Perchance to Remember: Tourism and Memory Production at Namsan

This paper explores how tourism, memory, and affect interact at Namsan. Building on studies claiming that positive memories produced in tourism can lead to critical reflections that expand the scope of memory production, I seek to examine the juncture at which tourism encounters memory unwittingly at Namsan. What happens when individuals stumble upon historically charged sites without intending to participate in memory-work? What happens when leisure and recreation of the present collide with memories and traumas of the past? I examine how Namsan is experienced, felt, and understood to argue that the meeting of idle activities with historically charged spaces creates opportunities for new forms of memory-work that speak with more relevance to contemporary urban life than traditional memorial practices.