ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one group of returnees who are usually unable to narrow their genealogical heritage beyond the broad area of West Africa. The West's understanding of Africa has been constructed over many decades through ethnography and physical anthropology, and compromised by colonial research envisaged to allow the colonizer to control the colonized. "Colonized" Africa played a significant role in the creation and construction of modern African-American identity. Tourism is a phenomenon that has come under increasing scrutiny in the contemporary world. It crosses multiple disciplinary boundaries from economics, tourism, and leisure studies to anthropology. One of the major problems faced by West African nations has been finding economic stability, and many countries turned toward the world's fastest growing industry tourism. The Gambia Incorporated is the Gambian Government's economic vision of Gambia in the twenty-first century, and it focuses strongly on tourism. "Roots" tourism subverts traditional definitions of tourism.
