ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors discuss the corpus of the discursive surge caused by an announcement of the European Union’s Delegation in Senegal and, the City of Goree, of the inauguration of a Place de l ’Europe on May 9, 2018. They analyze the languages and practices of international aid. The renaming of a site Place de l’Europe—courtesy of contributions in Euros—instead of act reparation has more the aspect an act of re-colonization. The authors explain the dilemma of the diplomacy of international culture aid that negotiates, regulates, and balances tensions between desire, fantasy, fear, or contempt of other cultures while promoting one’s own. Culture and heritage were central to the project of nation building in postcolonial Senegal. Processes of hybridization as a result of long-term involvement in the Atlantic world and rapid development in global tourism by the 1980s makes of Goree Island more than a ‘fixed’ heritage site with geographical coordinates situated in Senegal.
