Black Atlantic Revisited” – African and South American UNESCO World Heritage Sites and “Shadowed Spaces” of Performative Memory

Abstract

Abstract

The project examines how memories of slavery are constructed in UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Gorée (Senegal), Ouidah (Benin), Cartagena (Colombia) and Salvador da Bahia (Brazil). It is based on the premise that these heritage sites respond to touristic telos and readings of history that do not go uncontested by alternative memory sites, media and discourses. In this regard, we establish a corpus of literary texts, film, audio/visual and performative arts that in/directly respond to the official sites and instigate alternative archives of lived and shared memories and trauma of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In the case of Francophone African literature, this has been a relatively neglected subject in contrast to the long tradition in Anglophone and Lusophone countries. Apart from textual and cinematographic analyses, our research critically engages with performative audio/visual practices (photography, painting, comics, songs, etc.) which enter into dialogue with official documents produced in and for the museums/heritage sites.