Museums as dark tourism destinations : the Kgoši Mampuru correctional service prison museum

Abstract

Dark tourism is one of the fastest-growing tourism industries around the world, inextricably linked to museums with dark pasts. These museums are attractions and destinations associated with death, tragedy or suffering, and highlight some of the darkest human histories. For decades, much research on dark tourism in South Africa has focused on Robben Island as a prison that is most notorious with detailed literature. However, a lesser-known unique museum serves as a dark tourist destination in South Africa’s capital city. The Kgoši Mampuru II Museum (referred to as the Kgoši Mampuru II Management Area), formerly the Pretoria Central Prison, is a museum with a dark heritage that interprets the tragedy that took place during the apartheid regime. This paper gives a brief historical background of the Kgoši Mampuru II Prison and includes the major political execution that took place from 1961 to 1989 during apartheid. The paper examines the operation of the South African Department of Correctional Services and how it managed to convert this Pretoria-based prison into a museum, on the premise that it remains a current correctional centre for prisoners. It remains unclear how the transition from prison as a site of capital punishment developed into a museum. This paper explores these challenges and discussions from a dark tourism and museum experience perspective. Conclusions suggest that this research has the potential to occupy a critical niche, since prison museums, as a form of dark tourism, are largely unknown and can fill a major gap in South African museology.