Glocal perspectives on the dark heritage of Indigenous reconciliation events

This chapter focuses on Indigenous reconciliation as a subcategory of mass-scale dark events of emancipation according to Stewart and Stone’s Dark Event Tourism Typology. A glocal perspective will be applied to a cross-national comparative analysis of activities and events related to Indigenous Peoples’ Day in three Commonwealth nations, as former territories of the British Empire. The three selected case studies are Waitangi Day in New Zealand, Reconciliation Day in Australia and National Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada to examine how each nation has addressed their postcolonial dark heritage. The analysis compares the history behind the marking of the selected dates; the diffusion of the celebration(s) across the counties; the types and ‘spectrum of darkness’ (i.e., tone) of the related events; and how these dates are discussed in popular media discourse nationally. The results provide some preliminary insights into how these former colonies have begun to acknowledge their dark heritage at a local level while also contextualising them within a globalised cross-comparison (i.e., a glocal perspective).