Pilgrimage Tourism of Diaspora Africans to Ghana [electronic resource].

ISBN:

9781317674993

Title:

Author:

Reed, Ann.

Personal Author:

Reed, Ann.

Publication Information:

Hoboken : Taylor and Francis, 2014.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (234 p.)

Series:

Routledge Studies on African and Black Diaspora

General Note:

Description based upon print version of record.

Contents:

Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; List of Figures and Maps; List of Tables; Acknowledgments; 1 Slavery Heritage and the Call to Home: Diasporan Travel to Ghana; 2 The Development of Ghana's Heritage Tourism; 3 Culture Brokers at the Front Lines: Tour Guides at Cape Coast and Elmina Castles Interpret the Slave Story; 4 Visitors' Perspectives at Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle: Slave Trade Memoryscapes and Ideoscapes; 5 The Performance of Public Discourse: Slavery Heritage and the One Africa Ideoscape

6 Foreigner or Family? Ghanaian Interpretations of the One Africa Ideoscape7 Slavery Heritage Tourism, the African Family, and the Politics of Memory; Bibliography; Index

Subject Term:

African Americans -- Travel -- Ghana.

African diaspora.

Ghana -- Description and travel.

Heritage tourism -- Ghana.

Historic buildings -- Ghana.

Slave trade -- Ghana -- History.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view book

Publication Date:

2014

Publication Information:

Hoboken : Taylor and Francis, 2014.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
338.4791667	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ON-DEMAND	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Processes of globalization have led to diasporic groups longing for their homelands. One such group includes descendants from African ancestors displaced by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, who may be uncertain about their families' exact origins. Traveling home often means visiting African sites associated with the slave trade, journeys full of expectations. The remembrance of the slave trade and pilgrimages to these heritage sites bear resemblance to other diasporic travels that center on trauma, identification, and redemption. Based on over two years of ethnographic fieldwork with both diaspora Africans and Ghanaians, this book explores why and how Ghana has been cast as a pilgrimage destination for people of African descent, especially African Americans. Grounding her research in Ghana's Central Region where slavery heritage tourism and political ideas promoting incorporation into one African family are prominent, Reed also discusses the perspectives of ordinary Ghanaians, tourism stakeholders, and diasporan "repatriates." Providing ethnographic insight into the transnational networks of people and ideas entangled in Ghana's pilgrimage tourism, this book also contributes to better understanding the broader global phenomenon of diasporic travel to homeland centers.

Author Notes

Ann Reed is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Visitors to numerous western African countries arrive each year in search of their ancestral roots. With great bittersweetness, diasporic tourists are afforded glimpses of monuments and into shared stories surrounding a past in which their ancestors were treated with unspeakable, inhumane brutality as products of the slave trade to the Americas and Caribbean. Through seven wonderfully crafted chapters, anthropologist Reed (Univ. of North Dakota) begins to explain the emerging phenomenon of slavery heritage tourism among visitors to Ghana. Using case studies and field-based research, the author does an excellent job of balancing qualitative and quantitative data to tell the story of residents and tourists involved with the phenomenon. Readers cannot help but feel they are part of the story told in Cape Coast, Ghana, as the words on the page come to life through numerous somber vignettes. Though some readers may finish the text with a sense of pessimism, sprinkled throughout the work is an appreciation of the idea that through this form of travel, histories are shared and pledges are made that such atrocities will never occur again. This text would be ideal for libraries with a collection specializing in cultural heritage tourism and anthropology. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Kyle M. Woosnam, Texas A&M University