SITE OF MOURNING?: Diaspora Tourism and the Multiplicity of Meaning at Cape Coast Castle Kaitlin van Baarle Social and Cultural Anthropology 2013-2014 Prof. Patrick Devlieger Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication Final paper Kaitlin van Baarle Abstract This ethnographic account analyzes the everyday occurrences at Cape Coast castle, in Cape Coast, Ghana, in order to understand the multiplicity of meanings that are held by diverse individuals regarding this heritage site. It therefore aims to provide an understanding of the fort that goes beyond its normative conception as a place stuck in the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, by acknowledging the way in which the site is employed by a variety of tourists and non-tourists alike, while also taking into account its context as an important site of diaspora tourism in Ghana. Interspersed with subjective accounts by the author as a fieldworker from July until September 2013, the article focuses specifically on tours provided at the castle, as well as the mundane social encounters that occur at this site throughout the day. The ultimate aim of this article is to illustrate the complexity of such a heritage site, and the importance of its local geographical context for the various meanings it holds. Keywords Cape Coast castle, Ghana, diaspora tourism, tourism, heritage sites, meaning Introduction In the popular historical American novel, Roots, the author Alex Haley illustrates the transAtlantic slave trade and how it played out in the United States, following the generations of African-Americans in his family that preceded his. The novel begins with Kunta Kinte and his life in a village in what is now known as the Gambia. Kunta Kinte is eventually kidnapped by European traders, forced on to a slave ship and sold to a plantation in the United States, where he and many of his descendants are fated to live their lives in servitude. The novel ends with the author himself visiting the hometown of his African ancestors (Haley, 1976). It is this particular book that has inspired many African-Americans to go on a so-called pilgrimage back to Africa to discover their own roots. This form of pilgrimage to Africa by diasporans which was initially considered a subversive act against the American nation-state has now become institutionalized by government actors, especially the Ghanaian state. Indeed, as of Kwame Nkrumah's rule, diasporans have been encouraged to migrate to Ghana for ideological as well as economic reasons. Today, the Ghanaian tourism industry also plays a significant role in recruiting diasporans to undertake their pilgrimage in Ghana. The many forts built by Europeans that were used to host slaves still dotting the West African coastline are now central to the diaspora tourist experience. In the small fishing city of Cape Coast, Ghana, lies Cape Coast castle, the second-largest slave trade fort to be found on Ghana’s beaches. The castle is visited by several tourists a day, including roots tourists, said 1 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication members of the African diaspora who are descendants of slaves from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and travel to Ghana to rediscover their “true” origins (Essah, 2001; Finley, 2004; Hasty, 2002). For this reason, certain discourses are utilized to frame the castle in a particular way, by both diasporan and Ghanaian actors; with an almost exclusive focus on the spectacular and horrifying experiences of slaves held in the dungeons, the castle is portrayed as a timeless heritage site that should be preserved both physically and discursively as a site of the transAtlantic slave trade. Such discourses, however, have not gone without contestation on the part of some members of the local Ghanaian population, albeit on subtle, everyday levels. This I had the opportunity to study empirically during the course of the two months I spent in Cape Coast from July until September 2013. Focusing primarily on Ghanaian informants who were somehow related to the goings-on of the castle, I learned about the conflicting views regarding the castle; should one focus solely on the castle as a reminder of the slave trade, or should its evolving relationship with the local population also be acknowledged? In asking myself this question, I took notice of the various meanings that the castle holds for different individuals; the castle is thus more than a former site of the slave trade or a site of tourism. For example, it is also a site of leisure. In accounting for these deviations from the normative meaning of the castle, I thus hope to take seriously the “fluid, fragmentary character of social reality” (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1992, p. 23) as understood in the context of tourism in Ghana. This article thus explores, on the basis of interviews and participant observation with Ghanaians (in)directly implicated in the diaspora tourism industry, the different, inadvertent meanings of the castle, and how Ghanaian individuals accommodate or navigate diaspora tourism in light of these various meanings, focusing specifically on Cape Coast castle. This article thus takes a markedly different approach from many studies of the African diaspora in Ghana; much of the literature thus far has focused primarily on diaspora tourists themselves. In my research, I rather focus on Ghanaian individuals who live around the heritage site in question, and/or who experience this tourist site as part of their everyday lives, to explore how the “local” population responds to and negotiates with diaspora tourism. 2 Kaitlin van Baarle In this article, I hope to illuminate the complex history of Cape Coast castle – as well as other castles – in the context of the Ghanaian social life, in order to reconfigure the normative understanding of Cape Coast castle. This article begins with a brief overview of diaspora tourism in Ghana. My subjective positioning as a fieldworker in Ghana has, however, played a large role in both my choice of informants as well as the information I have obtained. The second section is thus a discussion of the methods employed during fieldwork and the role of my own subjectivity and bodily limitations. Thirdly, on the basis of interviews and participant observation, I analyze the various contestations that were occurring at the castle in ubiquitous ways during the course of my fieldwork. Ultimately, this research aims to illuminate the socially constructed nature of the apparent timelessness of the castle, and offers new possibilities for our understanding of heritage sites. The complexities and tensions of diaspora tourism in Ghana During the period of African-American emancipation following the end of slavery in the United States, a Pan-African movement developed among the intellectual African-American community, encouraging migration back to the homeland of Africa (Singh, 2004). This wave of Pan-Africanism was essentially centered on the notion that all members of the African diaspora are African. Pan-Africanism particularly became an important movement during the period of decolonization, in which renowned African leaders – including Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah – made a call for the collaborative efforts of all people of African origin to fight back against white imperialism. Furthermore, a potential mass migration of diasporans to newly independent nations such as Ghana was seen to potentially pave the way for greater economic development. The notion that diasporans are just as African as those who are born on the continent therefore also served material interests. Nkrumah in particular set the scene for this discourse to become reality in the Ghanaian context, by making a call for all people of African descent to migrate to Ghana upon Ghanaian independence. Ultimately, individuals from the diaspora are offered Ghanaian citizenship ever since this policy was put in place by Nkrumah’s regime (White, 2012). To this day, Ghana is a popular destination for African-American individuals returning to their homeland, as well as for diaspora tourists to explore their heritage. In fact, some of the most 3 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication renowned members of the African-American community, such as Maya Angelou and W.E.B. Du Bois have migrated to Ghana, and Ghana has the largest African-American community in all of Africa (Holsey, 2008). Although Pan-Africanism was initially a radical and political tool used to fight the oppressive forces of imperialism, it has now become adopted by commercial actors in the tourism sector who provide tourists with the personal experience of rediscovering their roots (Powers, 2011). Indeed, Ghana contains many sites of interest to those who wish to see sites related to the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, such as the several forts dotted along the coast and old slave markets. Ghana has therefore garnered a reputation as a “homeland” for many African-Americans, both in the way in which it exists in the African-American imagination, as well as the way in which Ghana also actively markets itself as a destination of interest to those who want to explore their “roots”. In spite of the way in which it has been commercialized, the meaning that a return to Africa holds for diasporan individuals, particularly during the period in which AfricanAmericans were struggling for civil rights in the United States in the 1950s and 60s, cannot be overlooked. Gaines (2006) writers extensively about the connection between the Civil Rights era and decolonization, which resulted in such policies as that instilled by Nkrumah’s regime, encouraging diasporans to seek citizenship in Africa. Ultimately, this means that diasporans could receive political citizenship that they were otherwise lacking in countries such as the United States. Nevertheless, with time, the return of the diaspora to Africa lost its radical edge. Even some members of the diaspora, such as radical civil rights activist and expatriate to Ghana, Julian Mayfield, were critical of Nkrumah’s increasingly authoritarian regime (Gaines, 2006). Eventually, Ghana’s diasporan population has dwindled (Holsey, 2008), and diaspora tourism is heavily commoditized. In addition to its commercialized nature, diaspora tourism also comes with other problematic elements. As I have discovered during my fieldwork, a large number of diasporans are interested in discovering their “true” origin. Many come to the conclusion that their ancestors are Akan, the largest ethnic group to be found in Ghana. Some individuals of the diaspora even go so far as to identify as Ashanti, a sub-group of the Akan ethnic group and the most powerful group in the region during the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Such a means of identifying as authentically African, however, is met with suspicion. As my informant Stephen 4 Kaitlin van Baarle Okota – the head of the Museum Education Department at Cape Coast Castle – insisted during our first conversation together, the Ashanti were collaborating with slave traders during the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and sold people that were taken as captives during raids. To identify as Ashanti, is therefore, according to Mr. Okota, a contradiction; identifying with those who were actively complicit in the slave trade in fact goes against redeeming oneself from the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Evidently, conceiving of Ghana as a new homeland, and using Ghana as a site for redemption among diasporans risks creating new tensions between different groups. Although Pan-African ideologies assert that diasporans and Ghanaians must unite, differences nevertheless arise. These differences play out in complex ways, and this is largely to do with the value that diasporans place on memorializing the victims of the slave trade. One example is the way in which slave trade forts are conceived respectively by the Ghanaian population and by AfricanAmericans in Ghana: while the contemporary local population has used various forts for practical purposes such as schools, many diasporans perceive them as a part of their heritage that should be designated as a site of mourning and be preserved in particular ways (Bruner, 1996). As I have witnessed during my fieldwork, this issue has led to many tensions between the two groups. I elaborate further on this problem in the following sections. Most importantly however, the role of Ghanaian individuals themselves as agents cannot be ignored. Although the slave trade forts and similar heritage sites related to the slave trade are undeniably important elements to the diasporan collective imagination, these sites nevertheless exist in Ghana and therefore have a history within the Ghanaian context. Ever since their construction, Ghanaian individuals have been interacting with such sites in multifaceted ways. More generally, one cannot ignore the lasting impact that slavery and imperialism has had on the region. Just like individuals from the diaspora, Ghanaians have experienced abuse at the hands of imperialism for generations that can still be felt to this day. Some of the existing literature on diaspora tourism illustrates how Ghana’s own painful history manifests itself through daily interactions with diasporans. For example, Ghanaians have been known to refer to AfricanAmericans as “obruni”, meaning foreigner, placing them in the same category as white tourists (Bruner, 1996). It has also been demonstrated that many Ghaianans have the tendency to associate members of the diaspora who come to Africa with the wealth and privilege of Europe 5 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication and the United States. There is a joke in Ghana that if a slave ship was transporting Africans to the United States today, Ghanaians would happily jump aboard (Holsey, 2008; Murphey, 2012). There is something very dark about the notion that Africans would be willing to endure the hardships that slaves experienced on their journey across the Atlantic during the slave trade, and it demonstrates that there is quite a strong sense that slaves and their descendants have actually lived in a world of luxury compared to Africans. On the whole, the Pan-African notion of all individuals of African origin being one people plays out in complex ways in the context of Ghana. Ultimately, the community of Africans as imagined by Pan-Africanism is not homogeneous, and not all Ghanaians necessarily identify with the ideology. Indeed, as demonstrated in other ethnographic works on the topic, African-Americans in Ghana are often perceived as outsiders by Ghanaians, despite the notion of Africans and the African diaspora being “one people” as imagined by Pan-Africanism (Bruner, 1996; White, 2012). Ultimately, Pan-Africanism in Ghana is largely mobilized for commercial purposes as a means for attracting visitors that can contribute to the tourist industry, which is largely viewed as an important route for development (Bruner, 1996). As I explain in greater detail below, based on my findings in the field, it is evident that agents operating in the tourism industry capitalize upon Pan-African discourses and the affective meaning that the slave trade holds among the diaspora. However, this does not occur without controversy. Methods I spent two months in total in Ghana, arriving July 10 and departing September 6, 2013. My initial plan was to spend just six weeks in Ghana, although I eventually realized I was operating at a much slower pace than I had anticipated, and thus rescheduled my return flight. The majority of my time was spent in Cape Coast, although I also spent some time in other areas, particularly to follow some events of Panafest, a Pan-African festival organized by the diasporan community in Ghana. I also visited other forts around Ghana: namely Fort Apollonia in the small town of Beyin, and the largest fort near Cape Coast, Elmina castle. I also had the opportunity to go on a private tour with a friend through a fort in Anomabu when I visited Ghana in 2011 on holiday. Although I do not explicitly refer to these experiences in this article, they have nevertheless shaped my understanding of diaspora tourism and the slave trade forts. 6 Kaitlin van Baarle I came to Ghana with the initial plan that I was going to explore the affective motivations of diaspora tourists themselves, with the hypothesis that diaspora tourism is largely an emotional and symbolic experience. For practical, academic, as well as theoretical purposes however, I shifted my focus from diaspora tourists to the Ghanaian population that hosts them. On a practical level, I struggled to reach out to the community of diasporans in Cape Coast, for reasons I can only guess are related to their ambivalence toward white people. On an academic level, among the research that has been done thus far on diaspora tourism in Ghana, there has been little focus on how this form of tourism is actually received among the local population. Especially given the fact that diaspora tourism involves such a complex interplay of both power and victimization that defies the usual black-and-white interpretation of tourists in the global south, I feel that it is thus imperative to analyze how this form of tourism affects Ghana, as well as how Ghanaian agents negotiate with diaspora tourism. Lastly, on a theoretical level, I realized that the effects of diaspora tourism went much deeper than merely the level of symbolic or the discursive; it has real impacts on the communities in which it places itself, and vice versa. In order to investigate the complex relationship between diaspora tourists and Ghanaians, I engaged in two main qualitative methods: participant observation and interviews. My participant observation involved taking part in a tour of Cape Coast castle, which I recorded with a handheld sound recorder. I also obtained explicit permission from the administration of the castle to conduct research, and was therefore able to enter the castle without any issue. This allowed me to spend some time in the courtyard of the fort, where I took photos and wrote notes in my logbook. Furthermore, I conducted a total of ten official interviews. They ranged from five minutes to over an hour long, and consent forms were used. I did however face many limitations with regards to my methods. Firstly, over the course of my research I learned about the drawbacks of using consent forms in particular contexts; some individuals seemed uncomfortable with my request for them to sign a form, and it may or may not have impinged on the information they disclosed to me. In retrospect I therefore realized that it may have been more conducive to limit my use of consent forms to individuals who worked in a more formal setting, and rather obtain verbal consent from other informants. Secondly, the use of my sound recorder may have further made some informants uncomfortable, although I had merely one instance where an informant was confident enough to explicitly state that he did not 7 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication want to be recorded for the interview. I was surprised to find that this was one of my most fruitful interviews, perhaps because of the absence of the sound recorder. Unfortunately, based on the body language of my informants, I suspect that some were uncomfortable with being recorded but refrained from saying so. This may or may not have had to do with my power position as a fieldworker and a white person in Ghana, which I elaborate on in the section below. In short, were I to undertake this fieldwork again, I would limit both the sound recorder and the consent form to individuals in more high-ranking bureaucratic positions, and make a greater effort to make my other informants feel at ease. During the course of my fieldwork, I also experienced an academic dilemma regarding the value of the participant observation in contrast to interviews, which confronted me with the debate in the social sciences regarding the value of long-term qualitative data. My local supervisor, Brempong Osei-Tutu, a professor at Cape Coast University who I became acquainted with through email correspondence, has a background in anthropology as well as sociology and strongly encouraged me to focus my fieldwork on interviews with several individuals, particularly those in high-ranking positions such as policymakers and chiefs. My educational background at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, however, has taught me to see the value in the everyday, and thus focus on participant observation and casual encounters with all kinds of individuals. Ultimately, it was the latter that is the focus of the final product of my research, but given the conflicting advice I was receiving from academic authorities, I also focused largely on interviews. Although I inadvertently engaged in participant observation throughout my stay in Ghana, it was only toward the end of my time spent in Cape Coast that I explicitly focused on spending time in the castle and observing the subtleties around me. Although participant observation limited the kind of explicit information I could potentially obtain from interviews, it was ultimately far less intrusive and also far more interesting from the perspective of how the castle is experienced on the level of the everyday. Being positioned as an obruni and the limitations of the body Regardless of the methods I chose, being an “obruni” – a foreigner in the local dialect of Fante – played a significant role in my relationship with informants as well as my interpretation of the data. In the same sense that the term “allochtoon” is used to designate a very specific kind of 8 Kaitlin van Baarle ethnic Other in the Netherlands and in Belgium, obruni also refers more specifically to those foreigners from the West. My Nigerian friend Obehi, for example, was not referred to as “obruni”, despite his Nigerian nationality being widely known. Ultimately, the impact that the label had on my own subjectivity was that it consistently reminded me of my position as an outsider. This in itself in a notion I could accept, yet I regularly heard “obruni” being called at me by strangers on the street. In this sense, although the phrase is almost always used in a wellintentioned manner, I always felt noticed, which ultimately gave me much lower confidence in everyday situations. However, the favorable treatment that I, as an obruni, received in Ghana was also illuminating to me regarding the lasting impact that imperialism and globalization has had on Ghana. After being walked home one evening by a waiter before I had yet made friends in Cape Coast (the fact that I was being escorted home another reminder of my positionality and vulnerability as a white tourist), I wrote the following in my logbook: I asked one of the waiters, [name redacted], who had earlier told me I was a “nice lady” for no reason that was identifiable to me, if he could walk me back to my hotel because it was dark. He was happy to, because he had “never walked with a white person before”. During the walk, children ran after me, and he said, “This is why I want to walk with you, because people see that I am walking with a white person.” (July 15, 2013, 20:00) Another odd experience for me was when two young girls ran their hands through my hair, complimenting it and saying their wanted my (archetypally “white”) hair. This was toward the end of my stay in Ghana and I thus learned to make compromises with regards to my personal space, and also to find such situations amusing above all else. Nevertheless, my initial understanding of this and similar situations that I encountered during my fieldwork was that such attitudes toward whiteness is a remnant of the “false consciousness” instilled by imperialism and colonialism; to use the words of Stoler (2008), it is “imperial debris”, the fragments and ruination left behind by colonialism. However, in light of the fact that Ghana is in fact a popular site of diaspora tourism, motivated by Pan-African and black consciousness discourses, this might seem contradictory. Over time I have allowed myself to ruminate over this, and come to realize that the fact that whiteness is something to be desired does not necessarily mean that Ghanaians look down upon their own blackness; it is rather a “claim to membership” (Fergusen, 2002, p. 555) in an unequal global 9 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication society. Indeed, the waiter who walked me back to the guesthouse made it explicitly clear that being associated with a white person elevated his social status above all else. Furthermore, I was also read as predominantly young and female. Being positioned as such impacted heavily upon the way in which Ghanaian individuals interacted with me, and in mostly negative ways. For example, I was put in a very uncomfortable position when male informants made comments on my appearance, or when one informant went so far as to feel my torso when greeting me. Subsequently, that same informant offered to take me out to dinner after the interview. Some informants therefore looked past my attempts at being professional in light of the fact that I was a young woman. There was only one instance during my fieldwork that I noticed that my positionality was working to my advantage, when I was doing participant observation at the castle and was being asked out on a date by a Ghanaian man. This I will elaborate on further below. Being a woman in the field extended beyond the moments in which I was deliberately trying to do fieldwork. Being in a place where many young volunteer tourists travel down to the coast for the weekend to relax and potentially “hook up” with interested men from Cape Coast, I struggled to be taken seriously as a woman and as a fieldworker. Indeed, as I have learned during the course of my fieldwork, tourists have a reputation at Cape Coast of generally being either roots tourists or young volunteer tourists from either Europe or America. These volunteer tourists are largely understood to be young, naïve, and sexually interested in Ghanaian men. I had one instance where someone approached my friend Obehi, and inquired as to what I am doing in Ghana; he struggled to believe that rather than being yet another volunteer tourist, I was a master’s student doing research. The one time I stripped down to my bathing suit at the beach, another man asked the same friend if he could take photos of me, at which point I remembered why I was ambivalent about stripping down in the first place, despite the hot temperatures. Another humiliating moment was when I was lifted off a bus by a man who was presumably trying to do me a favor as I was stepping off; I felt weak and literally belittled. All these moments served to ebb away at my self-esteem during the course of my fieldwork, which – in combination with my sense of isolation, homesickness, and the hot and humid weather – ultimately had an impact on my mood and my health. In this sense, I thus 10 Kaitlin van Baarle experienced an unravelling of the Cartesian dualism of mind and body (Scheper-Hughes & Lock, 1987) when both were affecting one another during my most vulnerable moments. The air pollution (to which I am particularly sensitive) and the foods that my digestive system was not used to certainly triggered some of the health problems I experienced during my stay. However, the stress of undertaking fieldwork on my own also presumably exacerbated these problems, weakening my immune system and causing other illnesses such as a cold and a fever when I was feeling at my lowest. It was during these moments that I was confronted with the bodily limitations of engaging in ethnographic fieldwork; not only do I enter the field with a set worldview, and not only am I placed within a particular social position by the people that surround me, but the very body in which I live also experiences its own limitations. These bodily limitations then feed back upon my emotional and intellectual experience in the field. For these reasons, it is imperative to acknowledge that my research was limited by my own subjective experiences in the field. My findings are therefore not wholly objective, to the extent that objectivity is even possible within anthropology. However, in being fully open about my experiences in the field with regards to my positionality, my subjectivity, and my bodily limitations, I hope to come close to what can be considered an objective interpretation of what I attempt to demonstrate. As Fabian (2000) argues in his analysis of ethnographers during the exploration of Central Africa who were often inebriated, ill, or exhausted, being “irrational” can sometimes contribute to a greater understanding of anthropological phenomena. Furthermore, the subjective experiences of the ethnographer, particularly those that illuminate their limited rationality, must be explicitly referred to for an objective ethnographic account. Indeed, I strongly believe that the fact that a large proportion of my time at Cape Coast was spent exhausted, exasperated, hot, tired, sick, or inebriated also gave me a perspective that protected me from naiveté and uncalled-for optimism, ensuring that I maintain a critical view of the things that were happening around me. In the following section, I hope to make my findings, as interpreted through my own senses, clear. Contestations of meaning at Cape Coast castle Although used for various purposes, Cape Coast castle is infamous for its usage as a slave dungeon, where slaves were held prior to being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean and sold in the 11 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication Americas. Built by European traders, the castle has the characteristics of a fort due to the instability and conflict that reined the region when European powers were in constant conflict over influence in the area. Indeed, Ghana possessed many sources of wealth, such as raw materials, and especially humans to be bought and sold in the slave trade. Today, the fort is frequented by several tourists daily and every day multiple group tours of the castle are being held. Many Ghanaian individuals also mosey around the courtyard of the castle throughout the day, perhaps because they know a friend who works there as an employee. A view of the castle courtyard. The castle, being a meeting place between tourists and non-traveling Ghanaians, as well as between Ghanaians themselves, has become a site of debate regarding matters of ethics and economics. The administration of the fort has received much criticism from diasporans because of its supposed “commercialization”, such as the presence of gift shops and a restaurant, which was subsequently moved outside the premises of the castle following complaints (Osei-Tutu, 12 Kaitlin van Baarle 2009). Furthermore, the expensive fees for entering the castle and participating in a tour is an ongoing topic of debate. Foreign tourists, which include diasporans, are required to pay at a higher rate than Ghanaian visitors, which is contradictory to the Pan-African notion that diasporans are at home in Ghana (ibid.). Indeed, I read several comments in the guestbook expressing disapproval at the high entrance fees. On the other hand, accusations of unwarranted commercialization of the castle also come from the administration of the castle itself, directed toward members of the diaspora community: “[T]hat is how they able to extort… They have written their own books, they sell to them, if you go to their place they will force you to buy, at the end of the day they have some ceremonies they do you have to pay for. Sometimes even pieces of stones and bricks, they steal from there, […] and pack it and sell to visitors who come to them.” (Interview with Stephen Okota, 17/07/2013) Here, Mr. Okota is referring to diasporan individuals who own a guesthouse nearby, One Africa, and also organize tours at the fort for diaspora tourists. Whether or not Mr. Okota’s assertions are true remains open for debate, but it nonetheless illustrates the many tensions that are playing out at the castle regarding what is and is not morally acceptable to commercialize. Additionally, there is also an ongoing controversy regarding the maintenance of the castle; repainting the walls white has been understood by some diaspora tourists as a metaphor for the erasure, or “whitewashing” of the castle’s history (Finley, 2004). This is an example of a wider debate within the field of heritage studies as to what constitutes the preservation of heritage: should a site be made to resemble its “original” states, or should its decay rather be embraced? Interestingly, this notion is in stark contrast to one Ghanaian visitor who left the following comment in the guestbook: “Please work on parts of structure that’s falling off, especially roof. Thanks.” (July 5, 3013). The importance of accounting for these seemingly trivial clashes is that it is ultimately demonstrative of a debate about what is considered meaningful and who is allowed to define what is meaningful. In the same interview, Mr. Okota expressed fears about the potential of diasporans taking complete control of another castle on the Ghanaian coast: “You see, now I hear there’s something in the pipeline, they are pushing to get an exclusive fort to themselves. So that it’s only African-Americans, Africans of the diaspora, that are visiting the fort. […]It is yet to be earmarked, but it will be either [Fort] Anomabu or Amsterdam, […] They want an exclusive place […]. And they are only African-Americans or only diasporan Africans there. You don’t see any 13 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication Caucasian, no Asian, nothing. It’s only them. And when it happens like that, then it means we maybe won’t be doing tours there, and it will basically be closed to the public. And I don’t subscribe to that.” (Interview with Stephen Okota, 17/07/2013) Mr. Okota goes on to insist on the real possibility of this happening. Evidently, ownership of the castle is a highly debated issue. Although the castle lies on the Ghanaian coast, the fact that it has played such an intimate role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade means that it is also considered to some to belong to diasporans. This is an issue for which no real solution might be found. However, a broader understanding for the role that the castle plays in the context of Ghana, and particular in Cape Coast, might lead to a greater understanding for the fact that the castle is a significant site laden with affective meaning for a multiplicity of individuals. Cape Coast castle: A diversity of meanings Given the many members of staff that are involved in the maintenance and the representation of the castle, the many tourists and non-tourists that enter the castle on a daily basis, and the several individuals that live out their lives in various ways around the castle, it comes as no surprise that it is a hotly contested site. However, I would like to go beyond such debates which have been extensively analyzed in literature on roots tourism, and understand the fort as a place that holds multiple meanings for diverse individuals. In this way, I hope to move away from a conception of the castle as timeless. By this I mean that the normative conception of the castle is that it is a site of the trans-Atlantic slave trade where slaves were trapped in horrendous conditions in the dungeons, a conception manifested from a history of Pan-African discourses and diaspora tourists at the site. In demonstrating that the castle is also a site of tourism and various interpersonal interactions between tourists and non-tourists alike, I hope to illuminate the changing relationship that the castle has with the environment in which it situates itself, which can have broader implications for our understanding of who defines the meaning of heritage sites. As an aside, I explicitly abstain from dividing the various meanings of the castle into distinct categories, because they fade into each other and are not mutually exclusive. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate the complex position that the castle holds within the context of Cape Coast. To begin with the tourist experience of the castle, tours through the slave castles are very emotionally trying. Tourists witness the horrific conditions of slaves locked up, waiting to be 14 Kaitlin van Baarle transported across the Atlantic. The guides speak in a highly affective manner, their voices intoned with anger and disdain at the treatment of Africans by European slave traders. This experience is particularly meaningful to members of the African diaspora, who still experience racism and marginalization outside of Africa. “Returning to Africa”, participating in a tour of the fort, and being confronted with the horrific conditions that their ancestors were forced into allows diasporans to redeem themselves in light of the difficulties that they and the many generations before them have experienced (Hasty, 2002; Bruner, 1996). To most effectively provide diaspora tourists with this sense of redemption, the tours thus operate through Pan-African discourses, in which Ghana is conceptualized as diasporans’ long lost home. The concept of the “Door of No Return” plays a particularly important role here. At both Cape Coast Castle and the neighboring Elmina Castle, the Door of No Return has become central to the tours, which is the door through which slaves exited the fort to be transported onto slave ships that would take them across the Atlantic. On my tour at the neighboring Elmina Castle, the tour guide stated that the doorway has always been labeled as such by slave traders, a fact about which I have my own doubts given the complete disregard for the slaves’ dignity and humanity at the forts. Regardless, there is something to be said for the way in which the Door of No Return has become a signifier of slaves’ separation from their home, and the way in which Africans and their descendants were forcibly removed from their homelands forever. During every tour at Cape Coast Castle, the participants are invited to walk through the door outside of the castle. During this part of the tour, they are given a few moments intended for them to pause and reflect on the slaves who walked through that very door. At the other side of the door, hangs a sign stating, “Door of Return”. During one of the tours which I attended, our tour guide Sebastian described it as such: “[The slaves] will be in servitude for the rest of their lives [...]. Now they return to Africa to find where they were taken from. That is why we have the Door of No Return right out there. […] the Africans that were taken from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbeans [now] have their freedom. They never wanted to celebrate their freedom on a foreign land. Rather, wanted to come back home to Africa to celebrate their freedom. So they mobilized themselves and returned home in the year 1998 to celebrate Emancipation Day, which was […] the great homecoming. And when they were coming they brought with them two dead bodies of ex-slaves that were removed from their graves. [...] And when they were passing them through this very door, they performed a short ceremony, just to break that jinx of the Door of No return to Door of Return. [...] All those Africans who were taken away, even if they are dead, their 15 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication children can come to return home, not necessarily to walk through this very door but to return to Africa to find their roots, wherever they were to be found. That’s why you see the Door of Return there, and inside there on the wall there is akwaaba ['welcome'].” (Guided tour 17/06/2013) Evidently, the Ghanaian tour guides are utilizing Pan-African discourses to give affective tours that refer to the sentimental notion of Africa as a homeland. Particularly this part of the tour opens up a space for diaspora tourists to feel as though they are natives returning home in Ghana. This case demonstrates how Ghanaian agents involved in the tourist industry actively engage those discourses that are most meaningful to diasporans returning “home”. The motivations for employing such rhetoric, however – whether they be economic or purely ideological – remain open for interpretation. Among some individuals working in the castle, this approach is met with cynicism. As argued by Stephen Okota, there is the tendency among tour guides to capitalize on the emotions of diasporans, particularly among those tour guides who rely on tips as their income. Furthermore, akin to some academic analyses of tourism, Mr. Okota argued that often tourists come to the castle with preexisting ideas and expect the tours to be in line with what they already know and believe about the slave trade. Particularly diaspora tourists are described by Mr. Okota as being aggressive about their demands to have tours that frame the history of the castle in a particular way. When I inquired about whether the tours at the castle vary depending on the audience of the tours, he answered: “[The diasporans] come with preconceived minds. They want you to condemn the Caucasians, the Europeans. They want you to place the blame on Caucasians, the Europeans, the whites. [...] And you see, sometimes to avoid conflict with these diasporans who sometimes are described as ignorant, you have to - or you are forced, to tell them things they would accept so they go and you are free. So from that perspective, the guides tend to tailor the tours to suit them […] [Tour guides] who are looking for tips at the end of the day are ready to do whatever would please you. So at the end of the day they get their tips. Whether true or false, they don’t care. It’s their tip that they want. So they’ll tell you all sorts of things to impress you.” (Interview with Stephen Okota, 17/07/2013) Diaspora tourists are thus understood by some to be insistent on hearing a particular narrative about the castle and the slave trade. Although initially referring to the so-called “ignorance” of diaspora tourists, Mr. Okota also acknowledges that any potential bias during the tours is an inevitable outcome of specific dynamics within the organizational structure of the castle, in 16 Kaitlin van Baarle which some tour guides operate as volunteers without a fixed income, thus relying on donations from tourists. Ultimately, this is the interpretation of one individual – albeit an individual who has been a regular employee at the castle for several years – and such an understanding can therefore not encapsulate the complexities of diaspora tourism which has been operating for decades. Nevertheless, such viewpoints demonstrate how in general, the tours at Cape Coast castle – as well as roots tourism in Ghana more generally – is largely catered to meet the expectations of diasporans who are on a pilgrimage to their homeland. Tours to the castle alone generate tremendous amounts of income, and Ghanaians thus also utilize Pan-African discourse regarding the “homeland” to their own advantage. The outcome of the tours around the fort is therefore the result of a two-way process, in which the many actors involved in the local tourist industry open up a space and facilitate a discourse for the imagination of diasporans as Africans. Yet this is a contested approach, as demonstrated by Mr. Okota’s strong opinions about the tours at Cape Coast castle. On the other hand, at the level of the mundane, this moment offered to tourists outside of The Door of (No) Return allows them to be voyeurs of everyday life in the fishing town of Cape Coast by pausing at the area directly outside the castle. It is an interesting tourist encounter that is not explicitly referred to during the tours, but illuminates the contrast between tourists who can afford the leisurely activity of exploring a place away from home, and those who continuously must go about their daily activities in order to make a life. 17 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication The view outside The Door of Return Another inadvertent part of this tour was when tourists were taken outside to the courtyard, in which they could take in the view of the crashing waves on one side, and the courtyard on the other side. Perhaps ironic given the dark subject matter of these tours, it was suggested that tourists pause to take photos, and our guide went so far as to offer to take a group photo. Most interestingly however, tourists were confronted with an uncomfortable image: men defecating on the rocks by the waves, in direct view from the castle walls. This was met with disgust and sheepish laughter by some participants of the tour. Although seemingly inconsequential, this case placed tourists in direct contrast with fishermen who lived in a town that could not provide public bathroom facilities. These men do not possess the resources to treat Cape Coast castle as a sacred place of mourning in the same way that diaspora tourists do. Lastly, the tour was organized in such a way that tourists are asked to observe paintings for sale that were made by a local painter. The room in which the paintings were displayed was 18 Kaitlin van Baarle initially introduced in terms of its historical context; it was the site of a court of justice. The tour guide then went on to encourage people to “take a look around” at the paintings, which were paintings of Ghanaian landscapes and people. Incidentally, many of the participants were not interested in these paintings, and were rather more drawn to the view outside from the windows. In spite of the tourists’ lack of interest in the paintings, however, this instance demonstrates the way in which Cape Coast castle, reappropriated by Ghanaian individuals, is perceived as a potential site of economic opportunity. Ultimately, these experiences demonstrate the complexity of diaspora tourism and how several aspects of power and racial oppression intersect in multifaceted ways: although the journeys undertaken by members of the diaspora are motivated by the marginalization they experience outside of Africa, they nevertheless have the means to travel to Ghana as tourists, something which the majority of individuals from Cape Coast cannot themselves claim. A woman poses for a photo at the castle courtyard. 19 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication However, Ghanaian individuals subvert this economic inequality in creative ways, by utilizing the castle and its visitors as a source of income. Within the context of the tourist encounter, the castle is thus also meaningful to some individuals as a source of income. During the more casual time I spent lingering around the courtyard of the castle, as well as on the street outside it, I witnessed the many other meanings that the castle holds for nontourists. On the afternoon of August 14, 2013, after a strange encounter during my fieldwork, I wrote the following in my logbook: “Went past the castle yesterday. Wanted to do participant observation but it was late in the day and there wasn’t really anything going on. I was taking pictures of the waves because the sun was shining on them and the lighting was nice, until a man approached me. I thought he was a tour guide, but it was just someone hanging around because his friends worked there. He asked me if I had any friends here, and I said yes. He said he would like to take me out tonight […] He told me that “I just want to know what it’s like to date a white lady… I want to know what it’s like to have a white lady… their emotions are different, and I want to discover that.” What does it mean for this man to ask me out like that in a place that’s referred to among diasporans as the site of the black Holocaust? I had also mentioned that I was Dutch and he pointed out that the castle was built by the Dutch.” In light of my above discussion regarding the allure for whiteness in Ghana, I would like to focus on what this experience demonstrates about the various meanings of the castle. For this man, the castle was perceived as a site of leisure, and more specifically of socializing. Although the castle is represented, particularly among diaspora tourists, as an important site for mourning and redemption for the ancestors that were victimized by white imperialism, other individuals do not necessarily find it problematic to ask out white women on that same site, behavior which might be considered abhorrent by others. Even I myself as an ethnographer, in the same way as the tourists described above, was engaging the site in unexpected ways: taking photos and absorbing the view around me. Several other activities occurred around the castle that are worth noting, many of them illicit. This included the smoking of “wee” (marijuana) against the back side of the castle, and as I was warned by several people, robberies. Interestingly, even the tour guide I interviewed, whose name remains anonymous, stated that “as a child I used to play here a lot” (16/08/2013). Indeed, it was these moments in his childhood, playing at the castle and witnessing its daily activities, that inspired him to become a tour guide. Nevertheless, he still feels strongly that the castle is intended to be a place of mourning: 20 Kaitlin van Baarle “Sometimes [tourists] say, ‘Oh your tour was nice. I really enjoyed your tour.’ But this is not something that you should enjoy. This is something that you should feel bad about. But they tell you ‘We enjoyed the tour, thank you very much,’ and that’s it. But other people will say, ‘This is so inhumane, how can human beings do such a thing to their fellow human beings?’ You see them very sad. You get to know that these people are really affected by what happened, knowing that they were Africans and Europeans treated their forefathers such way. You see that these people are really roots tourists and they’ve come here to learn.” (Interview with tour guide, 17/07/2013) The fact that individuals can perceive the castle as a site designated for mourning the horrible consequences of the slave trade, yet also admit to playing at the castle as a child demonstrates the very contradictions of meaning that I hope that we can come to embrace. As I have made clear, the castle possesses several meanings for several individuals: it is a site for redemption among diaspora tourists to come to terms with the horrors of the slave trade, as a place for tourists in general to observe the context in which the castle exists, a source of income for the inhabitants of Cape Coast, and a place for a multiplicity of individuals to engage in social activities. The castle is therefore much more than a timeless building that contains the horrors of the slave trade; within the contemporary context, it has also become a site of confrontation, contestation about meaning and history, and perhaps also a site of opportunity. Conclusions In this article, I have attempted to demonstrate the everyday occurrences and tensions that take place at Cape Coast castle. Due to the dwindling popularity and the decreasingly radical character of diaspora tourism, I was curious to investigate how it plays out in a contemporary context. While acknowledging my positionality as a white woman and an “obruni”, a fact about which I was constantly being reminded either implicitly or explicitly, my fieldwork consisted of participant observation at the fort and interviews with Ghanaian individuals who are implicated in the tourist industry. From the onset of my research, several tensions began to reveal themselves, such as those regarding the historical narratives told at the castle, and the criticisms of commercialization by several actors, whether diasporan or non-diasporan. Subsequently, by focusing on the inadvertent encounters experienced by participants in a guided tour through the castle, I have illustrated how several unexpected experiences manifest themselves at the castle, due to the persistent and unapologetic presence of the castle’s surrounding inhabitants. Furthermore, the site is also experienced by tourists and non-tourists alike as a site of leisure and 21 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Analysis and Communication socializing. Evidently, the castle holds several meanings that undermine its normative conception as a place of mourning the victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The general aims of my research have been to understand the underlying tensions that exist between diaspora tourists and members of the diasporan community living in Ghana, and the local population that is either directly or indirectly involved in tourism. My general observations – based on participant observation regarding the different ways in which diasporans and Ghanaians approached particular places and events, as well as interviews where I tried to obtain explicit information regarding these tensions – are that, although not all individuals subscribed to or admitted to these tension, they could certainly be felt in tangible ways throughout my fieldwork. By focusing specifically on Cape Coast castle, a place where several individuals from a multitude of destinations, social classes, generations, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds (to name a few) collide, I hope to have demonstrated how such an essential site for diaspora tourism actually operates in various, fragmented ways. Given that these everyday tensions and subversions of the normative conception of Cape Coast castle also have consequences for the debate regarding ownership of the castle and its history, I hope that in acknowledging these differences of meaning, and in taking them seriously rather than dismissing them as sacrilegious or offensive toward those victimized by the slave trade, I can contribute to opening up a space for a more nuanced debate over collective ownership of such heritage sites. Perhaps this can even pave the way for wider understanding of how the slave trade and white imperialism has affected the region of West Africa – a discourse which is still easing its way into the West African educational system (Holsey, 2008) – and how its remaining ruins continue to exist within a contemporary social context. Acknowledgements For the funding of my fieldwork, I would like to thank the Flemish organization of VLIR-UOS. Secondly, I would like to thank my informants George Firempong, Stephen Okota, Perdita, Alex, Laudpizza, Jahlightening, Sey, Richard Mensah, Sebastian, Elizabeth, and the administration of Cape Coast castle for allowing me to undertake my research, without which this research would not have been possible. Lastly, I thank my mentors Ann Cassiman, Brempong Osei-Tutu, and Obehi for their unending academic and moral support. 22 Kaitlin van Baarle Works Cited Bruner, E. (1996). 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