Visiting Dark Murals: An Ethnographic Approach to the Sustainability of Heritage

[EN] Political, war-themed and controversial murals aim to show the history of a community, making the intangible tangible, and, because these events are still recent, they stir people's emotions. Visitors to this type of heritage have a mixture of artistic and dark interests that lead to what we call 'dark mural attractions'. These political murals need a public strategy to be preserved, become better known and attract local economic development funds to make them sustainable. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse how communities could build a co-narrative around murals to generate a sustainable local development. To achieve this goal, an in depth study needs to be performed to establish what kind of narrative will enable political murals to attract dark visitors and examine how communities can build a sustainable co-narrative around a dark mural. As a case study, we analyse the Battle of Cable Street mural in London, located in the non-touristic borough of Tower Hamlets, by means of an ethnographic qualitative approach based on stakeholders' opinions, among other sources. In this case, results show that dark murals have the potential to attract visitors, but they require a public strategy for the sustainability of heritage, based on a narrative of community solidarity for educational and discovery purposes. This research was funded by the Valencian Regional Government, Spain, during the visiting research period of De Miguel at the University of Roehampton, under the enlightened supervision of Jonathan Skinner. Grant number: BEST/2019/175. De-Miguel-Molina, M. (2020). Visiting Dark Murals: An Ethnographic Approach to the Sustainability of Heritage. Sustainability. 12(2):1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020677 Hooper, G., & Lennon, J. J. (Eds.). (2016). Dark Tourism. doi:10.4324/9781315575865 Yan, L., Xu, J. (Bill), Sun, Z., & Xu, Y. (2019). Street art as alternative attractions: A case of the East Side Gallery. Tourism Management Perspectives, 29, 76-85. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2018.11.001 Culture for Sustainable Development. UNESCOhttps://en.unesco.org/themes/culture-sustainable-development Santamarina-Campos, V., Carabal-Montagud, M. Á., Miguel-Molina, M. D., & Miguel-Molina, B. D. (Eds.). (2017). Conservation, Tourism, and Identity of Contemporary Community Art. doi:10.1201/9781315209586 Neill, W. J. V. (2001). Marketing the Urban Experience: Reflections on the Place of Fear in the Promotional Strategies of Belfast, Detroit and Berlin. Urban St