Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

I examine how meaning is created and mediated through signboards and oral narratives at former slave sites in Ghana. How do different futurities become associated with the sites – from psychological healing to prospects for community development?

Paper long abstract:

In the wake of increasing international attention to the history of the slave trade and recent African American heritage tourism to West Africa, the Ghanaian state and local entrepreneurs alike have begun to identify more and more landmarks as part of the slave route network. Natural features such as rivers, trees or rocks, which in themselves cannot be clearly distinguished from their surroundings by the uninitiated, now become explicitly associated with camp-sites, slave markets or places of refuge. Along the roads throughout the country one finds signboards that point out formerly hidden or forbidden places to potential tourists. They form part of a pilgrimage circuit by which the contemporary landscape is assigned deep historical significance. At the sites themselves, other signboards have been erected which serve to interpret the landscape along the lines of a dominant tourism narrative. This narrative is mainly aimed at African American visitors. It is presented in such a way that the more recent experiences of inner-continental slave-raiding and -trading appear as part of the transatlantic slave system and therefore as relevant to Diasporans.

This paper examines the processes through which meaning is created and mediated through signboards and oral narratives for both visitors and local communities at those former slave sites. It looks at the way in which different "futurities" become associated with the sites - ranging from the potential healing of psychological wounds to prospects for investment and community development - and asks about their mutual overlapping and fierce contestation.