Wageningen researcher Emmanuel Akwasi Adu-Ampong has received a starting grant worth 1.5 million euros from the European Research Council for his research into tourism in relation to slavery and colonial heritage. Together with a postdoc and three PhD students, he will investigate the frictions arising from the transformation of slavery and colonial heritage into touristic places and experiences.
Colonial history, including slavery, is a very sensitive issue. When Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema visited the Boni Trail at the former Frederiksdorp plantation in Suriname in 2022, she was confronted with a simulated slave market at the now luxury tourist resort where tourists could be chained and branded. Halsema sighed: 'I have a hard time turning it [slavery] into an experience. History is too gruesome for that. I feel ashamed when I must put on a chain (….) it does not justify the suffering.' Someone in the mayor's entourage thought it was too much of a Disney experience.
The slave market was part of the Boni Trail walk, which goes past a symbolic Elmina slave fortress in Ghana through the 'Door of No Return' to the slave market at this former coffee and cocoa plantation in Suriname. The slavery heritage tourism in this Surinamese resort caused all kinds of significant friction, says Adu-Ampong. The mayor's visit, for instance, led to emotional discussions in Suriname and The Netherlands as to whether this form of tourism does justice to the cultural memories of slavery and the colonial past. What is an appropriate way to represent this dark history, and who is entitled to decide how this is done?
Globally, we see many sites with tangible and intangible remnants of slavery, and the colonial past being transformed by tourism practices and performances in ways that generate friction, says Adu-Ampong. At such locations, profound stories and experiences are told for tourists that evoke these tensions and activate new narratives of the past. His project, FRICTIONS, aims to unravel how tourism tells this story while navigating polarised views and debates in society in relation to the cultural memories of the past.
Adu-Ampong's team will investigate this in three networks of colonial and slavery sites: Ghana-Suriname-Netherlands, Angola-Brazil-Portugal, and Namibia-Brazil-Germany. In practice, the researchers will make observations of tours, look at how travel agencies 'sell' these tours and listen to the tour guides' stories. In addition to interviews with tour guides and tourists, they will also study brochures and information boards to determine patterns in how people translate slavery and colonial heritage into contemporary tourist expressions in different places. In particular, they seek to trace how the stories told at these tourist sites find their way into larger societal discussions about the ongoing effects of slavery and the colonial past.
Adu-Ampong has just published an article about the narratives and representation of slavery and colonial heritage on guided tours in Amsterdam as part of his NWO-funded Veni project.
