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Social distance between local residents and African–American expatriates in the context of Ghana's slavery‐based heritage tourism
Author(s) -
Yankholmes Aaron,
Timothy Dallen J.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
international journal of tourism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.155
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1522-1970
pISSN - 1099-2340
DOI - 10.1002/jtr.2121
Subject(s) - tourism , context (archaeology) , heritage tourism , forgetting , african american , cultural heritage , sociology , gender studies , political science , geography , ethnology , tourism geography , law , psychology , archaeology , cognitive psychology
Abstract This paper explores the social distance between local residents and African–Americans who have settled in Ghana since the 1960s. Data generated from in‐depth interviews suggest the African–American expatriates felt their proximity to collective slave memory or particularly slavery heritage conferred on them certain rights to exclude local residents who are more susceptible to forgetting the past. By appropriating traces of the past, the African–American expatriates provide a range of tourism services, albeit to visitors they believed subscribed to socially constructed meanings elicited at slave sites. The study suggests explicit recognition of African–American expatriates in the levels of contestations that result from slavery‐based heritage tourism.