Civil War in Liberia Revisited

Abstract

ism, Cleveland draws upon blog entries and his own experiences as a tourist to examine slave castles as tourism sites in Ghana, where Black Americans seeking reconnection with their heritage largely comprise the consumer market. The tours portray Africa as an ancestral homeland for the Black diaspora in order to contribute to Ghanaian plans for economic growth. Slave castles thus highlight contemporary efforts to mythologize place for developmental goals, albeit in a very different context. Cleveland appreciates the intense emotions stirred by these traumatic sites, but also cites Saidiya Hartman’s critique of similar Senegalese castle tours as sensationalist. Cleveland subsequently considers more recent forms of tourism, including ecotourism, cultural tourism, poverty tourism, voluntourism, and sex tourism. He discusses how these controversial markets enable Africans to exercise agency and achieve material benefits through the tourism industry, while simultaneously reproducing colonial dynamics in new ways. Cleveland concludes that tourism in Africa has propagated romanticized notions of the continent’s premodern geography and culture, which sit alongside negative stereotypes of its dangers and impoverishment. While Europeans established tourism routes as part of their colonial missions, Africans played central roles that facilitated foreign travel into the continent and continue to do so as a means of national development. Cleveland’s coverage of a broad topic, unencumbered language, and an appended study guide make this book ideal for undergraduate courses as well as a general readership. Though the book does not develop new archives or original arguments, it synthesizes scholarship to provide a helpful overview of African development and tourism. Throughout, Cleveland allows readers to develop their own conclusions about tourism in Africa by offering different perspectives regarding the potential for enrichment and the perpetuation of social inequalities. Some readers will applaud the author’s refusal to take a hard stance, but others may wish that he did so. The voice of apparent neutrality makes itself clear in the Introduction under a section titled, ‘So, Good or Bad?’, where it suggests, ‘Well, most objective observers would agree that the tourism industry in Africa has produced mixed results’ (14). Critical readers may find the gesture toward objectivity, well, objectionable. As scholars read and teach this wellwritten and informative book, asking questions that pierce through the ‘both sides’ framework will deepen how we grapple with the consequences of tourism as development. Some discussion questions are included in the study guide, but the book’s subtitle is also a good place to start: who exoticizes, who exploits, and who becomes enriched?