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Project properties |
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| Title | Heritage and roots tourism: Geographies of heritage, identity and transnational citizenship in Ghana |
| Group | Cultural Geography Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 (MSc) |
| Supervisor(s) | Emmanuel Adu-Ampong |
| Examiner(s) | Prof. dr Edward Huijbens |
| Contact info | GEO thesis contact person Chih-Chen Trista Lin: chihchentrista.lin@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2020/01/01 |
| End date | 2022/12/31 |
| Description | Since independence in 1957, Ghana has consistently touted itself as the homeland for the African diaspora. This transnational identity is built on the tangible – slave castles, forts and lodges – as well as the intangible heritage – oral history, transnational knowledge and memory – left behind from the period of the slave trade.
Ultimately, Ghana’s main goal in linking the heritage of slavery to national and transnational African identity is to ensure that Africans in the Diaspora return ‘home’ either as temporal but regular visitors – tourists – or as permanent settlers in order to contribute to the economic development of the country. A key issue in leveraging the history of slavery to develop heritage and roots tourism is interpretation amenable to diverse stakeholders. With over 500 years of history, the various castles in Ghana evoke differing emotions, meanings and interpretation for different categories of people. An MSc thesis project could focus on: • the kind of discourses and interpretations of slavery heritage provided through roots tourism • ethics, authenticity and commodification of culture and slavery heritage. • the particular social meanings around of race and trans-atlantic Black identities. |
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