wherethe new Democratic South Africa’s first President spent 18 of his 27years of incarceration. Accordingly, while much of the island is opento the public (with varying degrees of supervision), the prison and thepolitical leadership’s experience have become the focal point of themuseum structure. Within tours and exhibits, Mandela and colleaguesoccupy center stage, as evinced in a large famous 1966 photographof Mandela appearing with Walter Sisulu, which adorns the centralcourtyard. Further, the Robben Island Museum management’sdecision at the museum’s inception to preserve and present Cell BlockB (the “political leadership” wing) in the condition it was in uponthe arrival of the Rivonia Trialists in 1964 (Heritage Manager Pastor-Makhurane interview 1999) freezes this period at the site.

But this message of struggle and hope has recently become less uni-fied in voice and purpose. By 1999, initiatives within the museumbegan to tone down the maximally optimistic reading of the RobbenIsland story as well as enhance the narrative beyond particular politicalleaders’ achievements (Deacon 2000). A variety of prison and broaderisland exhibits has been implemented to communicate the strugglesof the many people who have at various points experienced isolation


Figure 2. Tour Members Jostle for the Best Camera Angle on Mandela’s Cell

and oppression on Robben Island. In particular, in late 1999 themuseum added a “Women’s Exhibit,” which uses digital recordings ofcollected personal stories to point out that women on the mainland,in addition to being in many cases the wives of the political prisonersand heads of families, remained behind as community leaders, whosuffered great injustices in the broader “prison” of apartheid SouthAfrica. A wider-ranging Island “Bus Tour” also takes tourists past theKramat erected by the imprisoned Muslim resistance to British Col-onialism in the Far East, the site of the Leper Colony, and the inter-war Naval Town.

A notable exhibit in this regard is the popular “Cell Stories” exhi-bition opened to the public in December 1999. At this time, artifactsand personal effects that former prisoners deemed significant weredisplayed starkly in otherwise unrefined prison cells. On the walls ofeach cell are single placards that contain their brief written descrip-tions (some recorded) of the importance and significance of each arti-fact. While the meanings assigned to personal items reveal the austerityof the prison experience, each narrative was selected to convey a moreuniversal message of resistance through the expression of creativityunder conditions of privation (Exhibit Co-Designer Adriaan interview1999). As the latter source explains, he countered the “master narra-tive” by “creating space for the multiple voices of Robben Island.” Thecell exhibit was also meant to inform people, conversant with the her-oic anti-apartheid narrative, that “there are a lot of contradictions andopposing views within the stories that [ex] prisoners are telling”.


Compared to Alcatraz, however, Robben Island Museum has had avery short period in which to introduce new story lines that divergefrom the triumph narrative. Responses to the onsite survey indicatethat new exhibits have made a minor impact upon tourists’ impressionsof the Island. Nevertheless, the museum staff interviewed remain opti-mistic that this will change with time. Similarly, Alcatraz’s official siteinterpreters stretch the island’s history beyond its foundational images;yet, Alcatraz remains for most tourists the hellhole that containedAmerica’s worst. Consequently, government policymakers andmuseum managers contribute to, rather than dictate, the represen-tations of Robben Island and Alcatraz.

National Frames of Remembrance

State heritage agencies are rarely the prime shapers of dark tourism,a field most governments prefer to avoid (Strange 2000a; Young 1993).Tourism theorists agree that the state’s investment in commemorationtends to mark places and moments of heroism and achievement(Glassberg 1996; Lowenthal, 1985). Where suffering is commemor-ated, it is usually in the form of battles won over enemies, or of deifiedfallen heroes’ last stands (Foote 1997). Because of their dark pasts,both Alcatraz and Robben Island could conveniently have been forgot-ten, crumbling into ruin and obscurity. Or the prison buildings couldhave been bulldozed and replaced by luxury hotels and shopping com-plexes, as entrepreneurs had hoped. That they were not indicates thatheritage planners were hard at work; that they have remained historicsites suggests that the cultural and political conditions that contributeto their preservation and historic interpretation remain operative.

In the early days of the Indian occupation at Alcatraz, Native activistRichard Oakes declared: Alcatraz is not an Island (Bluecloud 1972).His comment was insightful at two levels. First, it is no mere block ofland surrounded by water, and nor has imprisonment constituted itsonly use. Second, its water barrier and its mythical escape-proof statusdivert attention from the Rock’s historic and enduring links to themainland. Prisoners were rendered peripheral but Alcatraz lay at thecenter of debates about penal policy, Indian protest and redress, aswell as heritage workers’ debates about marketing and commerce. Theextraordinary circulation of Alcatraz’s images has proven, unlike theprisoners, to be unconfinable. Thus, orienting Alcatraz’s interpretationhas always been and remains well beyond the powers of the NationalPark Service to control.

Although the last Indian activists were removed from the island in1972, they never really left. Picking up on Richard Oakes’ reading ofAlcatraz, American Indians kept the spirit of activism alive in the 70sand 80s without formal approval from the park service. In 1978, Alca-traz was chosen as the starting point for a cross-nation protest marchdesigned to draw attention to the problems confronting aboriginalsboth on and off reserves. This “Long March” confirmed the status ofthe 1969–1972 occupation as a symbolic birthplace for cultural andspiritual renewal (Johnson, Nagel and Champagne 1997). As Cherokee


Chief Wilma Mankiller reflected, “ironically the occupation of Alca-traz—a former prison—was extremely liberating for me. As a result, Iconsciously took a path…to work for the revitalization of tribal com-munities” (Mankiller and Wallis 1993: 192). After the 25th anniversaryof the occupation, its veterans began to work with academics and thepark service representatives to press their demands that Alcatraz’senduring Indian identity be preserved and promoted. We Hold the Rock,a 28-minute documentary was the product of that collaboration in1998. A year later, the 30th anniversary of the occupation was markedwith a full day of ceremonies, celebrations, and defiant speeches. Theformer “lawless trespassers” were greeted by National Park Service per-sonnel as dignitaries and Alcatraz was anointed as a site of secular andspiritual pilgrimage (Strange and Loo 2001)

But Hollywood beat both the park service and native activists to theforefront of interpretion, presenting Alcatraz in a lurid and curiouslypatriotic fashion. Although the FBI used melodramatic newsreels topromote the Hellcatraz image in the 30s and 40s, Hollywood producerscapitalized on Alcatraz’s notoriety in their own commercial story-tellingventures. The place has inspired scores of films; however, four block-busters, The Birdman of Alcatraz, Escape from Alcatraz, Murder in the First,and The Rock stand out. Through their stature in American popularculture (they lead the hits for “Alcatraz” in internet searches) andthanks to the US’s global cultural dominance over the past half cen-tury, most tourists, both foreigners and Americans, visit Alcatraz vir-tually long before they set foot on the Rock (Loo 1998). Unlike somenational parks, which struggle to attract people, Alcatraz faces wavesof tourists, who pour onto the landing dock every 15 minutes. Rangersconcede that “they’re here because of Hollywood” (ranger Glassnerinterview 1999) and some staff wish they could “burn every negativeof a Hollywood film” (ranger Martini interview 1999). The theme offeature films on Alcatraz is, in characteristic American idiom, the strug-gle of the individual against tyranny and demeaning rules. Even themost fanciful, such as the 1996 release, The Rock, follow this theme,albeit with implausible plots. While prison films in general emphasizethe oppression of the prison regime, Alcatraz films play off the foun-dational image of Hellcatraz to augment the drama of punishment andthe heroic struggle for freedom.

Cinematic portrayals of Alcatraz are far from the only medium cap-able of reaching beyond the already large pool of onsite tourists. Popu-lar books, and increasingly internet websites, also feed the evidentlyendless appetite for information and stories about tough prisoners anddesperate escapees. A reader’s posting on the Amazon.com websitebook review board described Riddle of the Rock: The Only Successful Escapefrom Alcatraz (DeNevi 1991) with a degree of enthusiasm that calledfor three exclamation marks:

This book gave you the facts, the story, the whole nine yards on thisvery successful escape from Alcatraz. I went to my cousin’s weddingin San Francisco and as a surprise we went to Alcatraz the day I fin-ished the book! So this book also influenced me to travel!!


(<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail>, posted by “Areader from New Jersey,” 20 January, 1999).

Against these cultural files of sound, images, and stirring plots, rang-ers struggle to set the record straight. Most greet tourists by prickingillusionary bubbles: Murder in the First, Birdman, anything they’ve heardabout Al Capone—all such popular “files” are misleading. To counterthese portrayals, rangers fight fancy with facts (for instance, on their“Great Escapes!” and “US Penitentiary: Alcatraz— learn the TRUTHabout the Rock” tours). If anything, the rangers take the gloss off popu-lar representations of Alcatraz, particularly at the landing zone: therewere no successful escapes; the Birdman was nasty; Henry Young wasnot a young innocent when he came to Alcatraz. No matter whichimages park interpreters present, however, interest in the prison, fromits opening to the present, continues to be anchored in the stockframework of the individual versus the state: not a freedom fighter ora revolutionary, but a flawed “everyman.”

In spite of their best efforts, the rangers’ educational attempts areoutshone by the glare of commerce. The National Park Serviceemployees enrich the site’s meanings in tours and exhibits and cell-house tapes, but their words are buried in an avalanche of alternativeimages. Rangers struggle to sell a complex story, while the gift shops atFisherman’s Wharf can profitably tout “Escape from Alcatraz” t-shirts;cineplexes can sell tickets to movies such as The Rock; and pornogra-phers can offer memberships to websites that feature sex scenes set onAlcatraz. The Rock is less an island in these commercial streams thana highly marketable brand name.

In contrast, Robben Island’s history has thus far avoided the trivializ-ing forces upon public consciousness that frustrate Alcatraz rangers.Responses to the onsite survey coupled with interviews with museumstaff in 1998 and 1999 confirm that people come to Robben Islandforemost to learn about Nelson Mandela and the political leadershipof the resistance, and secondarily to explore their interest in (South)African history and culture. Further, almost half of the tourists sur-veyed in December 1999 mentioned that over the course of their visitto the Robben Island Museum they felt both sadness and admirationor respect for the prisoners’ courage and forgiveness. As the Directorand one of the museum’s foundational planners put it, presenting thehistory of the prisoners’ past in a dignified manner serves not only “anacademic notion of keeping this island sacred”, but also assures thelong-term economic sustainability of the museum enterprise throughmaintaining its “historical integrity”, as a “commodity” for which thereis considerable public demand (Director Odendaal interview 1999).

The internationally observed conditions of Robben Island stirredemotions and established the primacy of the prison epoch in the com-memoration of the island’s past. To begin with, the South Africanmedia were saturated with coverage of the final remaining prisoners’release and return to the mainland. Following this was the symbolicturning over of the “keys” to Robben Island from the Department ofCorrections to the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Tech-


nology, the latter being represented in this ceremony by a large groupof former political prisoners. This event also featured a speech by Presi-dent Mandela, which was delivered before projected images of promi-nent people associated with the political resistance. Thus, the Islandwas ceremonially linked with the development of political leadershipin its recent history as a prison, and the ability of formerly oppressednon-white populations generally to survive apartheid (Rioufol 1999).

Mandela’s stature as a one of the most respected statesmen of the20th century is an obvious reason for tourists’ preoccupation with hispersonal experience on Robben Island. Aside from his internationalbest-selling autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela 1994), otherless heralded yet popular first-account books written by ex-prisonershave similarly contributed to the dominance of the political prison erain public imaginings of the history of the island (e.g., Dlamini 1984;Naidoo 1982). The Robben Island gift shop offers most of these worksin keeping with the aforementioned marketing strategy of “dignified”commercialization of the Island’s traumatic past.

In addition to South Africa’s broader ideological context of politicaltransition, the rapidity of the transition of the closure of the prisonand its opening as a museum presented both ideological and practicallimits on the types of exhibits and museum experiences that could bedeveloped and presented. Stories of the ex-political prisoners movedto the foreground in no small part because they were the most immedi-ately accessible and presentable of Robben Island’s many “histories.”As Museum management repeatedly stressed, with limited time andresources, tours given by ex-political prisoner guides served as both apoignant and practical option: they were meant to provide employ-ment for a particularly marginalized segment of South African societyas well as serve as a powerful draw for paying customers (DirectorOdendaal interview 1999; Fine and Haskell 1985).

Despite the factors that enabled the emergence and propagation ofthe Robben Island’s “master narrative”, this message is not universallysupported. It is challenged not by commercially interested outsiders,as in the case of Alcatraz, but by the emerging voices of lesser-knownformer prisoners with alternative visions of the Island’s meanings. Har-riet Deacon recalls that in the early days of the museum and at thetime of its ascension to World Heritage Site status it was difficult todepart from the triumph narrative without appearing to betray the“new” South Africa (Deacon 2000). Further, many tour guides them-selves point out that they alter interpretations according to their judg-ment of tourists’ receptivity and sophistication (tour guide Davis inter-view 1999). Taking these two points together, the passage of time maycreate interpretive space for less uplifting appreciations of apartheid’shorrors and engender greater interest in stories that digress from tri-umph narratives to detail the differences of opinion and conflictsbetween different groups of prisoners.

CONCLUSIONHeritage designers of dark tourism sites arrive on the scene after

places of suffering have become famous. They inherit official accounts


and popular stories and they constantly catch up with and cater totourists’ preconceived notions and expectations. South Africa’s anti-Apartheid movement and Hollywood’s myth factory largely set thestage for story telling once these closed prisons were opened up totourists. In spite of rangers’ best efforts to encourage tourists to seeAlcatraz in all its complexity, many continue to pose comically insideopen cells. In contrast, Robben Island’s interpretation staff (many ofthem former prisoners under the apartheid regime) preserve anofficial message (reinforced through its recent designation as a WorldHeritage Site) of victory over adversity, even as many South Africans’feelings of disillusionment and frustration in the “new” South Africamount (Aitkenhead 2000; Baker 2001).

To describe prison history tourism as “good” is too good, and “dark”too stark. Alcatraz was never simply a maximum-security prison withnothing to offer site interpreters but a story of punishment. As a con-suming place and a place consumed, Alcatraz is multi-hued (Urry1995). From its splashy opening, to its controversial operation, to itsignominious closure and its unsanctioned occupation, its history wascolorful. Even while it functioned as a prison, Alcatraz generated sen-sational stories, in testimony before public inquiries, in news coverageof daring breakouts, in the memoirs of former prisoners and prisonpersonnel. But more than any other publicity generator, blockbusterfilms put Alcatraz on the mental map of Americans and internationalconsumers of films made in the United States. A host of other lesserentrepreneurs, including former prisoners, warders, and residents onAlcatraz island, have profited by that cinematic success. Tourists maybe misled, but misleading representations do lead them to the Rock,ready to consume the abandoned prison’s history.

Similarly, Robben Island’s interpretation is only partly the productof heritage managers’ museological concepts. While the “crucible ofpolitical transformation” and “triumph of the human spirit” interpret-ations currently dominate, the stories that register most powerfully areNelson Mandela’s and his comrades’ particular struggles and achieve-ments. Consequently some Robben Island Museum staff worry that the“silent majority’s” stories are marginalized and those of the less famousordinary convicts sidelined, a set of concerns that echo recent critiquesof the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a mechanism that over-stated the completeness of the reconciliation process (Leman-Langlois1999; Rioufol 1999, 2000). To their credit, many initiatives undertakenby the museum have sought to broaden messages. Despite concerns,therefore, it does seem to perform an educational function that is partof a broader political effort to create a just multi-ethnic future forSouth Africa. Onsite surveys and participant observation suggest thatRobben Island engenders a strong, and in most cases positive, emotiveresponse among tourists, particularly respect and admiration for theprisoners who endured and overcame maltreatment.

The refashioning of punishment as a tourism product raises ethicalquestions about the commodification of suffering and its evident enter-tainment value, as some scholars have warned (Lennon and Foley1999; Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996; Watson and Kopachevsky 1994).


Recreations of tragedy can easily pander to ghoulish voyeurism,especially when economic pressures and dwindling heritage budgetscreate pressure to boost ticket sales. Although Alcatraz’s interpretationis already overshadowed by commercialized representations, and whileRobben Island may yet succumb to its “theme park” marketing poten-tial (Shackley 2001) both sites have the capacity to “posit questions, orintroduce anxiety and doubt about modernity and its consequences”(Lennon and Folely 2000:12). Moreover, the educative value of prisonhistory tourism will grow as the West enters an era during which penalinstitutions operate increasingly beyond public view (Kempa 2003;Pratt 2003). As Pratt (2003) argues, the “disappearance” of prisonsmakes it possible for less civilized modes of punishment to flourish.Historic penal sites may be gloomy, but their interpretation provokesdebate when frames of remembrance, forged by external politicalpressure and internal policies, illuminate disturbing practices and insti-tutions. Preserved prisons are stony silent witnesses to the things for-mer regimes were prepared to do to people who violated laws or whoseemed threatening or suspicious. The murkiest project of all wouldbe to close them to tourists rather than to confront the ongoing chal-lenge of interpreting incarceration, punishment, and forced iso-lation.�A

Acknowledgements—The authors thank Clifford Shearing and Joy Angeles for their team-work in carrying out the fieldwork towards this project. They are also grateful to KPMGSouth Africa for their work in compiling a market research report from the survey datacollected as part of our fieldwork. Particular thanks are due to the rangers, tour guides,and other staff of Alcatraz and Robben Island Museum who accommodated this studyover the course of very busy tourism seasons. The program of study of which this paperforms a part is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada.

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Submitted 3 January 2002. Resubmitted 23 May 2002. Resubmitted 15 August 2002.Accepted 8 October 2002. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Auvo Kostiainen

Shades of Dark Tourism - Alcatraz and Robben Island

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