The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Abstract

This chapter presents the first narrative analysis of the slavery heritage tourism in Ghana, Nigeria, The Gambia, and Senegal. It first sets the scene by using empirical historiography to highlight the role that these countries played during the transatlantic slave trade era and then dwells on heritage studies, marketing, strategic management, and tourism studies to shed light on the heritage left behind by this infamous trade and the intricate multiple contestations that attend to its contemporary use, meaning and remembrance. The analysis is centered around one key question: ‘Whose history and collective slave memory should be privileged in the interpretation and representation of slavery heritage?’. In pursuit of this underlying question, the chapter addresses a number of themes including the diversity of diasporic Africans tracing their roots to these counties and UNESCO’s recognition of some transatlantic slave trade assets as World Heritage, and visitors’ and residents’ perspectives on how slavery is commoditized and sold for tourist consumption, not only from a government policy and marketing perspective but also from the viewpoint of the tourists and their African hosts including directions for future research themes in the field.

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