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Blurring Distinctions of Race and Nationality Through Heritage Tourism in Ghana

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Blurring Distinctions of Race and Nationality Through Heritage Tourism in Ghana Incorporating Diaspora: Blurring Distinctions of Race and Nationality through Heritage Tourism in Ghana Warren Thomas McKinney Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVESITY 2018 ©2018 Warren Thomas McKinney All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Incorporating Diaspora: Blurring Distinctions of Race and Nationality through Heritage Tourism in Ghana Warren Thomas McKinney This dissertation project examines the Ghanaian state's role in developing a heritage tourism industry that actively manipulates commemorative practices surrounding the legacy of the slave trade to redefine and institutionalize the ambiguous relationship Ghana holds with communities of African descent abroad. Developed in response to the renewed interest in African ancestry following the 1976 release of Alex Haley's novel Roots and its popular television adaptation, Ghana and other states in the region have since sought to incorporate African-Americans into their economic planning by providing them with opportunities to recover their lost heritage through tourism experiences. Not limited to the creation of heritage sites, monuments and museums dedicated to the legacy of slavery and dispersal from Africa, these states have also tailored investment opportunities to reflect a renewed spirit of Pan-Africanism and validate African-Americans' membership within a re-envisioned diasporic African community. Table of Contents List of Charts and Tables……………………………………………………………………ii Introduction –Bridging the Atlantic Divide: Race, Memory and Heritage Tourism……………………………………………………………………………..................1 Dissertation Outline…………………………………………………………………………….6 Heritage Tourism, Commemorative Practices and Identity………………………………..9 Heritage Tourism in West Africa……………………………………………………………..12 The Roots Moment…………………………………………………………………………….20 Who Visits and When………………………………………………………………………….25 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………28 Chapter 1 – Creating Homelands: Uncovering and Repairing Links to the Past………………………………………………………………………………....................33 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..33 Atlantic Slave Trade—Erasure and Dislocation…………………………………………….37 Forging Ties: Uncovering and Repairing Connections to the Past……………………….54 The Joseph Project……………………………………………………………………………57 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………67 Chapter 2 – Castles & Forts: Slavery and Memory in Ghana…………………………………………………………………………………………..70 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..70 Historical Background…………………………………………………………………………73 Establishing Heritage Sites and Ghana as a Diasporic Homeland………………………84 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………97 i Chapter 3 –The Pan African Historical Theatre Festival: Diasporic Racial Identity, Festival Life, and Tourism in Ghana…………………………………………………….104 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………105 Festival Life in Ghana and the Origins of Panafest………………………………………108 Contending National Attachments and the Geography of the African Diaspora……………………………………………………………………………………….122 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………….127 Conclusion – Heritage, Social Boundaries, and State Battlegrounds……………………………………………………………………………….130 Heritage, Social Boundaries and State Battlegrounds…………………………………...131 Implications and Directions for Future Research…………………………………………135 Works Cited……………….…………………………………………………………………144 Methodological Appendix….………………………………………………………………………………….159 Overview……………………………………………………………………………………..159 Tourism Policies and Participation Records………………………………………………162 Tour Guidebooks and Promotional Materials……………………………………………..163 Field Research and Ethnographic Methods……………………………………………….116 Archival Research and Travel Narratives………………………………………………….167 ii List of Charts and Tables Table I.I: International Tourism Arrivals to Ghana, 1990 – 2011……………………..13 Table I.II: Trend in International Tourism Arrivals to Ghana, 1999 – 2004…………25 Table I.III: International Tourism Arrivals and Expenditures, 2001 – 2007………...25 Table I.IV: Tourist Arrivals to Select Sites, 2009………………………………………..26 Table 1.1: Estimated Total Export of Slave Laborers from West Africa, 1700 – 1810……………………………………………………………………………………………..37 Table 3.1: PANAFEST Themes, 1991 – 2012……………………………………………………………………………………………113 iii Introduction: Bridging the Atlantic Divide: Race, Memory & Heritage Tourism This dissertation project examines the Ghanaian state's role in developing a heritage tourism industry that actively manipulates commemorative practices surrounding the legacy of the slave trade to redefine and institutionalize the ambiguous relationship Ghana holds with communities of African descent abroad. Developed in response to the renewed interest in African ancestry following the 1976 release of Alex Haley's novel Roots and its popular television adaptation, Ghana and other states in the region have since sought to incorporate African-Americans into their economic planning by providing them with opportunities to recover their lost heritage through tourism experiences. Not limited to the creation of heritage sites, monuments and museums dedicated to the legacy of slavery and dispersal from Africa, these states have also tailored investment opportunities to reflect a renewed spirit of Pan-Africanism and validate African-Americans' membership within a re-envisioned diasporic African community. This study will reveal how state sanctioned tourism initiatives and related commemorative practices convey specific historical narratives and political ideologies that alter the horizons of identity-motivated action for communities of African descent. It will argue that although Ghana's state tourism initiative is just one case of such a racial project, it is indicative of the roles state and non-state actors take up in the maintenance of racial, ethnic, and national boundaries embedded within the collective memory of deep historical traumas and events (Omi & Winant, 1994). The project will rely on a mixed method approach to examine the creation and manipulation of the boundary 1 objects states and non-state actors manipulate to reshape the identity horizons of tourists of African descent (Brubaker, 2009, 2004; Patterson, 2006). These objects and physical spaces hold sufficient meaning to two or more communities and allow for communication and exchanges across otherwise rigid boundaries of difference and opposing interests (Lainer-Vos, 2012). The project relies on the analysis of state- produced tourism and investment materials as well as media coverage of the direct marketing of these initiatives to African descendent communities in the United States, Europe and Caribbean. In doing so, the project reveals how Ghana and other West African states draw from and adapt the history of the slave trade to forge new solidarities that bridge national and ethnic boundaries. The project, Incorporating Diaspora: Blurring Distinctions of Race and Nationality through Heritage Tourism in Ghana, brings together concepts and concerns from the field of race and ethnicity and the scholarship on social boundaries and collective memory to explore the formation of homeland-diaspora relations between communities of African descent and the Ghanaian state (Lainer-Vos, 2012). The project poses the question: how might collective representations of the slave trade affect the possibility for the construction of a Pan-African identity, which transcends state, continental, and ethnic boundaries along racial lines? Using the case of the Ghanaian heritage tourism industry, this project builds on the rather vast literature exploring the formation of ethnic, national, and racial boundaries to better understand how a state establishes homeland- diaspora relations with a foreign group and manages difference within a re-imagined national community (Anderson, 2006; Gomez, 2005; Tilly, 2005; Appadurai, 1996; Calhoun, 1993). In pursuing these goals, this dissertation project seeks to advance the 2 scholarship on race, collective memory and commemorative practices by examining how the Ghanaian state manipulates social boundaries and categories of identity through representations of historical events relating to the Atlantic slave trade (Autry, 2013; Lebow, 2008; Halbwachs, 1992). Using these literatures as a foundation, the project examines how the construction and manipulation of boundary objects that embody significant historical events, personages, and cultural practices related to the Atlantic slave trade create the impression that Ghana is the homeland to communities of African descent. As suggested, this dissertation project traces the development of a tourism industry in Ghana, West Africa that specializes in commemorating the history of the Atlantic slave trade and the lasting social traumas resulting from forced dispersal from Africa. More specifically, the project looks to the Ghanaian case to uncover how the state institutions responsible for organizing Ghana’s “heritage” industry rely on tourism offerings to construct homeland-diaspora relations with communities of African descent abroad and forge new channels for economic and social development. As such the museums, monuments, slave castles, festivals, and associated social networking events organized by the state are introduced in detail to uncover how the legacy of the slave trade and notions of African ancestry are assembled into tourism experiences that bridge categories of race, ethnicity, and nationality while redefining the guidelines of civic engagement. Not limited
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