ABSTRACT

African Americans and others in the African diaspora have increasingly “come home” to Africa to visit the sites at which their ancestors were enslaved and shipped. In this nuanced analysis of homecoming, Katharina Schramm analyzes how a shared rhetoric of the (Pan-)African family is produced among African hosts and Diasporan returnees and at the same time contested in practice. She examines the varying interpretations and appropriations of significant sites (e.g. the slave forts), events (e.g. Emancipation Day) and discourses (e.g. repatriation) in Ghana to highlight these dynamics. From this, she develops her notions of diaspora, home, homecoming, memory and identity that reflect the complexity and multiple reverberations of these cultural encounters beyond the sphere of roots tourism.

chapter |3 pages

Confronting the Past

chapter 1|22 pages

Introduction

African Diasporic Homecoming and the Ambivalence of Belonging

chapter 2|19 pages

The Layout of an Ideology

Claiming the African Heritage in Early Pan-Africanism

chapter 3|15 pages

Early Connections

Pan-Africanism and Ghana's Independence

chapter 4|27 pages

History Cast in Stone

Representing the Slave Trade at Ghana's Forts and Castles

chapter 5|30 pages

Confronting the Past

Touring Cape Coast Castle

chapter 6|14 pages

Pilgrimage Tourism

Homecoming as a Spiritual Journey

chapter 7|27 pages

Emancipation Day

A Route to Understanding Homecoming

chapter 8|37 pages

“The Re-Emergence of African Civilization—Uniting the African Family”

Claiming a Common Heritage in PANAFEST

chapter 9|31 pages

Pan-Africanism as a Resource

Contested Relationships of Belonging in the Practice of Homecoming

chapter 10|4 pages

Conclusion