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Paper short abstract:

My paper discusses Aapravais Ghat’s cultural landscape related to collective memories to boost dark tourism. A look at the Indian Ocean's tragic past could offer hope for future urban (colonial) tourism, after reviewing the historical site from different perspectives-intercultural interpretations.

Paper long abstract:

The World Heritage criterion (vi) provides a space where tangible objects and intangible assets interact and generate novel meanings: “directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance.”

Inscribed on World Heritage (2006) with a Criterion (vi), Aapravasi Ghat was the first site chosen for memories of almost half a million indentured labourers moving to Mauritius to work on sugar cane plantations. It represents the development of the modern system of contractual labour, as well as memories, traditions, and values.

Located on the bay of Trou Fanfaron in Port-Louis, the site remains an immigration depot from where the modern indentured labour diaspora emerged. It was built in 1849 to receive labourers from India, Eastern Africa, Madagascar, China and Southeast Asia. This was part of the 'Great Experiment' initiated by the British Government, after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire (1834) to demonstrate the superiority of free labour over slavery in its plantation colonies.

Each landscape has its own history, influenced by both natural and human factors. It receives various interpretations and understandings as mental, perceivable, or visible. Ways of conceiving landscapes lie between physical and cultural geography.

My paper discusses Aapravais Ghat’s cultural landscape related to collective memories of tangible-intangible encounters to boost dark tourism. A look at the Indian Ocean's tragic past could offer new hope for future urban (colonial) tourism, after reviewing the historical site from different inter-disciplinary perspectives and intercultural interpretations.