Abstract
This chapter analyzes Inside the Haiti Earthquake (2010), a free, award-winning online simulation, and the immersive virtual journey inside the January 2010 Haiti earthquake that the game offers. While maintaining some characteristics of disaster tourism and “thanatourism,” virtual dark tourism, the chapter argues, is a novel experience. Through its liminality, the accretive perspective the game offers, and its changing contextualization, the simulation creates a distinct itinerary through Port-au-Prince’s ruins. In effect, Inside the Haiti Earthquake can help to formulate an awareness of the ruinous constructs of aid and humanitarian industries—Haiti’s main disaster tourists—of the ongoing present of the disaster, and the lack of a simple and happy “end” for the inhabitants of Port-au-Prince.
I thank fellow presenters at the ASLE-UKI Postgraduate Conference (University College Dublin, 2014) and Valerie Kaussen for their feedback and stimulating discussions of the earlier versions of this chapter. In its later stages, this research was supported by the Leeds Humanities Research Institute Short Term Fellowship (2016).
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- 1.
Derek Walcott, The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993), 8.
- 2.
Ann Laura Stoler, “Imperial Debris: Reflections on Ruins and Ruination,” Cultural Anthropology 23 (2008): 191–221, 195.
- 3.
One example are plantation tours, also marketed as “rum tours,” on St. Kitts and St. Lucia, among others.
- 4.
The earthquake levelled approximately 80 percent of the city. Laura Zanotti, “Cacophonies of Aid, Failed State Building and NGOs in Haiti: Setting the Stage for Disaster, Envisioning the Future,” Third World Quarterly 31 (2010): 755–771, 756, accessed May 18, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2010.503567.
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Daniël J. Van Hoving et al., “Haiti Disaster Tourism—A Medical Shame,” Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 25 (2010): 201–202, 202.
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Kaiama L. Glover, “New Narratives of Haiti; or, How to Empathize with a Zombie,” Small Axe 16 (2012): 199–207, 198, accessed August 20, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-1894186.
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These awards include: Winner—2011 Games for Change Awards (Transmedia); Winner—Horizon Interactive Awards (Best in Show); Winner—2010 Applied Arts Interactive Awards (Gaming); Nominee—2010 Canadian New Media Awards (Best Web-Based Game); Nominee—2010 Social Impact Games (Best Social Impact Game); Nominee—2011 History Makers (Best Interactive Production); Nominee—2011 Webby Award (Best Writing in Online Film & Video). “Inside Disaster,” http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/experience (accessed August 4, 2016).
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Ibid.
- 9.
PTV Productions, Inside Disaster Press Kit (2010): 18, http://insidedisaster.com/outreach/IDH-PressKit_Dec2010.pdf (accessed May 20, 2017).
- 10.
Valerie Kaussen’s article (referenced below) provides an extensive description of the different pathways and choices the game user can make and the consequences of each selected action.
- 11.
Valerie Kaussen , “Zooming In: Virtual Disaster Tourism in Post-Earthquake Haiti,” Social and Economic Studies 64 (2015): 33–80, 57.
- 12.
Edwidge Danticat contests the ways in which the trope of Haitians’ resilience was used after the earthquake to justify the international community’s neglect. She writes: “After three post-earthquake visits to Haiti, I began to ask myself if this much-admired resilience would not in the end hurt the affected Haitians. It would not be an active hurt, like the pounding rain and menacing winds from the hurricane season, the brutal rapes of women and girls in many of the camps, or the deaths from cholera. Instead, it would be a passive hurt, as in a lack of urgency or neglect. ‘If being resilient means that we’re able to suffer much more than other people, it’s really not a compliment,’ a young woman at the large Champs de Mars camp in downtown Port-au-Prince told me.” Edwidge Danticat, “Lòt Bò Dlo, The Other Side of the Water,” in Haiti After the Earthquake, ed. Paul Farmer (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2011): 249–259, 257.
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A.V. Seaton , “Guided by the Dark: From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 2 (1996): 234–244, accessed May 20, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1080/13527259608722178.
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André Czauderna, “Serious Games to Games for Impact. Games for Change Europe,” G4ceurope, http://www.g4ceurope.eu/from-serious-games-to-games-for-impact/ (accessed July 13, 2016).
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Eric Klopfer, Scot Osterweil, and Katie Salen, Moving Learning Games Forward: Obstacles, Opportunities & Openness (The Education Arcade: MIT, 2009), http://education.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/MovingLearningGamesForward_EdArcade.pdf.
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Although, there is no fixed definition of a serious game, most scholars of the field “view serious games as: having a learning model embedded, the content is integrated into the game so learning is intrinsic to play, and the assessment of learning may be integral to the game or occur through mediation around the game.” Mary Ulicsak, Games in Education: Serious Games; A Futurelab Literature Review (FutureLab 2010): 27. http://media.futurelab.org.uk//resources/documents/lit_reviews/Serious-Games_Review.pdf.
- 17.
Ute Ritterfeld, Michael Cody, and Peter Vorderer, “Introduction,” in Serious Games: Mechanisms and Effects, ed. Michael Cody, Ute Ritterfeld, and Peter Vorderer (London: Routledge, 2009): 3–10: 6.
- 18.
Ibid., 1.
- 19.
These are defined as games that “provide users with specific skills development or reinforcement learning within an entertainment setting” where “skill development is an integral part of product” (Entertainment Software Rating Board, 2007). Ibid., 11.
- 20.
For the editors of Serious Games, “learning is defined as the intentional acquisition of skills or knowledge through deliberate practice and training and has therefore a pedagogical focus. With development we emphasize the rather incidental psychological impact of game play on processes of human development such as identity or attitude formation or emotional regulation that may be facilitated or initiated through game play. Finally, change addresses social intervention; for example, political or health behavior.” Ibid., 7–8.
- 21.
Ian Bogost, Persuasive games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).
- 22.
John Ferrara, “Games for Persuasion: Argumentation, Procedurality, and the Lie of Gamification,” Games and Culture 8 (2013): 289–304, 294, accessed May 15, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412013496891.
- 23.
Ibid., 294.
- 24.
Others include: Rebuild Chile; Stop Disasters! (2007); Earthquake Survival; Beat the Quake; as well as Save the Children Earthquake Response IPhone game (2011) or Tanah: The Tsunami & Earthquake Fighter (2016), a mobile gaming application released by UNESCO and software developer Open Dream to teach young players to prepare for, respond to, and recover from tsunami and earthquake disasters.
- 25.
Aftershock, “Game Studies 101,” http://gamestudies101.com/aftershock/ (accessed April 21, 2017).
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Aftershock, “The Game Crafter,” https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/aftershock (accessed April 21, 2017).
- 27.
A clear warning to the game users is also issued and emphasized in bold: “Please note that this simulation contains graphic and disturbing imagery.” “Inside Disaster,” http://www.insidedisaster.com/experience/Main.html [Italics original] (accessed August 8, 2016).
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
“Survivor,” http://www.insidedisaster.com/experience/Main.html#/survivor/S445 (accessed August 9, 2016).
- 31.
Carolyn Strange and Michael Kempa, “Shades of Dark Tourism: Alcatraz and Robben Island,” Annals of Tourism Research 30 (2003): 386–405, accessed April 20, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-7383(02)00102-0.
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Fabian Frenzel, Ko Koens, Malte Steinbrink, and Christian M. Rogerson, “Slum Tourism: State of the Art,” Tourism Review International 18 (2015): 237–252, accessed April 20, 2017, https://doi.org/10.3727/154427215X14230549904017.
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Philip Stone and Richard Sharpley , “Consuming Dark Tourism: A Thanatological Perspective,” Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008): 577–595, 588, accessed August 15, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2008.02.003.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
“Survivor.”
- 36.
Michael Nitsche, Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2008), 154.
- 37.
Ferrera, 291–292.
- 38.
Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC): Toronto. 2010, “Inside Disaster, docSHIFT: Real Stories to Multiple Platforms (workshop report),” 17, http://docinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/DOC-Toronto-docSHIFT.pdf (accessed June 30, 2016).
- 39.
See, for example, “Haiti in the Media,” Inside Disaster, http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/the-quake/haiti-in-the-media (accessed August 3, 2016); “Haiti’s History,” Inside Disaster, http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/the-quake/haitis-history (accessed August 3, 2016).
- 40.
Lilie Chouliaraki, “Post-Humanitarianism: Humanitarian Communication Beyond a Politics of Pity,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 13 (2010): 107–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877909356720.
- 41.
For Beverly Bell, “The message [of Haiti as a failed state] had long been drummed, but the tempo picked up after the earthquake, pounded by foreign governments, academics, and media, such as Time magazine’s piece ‘The Failed State That Keeps Failing.’ Later, Haiti would even come in fifth in the 2011 Failed States Index of the think tank Fund for Peace, after Somalia, Chad, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Beverly Bell, Fault Lines: Views Across Haiti’s Divide (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 80.
- 42.
Nadège T. Clitandre, “Haitian Exceptionalism in the Caribbean and the Project of Rebuilding Haiti,” Journal of Haitian Studies 17 (2011): 146–153, 146.
- 43.
Stoler , 195.
- 44.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, “ruin, n.” http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/168690?rskey=rk5JU5&result=2&isAdvanced=false (accessed March 12, 2013).
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Stoler , 195–196.
- 47.
“Why Was the Destruction So Severe?” http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/the-quake/why-was-the-destruction-so-severe (accessed August 3, 2016).
- 48.
The sub-page exposes how media framings of Haiti rely on the repetition of the same words, metaphors, and images. Inspired by a piece by Ansel Herz, “How to Write About Haiti,” the authors have used “the LexisNexis database to research how often key terms were used to describe Haiti over a year of print and TV news coverage (August 2009-August 2010), and assembled it into the visualization piece.” The tone of the page, echoing that of Herz’s piece, is ironic and dry. The importance of this pointed critique cannot be understated in the context of media misrepresentations of Haiti which have long defaced the country, have been the source of anti-Haitian stereotypes, and uphold the image of Haiti as a country in perpetual need of foreign assistance and guidance. Ansel Herz, “How to Write About Haiti,” Huffington Post, July 23, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/crossover-dreams/a-guide-for-american-jour_b_656689.html (accessed August 25, 2016).
- 49.
It is important to note that the contextualization provided on the page, as Valerie Kaussen points out, is in no way a neutral one: “The historical narrative of Haiti recounted in Inside Disaster elides Canadian as well as international involvement in Haiti’s political crises of 2004,” a key moment that saw the taking down of the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the subsequent establishment of United Nations Stabilization Mission In Haiti , MINUSTAH. Kaussen, 61.
- 50.
Mark Schuller and Pablo Morales, Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2012), 4.
- 51.
Schuller and Morales, Tectonic Shifts, 3.
- 52.
Anthony Oliver-Smith, “Haiti’s 500-Year Earthquake,” in Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake, ed. Mark Schuller and Pablo Morales (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2012): 18–23, 18.
- 53.
“Games for Change,” http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/inside-the-haiti-earthquake/ (accessed August 4, 2016).
- 54.
“Mission Statement,” http://www.gamesforchange.org/about/ (accessed August 4, 2016).
- 55.
Michael F. Young et al., “Our Princess Is in Another Castle: A Review of Trends in Serious Gaming for Education,” Review of Educational Research 82 (2012): 61–89, 80, accessed August 15, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654312436980.
- 56.
Ibid.
- 57.
“Ayiti: Cost of Life,” http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/ayiti-the-cost-of-life/ (accessed 19 August, 2016).
- 58.
Ibid.
- 59.
Elsa Buchanan, “UN Peacekeeping: Allegations of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse—A 20 Year History of Shame,” International Business Times, March 7, 2016, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/un-peacekeeping-allegations-sexual-exploitation-abuse-20-year-history-shame-1547581 (accessed August 20, 2016).
- 60.
Rex Brynen, POLI 450:Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Reconstruction (McGill University, 2017). https://www.mcgill.ca/politicalscience/files/politicalscience/poli_450-brynen-w17_outline.pdf (accessed April 14, 2017).
- 61.
Rex Brynen, “Inside the Haiti Earthquake: Student Perspectives on a Serious Game,” PAXsims, January 27, 2012, https://paxsims.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/inside-the-haiti-earthquake-student-perspectives-on-a-serious-game/ (accessed April 21, 2017).
- 62.
AB, ibid.
- 63.
BK, ibid.
- 64.
AS, ibid.
- 65.
Ellen Rose, On Refection: An Essay on Technology, Education, and the Status of Thought in the Twenty-first Century (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2013), 30.
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Mika, K. (2018). A Virtual Dark Journey Through the Debris: Playing Inside the Haiti Earthquake (2010). In: McDaniel, K.N. (eds) Virtual Dark Tourism. Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74687-6_11
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