slavery.pdf

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 439–458, 20090160-7383/$ - see front matter. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Printed in Great Britain

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2009.02.003www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

INTERPRETING SLAVERY TOURISM

Christine N. BuzindeThe Pennsylvania State University, USA

Carla Almeida SantosUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Abstract: This inquiry explores the manner in which tourists endow a former slave plantationwith meaning by promoting or demoting its cultural authority. Drawing on the encoding/decoding model, this study utilizes interviews to examine the ways in which tourists decodethe plantation by acquiescing or negating the preferred cultural text through the adoptionof dominant, negotiated or oppositional readings. The findings indicate that as active recip-ients of the preferred reading tourists interpreted/decoded the plantation in dichotomouspolarized ways based on the meaning structures and knowledge frameworks of the interpre-tive communities within which they are situated. In essence, the decoding process, much likethe encoding process is viewed as constituting an array of dominant ideologies. Keywords:decoding/encoding model, interpretative communities, slavery. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

Slavery heritage tourism sites function within discourses of authoritywherein memory and illusion coalesce to shape a romanticized recol-lection of the contentious plantation past; these tourable mnemoniclocales are intricately linked to the history of chattel bondage (Dannand Seaton 2001). They are not apolitical spatialities, equally hospita-ble to any form of cultural expression but rather consist of culturallyspecific values which utilize discursive lenses to influence how histori-cal events are understood and interpreted. Like many heritage sites,they serve as locales of pedagogical power wherein the state disciplineshistory, knowledge, and ultimately the populace (Foucault 1977). Oneof their key roles has been to preserve history and to educate genera-tions about the plantation past vis a vis noble tales describing the livesof the plantation owners and the architectural intricacies of theirhomes (Buzinde and Santos 2008). Another role has been to inspirepride and inculcate nationalistic ideologies, albeit through state engi-neered amnesia by trivializing or annihilating the institution of slaverywithin the heritage metanarratives (Buzinde 2007; Eichstedt and Small

Christine Buzinde is an assistant professor in the Department of Recreation, Park andTourism Management at The Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA 16802, USA.E-mail: <[email protected]>). Her research focuses on the socio-political dynamics oftourism as they pertain to ethno-representation. Carla Almeida Santos is an assistant professorin the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests focus on the areas of representational politics and socio-cultural aspects of tourism.

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2002). In essence, they are not innocent edifications but rather repre-sentations of thoroughly ideological narratives bound up within polit-ical discourses that tacitly endorse dominant societal values.

As much as slave heritage tourism sites are demonized within aca-demic discourse for their inescapable authority or their impossible mis-sion to show the American plantation past through cosmopolitanrepresentational tactics, one has to acknowledge that there is no uni-fied power bloc or conspiratorial heritage system to blame or defeat.It is rather a tangled skein of complicitous human interactions thatpromote the cultural authority of these sites. After all, the authorityand meaning of heritage sites is, in part, determined by how othervoices, that is, those of tourists, talk them into being. Slave heritagesites gain their credibility not from the onsite magically-imbued objectsthat are portrayed through carefully crafted metanarratives but ratherby the power vested in them by the visiting populations. Thus, ratherthan refer to heritage sites as instruments of institutional oppression,it is far more beneficial to view them as contested sites wherein mean-ing is constructed, reconstructed and negotiated.

The symbiotic relationship between slave heritage sites and tourists,much like most historic sites, is undoubtedly characterized by dialo-gism whereby, the former constructs a preferred reading of a site whilethe latter brings varying socio-cultural experiences to bear on the pro-cess of interpreting the preferred reading. This symbiotic relationshipcalls attention to the polysemous ways of reading/interpreting culturaltexts, in the broadest sense of the term. Describing how individualsconstruct meaning through their symbolic interactions with culturaltexts, Stuart Hall (1980) maintains that audiences consume the con-noted dominant meanings and decode them using the encoder’s hege-monic belief that the crafted message ought to be society’s point ofview. It follows that the audience accepts the encoding and utilizes itas a reference point for how they subsequently read the text; the dom-inant text thus, acts as a benchmark on which their decision to acqui-esce or contest the message is based. Hall (1980), states that the way inwhich the audience reads or views the encoded text manifests in one ofthree ways: a dominant-hegemonic view, a negotiated view or an oppo-sitional view. Audiences who decode a text as a dominant view acceptthe connoted meanings, reconstruct the preferred view and conse-quently, operate within the ‘‘dominant code’’ (Hall 1980:136). Alter-natively, audiences who decode a text through a negotiated reading‘‘acknowledge the legitimacy of the hegemonic definition’’ (Hall1980:137) while operating outside those definitions by concurrentlynegating the dominant reading; such decodings are characterized bysignificant contradictions. Lastly, audiences who decode a text throughoppositional readings comprehend the preferred reading but opposeits dominant code due to their espousal of alternate frames of refer-ence. Therefore, by reading the text, be it in a preferred, negotiatedor oppositional manner, audiences are inevitably developing and utiliz-ing frameworks that enable them to render the world intelligible.

Within heritage tourism studies, the dialogic meaning making rela-tionship between producers and consumers has remained relatively

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under researched as scholars have predominantly focused on manage-ment attributes (Halewood and Hannam 2001; Garrod and Fyall 2000).Relatively few examinations have explored tourists in relation to heri-tage sites; those who have embarked on this trajectory have focusedon notions of motivation, satisfaction and market segmentation (seeHerbert 2001; Poria, Butler, and Airey 2004). Therefore, despite somenotable exceptions (Bruner 1993; Chronis 2005; Palmer 2005; Prenticeand Andersen 2007; Pretes 2003), not enough attention has been paidto the processes by which tourists symbolically interact with a preferredreading of a site to endow it with meaning; particularly, readings ofcontested slavery heritage sites, such as former slave plantations, whichare linked to unresolved, contentious pasts deeply connected to cur-rent social debates on slavery, race and racism. Indeed, while scholarshave been instrumental in documenting the didactic and hegemonicrole enacted by heritage sites in annihilating slave histories (seeAlderman and Modlin 2008; Dann and Seaton 2001; Buzinde 2007;Buzinde and Santos 2008), inquiries into how audiences decode suchpreferred readings have remained scarce.

It would be presumptuous to assume that the tourist body is homog-enous and that they all espouse interpretations well aligned with thepreferred reading of the site; especially given that, in the age of glob-alization, individuals draw from an array of ideological predispositions.Furthermore, they are exposed to a plethora of popular cultural textssuch as Hollywood movies (e.g., Roots and Gone with the Wind), PublicBroadcasting Service (PBS) documentaries on slavery in America andnovels on antebellum life, all of which influence their interpretationof the plantation’s cultural text. Tourists thus bring an eclectic set ofpreconceptions to the meaning making process that (dis)engages thepast of depravity and the present social order. Comprehending themanner in which contemporary society renders heritage plantationsintelligible is necessary given that the global community is celebratingthe 200th anniversary since the abolition of slavery for Britain, in 2007,and America, in 2008. Numerous commemorative efforts, such as theopening of America’s first National Slavery Museum and the UNESCOSlave Route Project, are marking this historical zenith through theadoption of inclusive messages that foster dialogue, educate the masspopulace and promote national healing. This anniversary has alsospurred numerous academic investigations which although differentin their disciplinary approaches, share the belief that slavery, both inits historical and modern commemorative forms, continues to be amatter of undiminished political and social relevance. The current in-quiry joins these global efforts by drawing from Hall’s seminal workand building on extant tourism studies to explore the varying ways inwhich tourists endow a former slave plantation with meaning. Specifi-cally, through the use of on-site interviews, the study examines the waysin which tourists decode the plantation’s preferred encoding throughthe adoption of dominant, negotiated or oppositional readings. This isan important undertaking because it is through sustained dialog andcontinued understanding of society’s symbolic interaction with


constructions of America’s slavery past that ‘‘our nation can hope atlong last to become free of its legacy’’ (Wilder 2006:11).

INTERPRETING REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PAST

The interaction between the tourist and the plantation is mediatedthrough textual representations; however, it is important to note thattourists are not passive recipients of cultural texts. They approachthe heritage text by drawing on certain value systems that enable themto render the site intelligible. Scholars examining this phenomenonhave been instrumental in illustrating the active role enacted by recip-ients as they engage with the preferred text constructed by heritageofficials. For instance, drawing on ethnographic work at the New SalemHistoric Site, Bruner (1993) describes the relationship between visitorsand the cultural producers of the text as being characterized by com-petition. There exists ‘‘a contest between the museum professionalsand scholars on the one hand who seek historical accuracy andauthenticity versus the peoples’ own popular interpretation ofAbraham Lincoln’s heritage’’ (Bruner 1993:15). Acknowledging thecomplex relationship between producers and consumers, Bruner as-serts that the scientific views espoused and promoted by the heritageprofessionals ‘‘are contradicted and suppressed by how the recon-structed village is produced and by how it is interpreted and experi-enced by the visitors’’ (1993:14). Hence, despite efforts undertakenby heritage site managers to craft a preferred reading, tourists ulti-mately rearticulate it as they see fit.

The active role enacted by tourists is also evidenced in Chronis’s(2005) work on Gettysburg where he illustrates that tourists utilizetheir pre-established knowledge, negotiation mechanism, and imagina-tion to dialogically engage marketers in the co-construction of mean-ing. Notions of socio-historical demarcations of place furthercomplicate the interpretation process. According to Chronis, both ser-vice providers and tourists utilize historical spatialities to ‘‘define andstrengthen social values of patriotism and national unity’’ (2005:386)as they are understood within the present sociopolitical order. In fact,accounts of nation and nationalism resonate within most examinationsof tourists’ construction of meaning. For example, through the investi-gation of three heritage sites in South Dakota—Mount RushmoreNational Memorial, Wall Drug Store, and Rapid City Dinosaur Park,Pretes (2003) states that historic sites, which conceive of nationalismas an imagined community, often offer tourists a venue within whichto affirm and maintain a form of national identity. Such representa-tional strategies that focus on a social imaginary draw on nationalessentialisms to influence levels of consumption; especially as they ap-ply to nationals who imbue the site with familiarity (Prentice andAndersen 2007). In their exploration of visitor motivations and experi-ences of Old Town, Prentice and Anderson discovered that ‘‘Daneswere much more likely to associate the site with their family history’’whereas non-Danes consumed the locale ‘‘as an insight into a common


humanity’’ (2007:675). The numerous ways in which sites are decodedpose numerous challenges for heritage site managers as they aim to de-liver coherent and inclusionary metanarratives that resonate interna-tionally. Such efforts are further problematized when the site inquestion is associated with a history of depravity and oppression, suchas slavery.

Examining the Elmina Castle, a former slavery trading seaport inGhana, Bruner (1996) explores the manner in which tourists ascribemeaning to the site. Extending his notion of contested meanings asthey pertain to historic sites, his investigation indicated that there weredissonant interpretations of the same site between two cohorts of visi-tors; namely, African and African American tourists. The former asso-ciated the site with King Asantehene, a historical figure who wasimprisoned in the dungeon rooms ‘‘after the defeat of Ashanti forcesby the British army’’ (Bruner 1996:294). For this particular culturalgroup the site symbolically represents colonial resistance. The latterhowever, viewed the castle as a symbolic memorial to their enslavedancestors who endured bondage under the Dutch; thus, for this partic-ular cultural group the site was a key location on the transnational mapof the African diaspora. A commonality within the aforementioned re-search is the understanding that when tourists engage cultural textsthey compete for the construction of relevant meanings that affirmtheir sense of being. Consequently, based on their social situatednessthey render certain elements intelligible while rendering othersobsolete.

Encoding the Hampton Plantation

A prerequisite for comprehending tourist’s interpretations of a givenheritage site is the understanding of the encoded or preferred meta-narrative promoted by site managers. As such, prior to presentingthe methods adopted in the current inquiry, a synopsis of the Hamp-ton Plantation and State Historic Park wherein this research was con-ducted ensues. During the 18th and 19th century the Hampton,located in McClellanville, South Carolina, was an active slave plantation(SCSPS 2006). In 1971 it was sold to South Carolina State Park Service(SCSPS) by Archibald Rutledge, a poet laureate whose ancestors hadowned the site (SCSPS 2006). A stately metal gate beckons tourists tothe site and guides them through the majestic grounds along an entry-way beautifully adorned with a canopy of lush trees. Half a mile downthis path, the greenery that envelops the passageway is replaced with astark image of a clear cut plot in which hundreds of multicolored, syn-thetic flowers are dispersed. There are no commemorative inscriptionsin sight describing this monument; however, when asked tourists areinformed that the area is a gravesite for those who were enslaved atthe Hampton and their descendants. There are hundreds of unmarkedgraves identified only by the numerous oblong protrusions in theground that are occasionally accompanied by displays of crucifix-shaped bouquets. One notable exception is Sue Alston’s grave which


showcases a tombstone identifying her as the ‘‘angel of Hampton’’ anddescendant of slaves. Sue Alston is a former slave who, after the aboli-tion of slavery, chose to remain at the Hampton as a cook for ArchibaldRutledge. Remnants of her cabin, which encompass a chimney and apartial wall, are on display. Unlike other plantations, the Hamptonhas no intact slave cabins to showcase; in fact, the area wherein theywere once located currently houses the public bathrooms and guestparking lots.

Through commemorative inscriptions and docent narratives, thetourist gaze is directed towards objects that invoke pleasurable planta-tion experiences (Buzinde 2007; Buzinde and Santos 2008). The con-stant discursive placement of the sites’s past within narratives of localand regional wealth reinforces the importance of this theme to thestate endorsed meaning of the site. Prevalent within brochures, com-memorative inscriptions and docent narratives are statements suchas: ‘‘cultivation of rice . . . created economic prosperity’’; ‘‘the systemof rice cultivation . . . transformed the entire South Carolina CoastalPlain bringing immense wealth to planters’’; ‘‘Carolinians were export-ing 160 million pounds of rice per year’’. Examined in isolation suchaccounts have little significance; however, a contextual examinationelicits that the accumulation of riches is celebrated without mentioningthe inhumane manner in which the wealth was amassed. Within this‘‘matrix of erasures’’ (Ebron 2000:920), accounts of the Other evanes-cently appear under the disguise of terminological inconsistencies suchas servants or laborers; implying consented participation in the labormarket as opposed to chattel bondage.

Measures are taken to enable tourists to relate to the site’s celebra-tory message by knitting them into the fabric of the metanarrativethrough phrases such as ‘‘you would have sat here’’ and ‘‘you wouldhave come in through this door’’. These selected phrases invite touriststo imagine themselves enacting the privileged roles of the elite and in-voke ‘‘an individual sense of belonging and understanding of collectiveroots’’ (Palmer 2005:14). The tour occurs in the purposefully unfur-nished mansion which highlights the structure’s architectural and con-struction details. The docent narratives encompass accounts ofaccumulated wealth, descriptions of hunting and building accoutre-ments and humorous tales of misdemeanors. Artifacts within the man-sion encompass a poster of a family tree and a log book of famousrecipes created by the Hampton women. Notably, the recipe log bookalso catalogues the existence of the thousands enslaved at the Hamp-ton and documents their monetary value based on assigned tasks; how-ever, docents only make reference to the log book in relation to therecipes. The site also exhibits a dilapidated kitchen building whereinthe enslaved prepared meals. The site’s revered image is further an-chored within institutional discourses which have elevated it to Na-tional Historic Landmark status particularly because it exhibits amansion which is ‘‘a centerpiece and monument to South Carolina’sglorious rice age’’ (South Carolina State Park Brochure); this nationaltribute encapsulates the core tenets of the site’s preferred reading.


Study Methods

Tourists’ interpretations of Hampton were explored through semi-structured interviews. Twenty-seven on-site exit interviews were con-ducted with a purposeful sample of tourists during February of 2006.There are various sampling strategies used for purposefully selectinginformation within naturalistic inquiry; the activity focused strategywas adopted because the goal of the study was to sample individualsbased on their engagement in the activity (i.e., site visitation ratherthan geographical origin). Given this directive, the sample resultedin 27 Caucasian participants, sixteen of whom were American while ele-ven were internationals—Canadians and 1 Englishman (the site is sel-dom frequented by ethnic minority). Twelve of the participants werefemales and fifteen were males; the number of participants was guidedby the attainment of theoretical saturation (Patton 2002). They rangedbetween the ages of 45 and 60 and possessed a high school and aboveeducational level. Although several of the American participants wererepeat tourists there was no apparent difference in interpretation orsignificance attributed to the site in comparison to the new comers.Tourists were interviewed after touring the site to ensure they had aholistic view of the produced representations including the masternar-rative offered by the state officiated docents. Interview questionsencompassed: What does this site represent to you? What significancedoes it possess? Why should it be commemorated? Are there other ele-ments that should be added to the overall narrative? If so, what arethey, and in what ways would these additions be beneficial? To ensuretrustworthiness of the data, measures were taken to seek clarificationduring the interview, immediately after the interview and/or afterparticipants had completed the second sightseeing activity.

Narrative analysis was employed to aid the comprehension of theinterpretive processes entailed within the interview context. This ap-proach allowed for the revelation of the narrative structures entailedwithin social agents’ meaning making processes and the identificationof the narrative devices employed by individuals in recounting theirexperiences (Polkinghorne 1988). The analysis commenced with a pro-longed review of the interview transcripts with the goal of gaining anunderstanding of the overall meanings while concurrently preservinga holistic image (Hall 1975). This stage entailed identifying narrativestructures that aided participants in making sense of their experiencesand it also enabled the documentation of recurrent elements. All thetranscripts were iteratively reviewed from numerous horizontal passes,which required not only (re)reading the interviews from beginning toend, but also the assembling of narratives by themes (Coffey andAtkinson 1996).

The coding procedure described by Miles and Huberman (1994) wasemployed to identify emergent themes; within the theme identificationprocess, words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs that were affiliatedwith the same theme were clustered together, facilitating the classifica-tion of the theme. Thus, via a thorough review and coding process, keyemergent themes were identified. Two overarching themes emerged:


‘‘Slavery as a Munificent Institution’’ and ‘‘Slavery as a Lesson forHumanity’’. Sub-themes for the former were ‘‘Architectural Contribu-tion to History’’ and ‘‘Altruistic Relationships’’, while sub-themes forthe latter were ‘‘Hegemonic Relationships’’ and ‘‘Pedagogical Respon-sibility’’. These overarching themes and sub-themes are important gi-ven their ability to provide insight into the differential ways touristsascribe meaning to the site. For instance, phrases such as ‘‘they wantedto be a Rutledge servant’’, ‘‘they were good to their servants’’ and‘‘there was a better relationship here’’, guided the categorization ofnarratives affiliated with the sub-theme ‘‘Altruistic Relationships’’ whileexpressions such as ‘‘to show for society’s mistakes’’, ‘‘shows howthings really are in this country today’’ and ‘‘should help people reflectupon the past’’ steered the sorting of narratives associated with the sub-theme ‘‘Pedagogical Responsibility’’. Intercoder reliability was attainedthrough the efforts of two independent coders who coded each unitbased on the previously identified decoding categories with the expec-tation that coders would add to the preexisting categories if theyencountered data that suggested the creation of new ones. However,as the analysis progressed coders encountered no additional decodingcategories, in fact, they discovered the absence of the negotiated view(an aspect discussed in the discussion section); this coding procedureresulted in strong coder agreement.

The approach to interviewing was one that emphasized co-produc-tion and co-authorship through the interaction between researchersand participants as co-creators of meaning (Holstein and Gubrium1995). The researchers acknowledge that their varying lived experi-ences, values, belief systems and social localities have in a plethora ofways shaped their approach to this inquiry (Pritchard and Morgan2003). Given their racial classification, black and white respectively, itis can be argued that the latter ‘‘writes from the center from withinthose ideological, discourses and material structures that form the cen-tered structures of power and knowledge’’ (Pritchard and Morgan2003:121) while the former writes from the periphery. However, sucha simplistic binary analysis is complicated, firstly, by the equal academicstatus from which both authors write and secondly, by the various hy-brid identities that they embody as Afro-Canadian and Portuguese-American individuals whose formative years were in Cyprus and Portu-gal, respectively. Thus, to attribute their knowingness to race/ethnicityor nationality would not only be misleading but erroneous becausethey inhabit various geopolitical spatialities that influence theirembodiment of the constructs in question and inform the manner inwhich they render their surroundings intelligible. Consequently, amore appropriate account of their positionalities would view theiridentities as evolving and their writing location as ‘‘not so much cen-tered or marginalized but a place in motion’’ (Pritchard and Morgan2003:121). Such reflexive actions not only enable the researchers to re-flect on ways in which they come to interact with their interlocutors butalso ways in which they draw on their lived experiences to render theobject of research intelligible (Pritchard and Morgan 2003).


Decoding the Hampton Plantation

Two distinct decoding practices were adopted by participants,namely dominant hegemonic and oppositional. Participants whoespoused a dominant hegemonic position shared the site’s preferredtext and discursively constructed the plantation by acquiescing to theprojected message. They justified their views on slavery based on theperception that the institution of slavery was munificent; hence, theplantation was articulated within the realm of its historical architec-tural significance and its altruistic relationships between the enslaversand their enslaved. Participants who adhered to an oppositional/coun-ter hegemonic position negated the preferred textual code and drewupon different frames of reference (Hall 1980). This group viewedthe site as a lesson for humanity and an exemplar of hegemonic rela-tionships between past and present racial groups in America. A discus-sion of the emergent discursive frames follows.

Slavery as a Munificent Institution: Architectural Contribution to History

A common perspective amongst individuals who acquiesced to thepreferred text was the view that the mansion, as a national historicallandmark, justified the commemoration of the plantation. The conflu-ence of the mansion with commemorable history is described by Rob-ert, one of the participants, who states: ‘‘. . . we always appreciate thehistory of a house like this, this house is history, there is a history lessonhere’’. Similarly, albeit exhibiting a nostalgic yearning for the life expe-riences of the denizens of the big house, Betty mentions that the man-sion ‘‘is so special because . . . if [it] could talk it would probably tell alot of stories’’. The notion that the plantation represented a significantcontribution to historical architecture resonated with numerous partic-ipants. Some described the architectural characteristics as distinct incontrast to other historic sites in the area. For instance, one participantcommented on the mansion in comparison to similar structures atother historical plantations such as Drayton Hall. Unlike the previousaccounts, which refer to the plantation as generally representing his-tory, Charlie specifically refers to the architectural design as the maincontribution to history.

One thing I see about this house that is similar with other ones thatwe have seen like Drayton Hall is that this one actually shows somearchitecture . . . an important (emphasis by speaker) part of the historyof this area.

In the above excerpt, Charlie makes reference to the interpretationstrategy adopted by the site that allows tourists to see through variouslayers of the mansion’s construction process. This is a practice wel-comed by tourists who have an appreciation for architectural detailing.Acknowledging the importance of the architectural design, Rose states:

The big thing about this house is showing how the thing was built. It’sdifferent from the normal site that you would go to. It’s really neat. Itteaches you something about history.


Arguably, the site was successful in mobilizing familiar symbols,images and narratives that help shape the subjectivities of the tourists(Ebron 2000). It constructed and produced a longing for place andidentity that the tourists were able to relate to because it invoked asense of home. These dominant readings were well aligned with thepreferred message because they presented the mansion as an iconogra-phy of collective memory; collective memory in this sense refers to amasternarrative wherein the dominant value systems are celebratedwhile subaltern histories are marginalized (Buzinde and Santos 2008).

Slavery as a Munificent Institution: Altruistic Relationships

Participants were asked to delineate other aspects that were entailedin the representation of the plantation. Some participants mentionedthe well kept grounds and/or the historical horticultural designs, as as-pects that also warranted preservation while others were unable toidentify any additional commemorable elements. To further delineatewhether they espoused the preferred reading participants were askedwhether the institution of slavery was an historical element entailedin the interpretation of the site. Those who offered the preferred viewresponded to this question through statements that implicitly mini-mized the problematic nature of the plantations’ past and presentedit as a benevolent institution. For instance, Joe’s discussion of themunificent nature of the chattel bondage is captured in the followingexcerpt:

But people were well here because I read books that stated that theywanted to be a Rutledge servant as opposed to someone else. I meansome of them were mean to their slaves . . . but they didn’t do thathere. Some days they showed up for work some days they didn’t,ummm and it was okay.

Joe, as well as other participants, substantiated their claims based onbooks they had read. Notably, these books were in many cases authoredby descendents of planter families who themselves were justifying theinvolvement of their kin in slavery and, concurrently, romanticizingthe era.

Joe acknowledges the existence of chattel bondage but views it assomething many aspired to be a part of. The association with freewilland gainful employment is explicit in Joe’s account as he makes refer-ence to ‘‘servants’’ and ‘‘work’’; implying they were part of a paid work-force. Similarly, Gloria also claims life was better at Hampton ascompared to other plantations.

I think because of the history that we have read about this place, thisone, I mean don’t get me wrong, we haven’t been to lots of places butit seems that maybe there was a better relationship between the ser-vants and their owners here than a lot of places.

Gloria, juxtaposing the plantation to others in the area, argues thatthe Hampton abided by leaner regulations that favored positive inter-actions between the enslaved and their enslavers. Charlie also concurs


that the Hampton slaves were better off. He, however, views the ceme-tery—located at the entrance of the property—as a prime illustrationof the generosity that characterized the relationship between enslavedand their enslavers.

. . . from what we heard Archibald’s ancestors were nice folk . . . theywere good to their servants, they tried to treat them well. Did ya’allsee the cemetery at the entrance, they gave up the huge prop-erty . . . gave it to their workers so they could all be buried there. Nicepeople like that were hard to come by in those days . . . and Archiewrites a lot about Sue [a former slave] ‘nd how nice she was.

The cemetery in question was donated by Archibald’s ancestorsto the Hampton slave community. Descendants of slaves are nolonger buried in the area and rather choose a cemetery located inGermain Town—an original former slave community (personalcommunication).

The allusion to the pleasantness of the enslavers is a narrative strat-egy well aligned and legitimized by written accounts offered by Archi-bald, a denizen of the Hampton, who revered the plantation andnostalgically described its glorious days. Participants who are familiarwith these cultural texts draw on the offered popular tropes to renderthe locale intelligible. John believes that slaves were better off at theHampton but argues that the preferential treatment at this site is attrib-utable to their cultivated cash crops. He states:

It interested me how the blacks had or created their own little com-munity how they worked . . . Rice planters were much nicer than cot-ton planters.

Unlike Charlie, John does not make any reference to written docu-ments to justify his stance but argues that enslavers on rice plantationswere more pleasant compared to those on cotton plantations. He fur-ther legitimates slavery as munificent in his allusion that it led to thecreation of a unique black community. In general, the discourse struc-ture adopted by participants in this category strategically avoided dis-cussions of the contentions past, subsequently justifying its existencebased on its creation of a key historical artifact—the plantation; as wellas, the development of an African American culture which emergedfrom the alleged munificent relationships between enslaved andenslavers.

These participants articulated the site through narratives of wealthand benevolence consequently drawing upon cogent images of collec-tive memory. Furthermore, through nostalgic yearnings, they deviseddiscursive strategies which defended their American identity andstrengthened their link to the past. Their nostalgic motives can beattributed to the uncertainty instigated by modernity (particular withregards to issues of identity politics) which pushes social beings to seeka certain level of stability, safety and originality from which to base theirsense of self (Halewood and Hannam 2001; Hewison 1987; Lowenthal1985).


Slavery as a Lesson for Humanity: Hegemonic Relationships

A common perspective amongst participants who adopted an oppo-sitional reading was the view that the site epitomized the apogee in les-sons of human existence. To them, it represented a significanthistorical contribution owing to its link to racial issues in America.For instance, Eliza refers to racial history in relation to plantations:

I think that plantations like the one here show the public the devel-opment over a couple of hundred years both black and white, AfricanAmericans and white Americans and red too . . . you know the FirstNations people, how they lived and worked together on this land.

Eliza views the site as a portrayal of not only the ills of chattel bond-age but also as a life lesson on how peoples of various races coexistedwhether amicably or not. She opposes the preferred reading whichclaims there is only one story to recount—that of the white enslaversand their mansion—and rather acknowledges the fact that there arenumerous stories that constitute the site’s past. Jake also agrees thatthe site is an exemplar of racial issues in America. He, however, ex-plains the dominant ideology of the enslavers and describes the plan-tation as a place:

. . . where people that believed blacks were inferior to whites . . . Well,now they have this [points to the mansion] to show for society’s mis-takes, just like the holocaust you see, we need to learn a lessonhere . . .

Jake’s allusion to a similar blunder within human history, the holo-caust, is an interesting juxtaposition which he utilizes to justify his ped-agogically based argument. Positioning the site as exemplar of pastaccounts of white supremacism, he argues that it represents a social les-son for today’s society. Similarly, Bob draws on advice provided to himby a local friend to frame the site as illustrative of the racial dynamics inAmerica: ‘‘my buddy said if you want to know about race in this countrygo visit the plantation, you’ll understand where it all stems from’’.Thus, to members of this group, the site was not merely about a syn-chronous history but a continual construction of the past in the pres-ent. Some had read about issues of race in America while others hadbeen introduced to the topic through popular docudramas such asRoots. For instance, drawing on popular culture, Lou states:

We’d only seen movies, like Roots, and Gone With the Wind. . . .wewanted to see how . . . how the slaves—[trails off] . . . really how theAfrican American blacks and whites lived in this place . . . The houseis nice but the relationship here between blacks and whites is grandin American history, wouldn’t you say?

Lou moves his gaze past the house to the more intangible and invis-ible aspects of the plantation, race relations. Likewise, Eunice also dis-cusses her interest in racial issues.

. . . this peaked our interest in the history of the black people in Amer-ica and their existence under white rule, under slavery. We don’t havea history like this in Canada . . . I mean our experience with the First


Nations people wasn’t the best but it can’t be compared to this withthe plantations and all. We were hoping to find out how the Africansthat were brought from Africa were, you know, treated and how theyhelped build the place.

Given her relative lack of knowledge about American slave history,Eunice sought to augment her awareness through the plantation visitbut was disappointed to discover that the issues she was interested inand thought relevant were in fact not addressed. Overall, slavery andrace cognizance were not only filters through which participants viewedthe site, but also key motivators for travel. It should be noted that theease with which some visitors critiqued the site’s representation canbe attributed to their foreign status, as the following section illustrates.

Slavery as a Lesson for Humanity: Pedagogical Responsibility

Discussing elements that were lacking within the metanarrative,Dean reflects on the overall landscape and tour narrative, and notesthe reluctance to incorporate the institution of slavery:

But I was thinking, the thing here is that there is nothing left of howthe slaves lived nor do they talk about them . . . the plantation is justabout the house, and . . . oh of course Archibald Rutledge. Don’tget me wrong, I think he is interesting too for history and all. Hewas what poet Laureate of the area, right? . . . but what about hisancestors and their connection to slavery, what about slavery and thisplace or province? . . . just that it would have been an interesting thingto include . . . how many slaves were here, how they were treated here,what they did, you know. Mhhh . . . maybe it’s a Canadian thing,maybe America sees it different . . . who knows.

Dean is mystified by the annihilation of slavery in the masternarra-tive; attributing his perplexity to the fact that he is a foreigner. He viewsaccounts of the white residents and the mansion as legitimate historicalevents but points to a major aspect of the plantation that is missingfrom the masternarrative. Likewise, Bob also reflects on the lack of fo-cus on the African American experience within the tour narrative:

I thought that the . . . I don’t know, but I felt that the treatment of theenormous riches that were gotten through slavery was not treated asforcefully or strongly as I would hope it be.

In essence, Hampton’s discursive strategy of trivialization was de-tected by foreign tourists who arguably are not confined by the localsocio-political order. To them, the site was unequivocally linked tothe history of chattel bondage; a historical lesson for humanity. Trudyconcurs with Bob:

Well . . . there wasn’t a whole lot said about slavery . . . But that’s animportant part of letting people know how the slaves were treated . . .what would they have typically been provided with? You know andthings like that could have been incorporated a little bit into this toura little bit more, you know. This needs to be here regardless of howbad it was.


Interestingly, while issues of slavery, within slavery heritage metanar-ratives, have been excised based on the argument that tourists wouldbe offended (Dann and Seaton 2001), this group of participants wel-comed its incorporation. They were aware of the abhorrent nature ofthe issue but viewed it as an important message to convey to the public.For instance, Patrick, a British social scientist, provides insight into howslavery could be represented:

The main thing is to give information that is correct, that is accuratethat is not romanticized one way or another. Too many times thepoint of view is slanted and I don’t know how you make such a hor-rible thing objective anyway. It doesn’t matter how well slaves were‘‘well treated’’ [quotes indicated by speaker] it doesn’t alter the fact thatthey were slaves. It’s morally repulsive. So you know, it’s a fine man-sion, it’s a beautiful plantation but founded on an immoral concept.I think you just have to try and present it honestly . . .

Some constructed meanings of the site in tandem with socio-politicalissues in America. They felt their understanding of the plantationwould illuminate current issues of race in America. For instance,Andrew mentions:

We’re not sure about this but we kindah thought that this . . . showshow things really are in this country today eh, between the blacksand whites. I thought I would learn more on relationship betweenthe slaves and their owners . . . but I think I learnt more about therelationship between blacks and whites now that still has some sorewounds from the past.

Similarly, linking race politics to economic injustices, Gerard states:

I would have liked to see more about the slaves and their enslav-ers . . . I don’t know it [the lack of focus on the institution of slavery]explains a lot of things in terms of current attitudes and what the rela-tionships are . . . you can see that . . . these kinds of places should helppeople reflect upon the past and then address the current economicand social inequities because they are valuable.

The Hampton, in Gerard’s view, should have enacted a didactic roleto help society heal past wounds and thus, facilitate the resolution ofcontemporary social problems that emerged from the plantation era.Much like others, Bob also refers to the link between past racial ineq-uities and present racial biases in America:

I detect a layer of attitudes that existed two or three hundred yearsago, I detect them in 2006. Now being here I understand it more.In Canada too, some of the things we did with the indigenous societywere quite bad too. So it’s good to see this and bring it into a currentstate of affairs.

Discussing the implication for such selective and celebratory repre-sentations, Patrick mentions that the issues have to be explicitly ad-dressed in order to invoke positive and meaningful societal changes.

You cannot exercise present race relations in America from what yousee here on the plantation. This is just a continuation of a long racial


saga. How can they overcome racism when American history still over-looks the contribution of the blacks that were enslaved on this soil?

Overall, the findings indicate that foreign tourists, albeit mostly froma neighboring country, viewed the site as a locale within which a dialogon race and racial issues in America ought to take place. Furthermore,they viewed it as a lesson to humanity, a perspective addressed inAshworth’s (2002) discussion of the reasons why society commemo-rates historical events. Notably, the understanding that the plantationera is a didactic moment in the nation’s history resonates with manyAmericans. Such perspectives provide fertile ground on which to sowcosmopolitan ideals such as the construction of the nation’s first mu-seum on slavery—the United States National Slavery Museum in Fred-ericksburg, Virginia. Even politicians, who once veered away from thistaboo topic, are incorporating it in campaign speeches, as was the casewith President Barack Obama. Numerous positive changes have indeedoccurred in America and continue to break ground however, reflectingon the lapsed time since the abolition of slavery juxtaposed against thepresent socio-political order, one is forced to reckon with the fact thatthere is still a lot for society to collectively accomplish. Change cancommence within slavery tourism sites wherein open dialog has thepowerful ability to foster national and global healing.

INTERPRETIVE COMMUNITIES AND THE DECODING PROCESS

The preferred reading at the Hampton Plantation summoned tour-ists to celebrate the culture of the planter families and their traditionsas symbols of national heritage. However, as active recipients of thepreferred reading, they interpreted the site in dichotomous polarizedways; juxtaposing the dominant text to other socio-political discoursesand constructing their own meanings. They can be broadly sorted intodominant publics and resistant publics; the former, decoded the site byacquiescing to the preferred reading through a dominant view, whilethe latter adopted an oppositional view. Notably, the negotiated viewdid not resonate within the data; this is attributed to the transient nat-ure of the participants and their relative social distance from the localsocio-political nexus that constitutes the site. In other words, the partic-ipants were reasonably removed from the deep, socio-political nexusthat envelops the resident community of McClellanville in which theplantation emerged and wherein locals (both white and black) are con-stantly reminded of their contentious past and are faced with efforts toharmoniously move forward. Had the locals been interviewed for thisstudy, the resonance of this socio-political complexity would likely haveemerged in the form of a negotiated decoding.

The emergence of the two key themes, is not unrelated to Ashworth’s(2002) work wherein he proposes that heritage audiences theoreticallyentail perpetrators, victims and cosmopolitans, however empirical evi-dence often adheres to the latter two constructs; arguably, Americantourists can be viewed as victims in search of a sense of belonging andpurpose that has been destabilized by modernity while foreign tourists


can be classified as cosmopolitans, in search of lessons for humanity.Members within each group constructed symbolic meanings based ontheir expectations, judgments, assumptions and projections; all alignedwith the interpretive communities within which they are situated(McQuail 2000). Interpretive communities share understandings of so-cial reality and mediated content (Fish 1980). They share commonassumptions about how a given cultural text should be read or decodedand adopt similar ideological predispositions needed in interpretingtheir social settings (Zelizer 1993). Within this inquiry, the two interpre-tive communities—dominant and oppositional—adopted distinct inter-pretive strategies that rendered the plantation intelligible. They were,nonetheless, similar in their adoption of interpretations endorsing acertain dialogic ‘‘social performance’’ which built on intersubjectivemeanings particular to their respective ‘‘imagined’’ communities (Fish1980). Individual members possessed agency in that they shared a cer-tain set of common values or beliefs that enabled them to decode theHampton in ways similar to their cohort, but also allowed minor per-sonal variations based on their lived experiences.

The narratives adopted by the resistant publics drew on ‘‘ima-ges . . . that seem to express the fundamental beliefs that Canadianshold about themselves’’ (Francis 1997:10). By adopting these truisms,these tourists provided continuity to the Canadian experience andidentity. Additionally, they incorporated the discursive strategy of mul-ticulturalism which has differentiated them from their southern neigh-bors (Francis 1997). At first, the sensitivity to issues of race and racismexhibited can be viewed as an innocent yet virtuous act characteristic ofall progressive approaches; however, an in-depth look elicits that it is adiscursive strategy that evokes various virtues of Canadianism in reac-tion to the American presence. Such strategic discursive constructionsof self are contingent upon the deficiencies of others and are referredto as negative nationalism (Francis 1997). Another discursive strategyadopted was that of humanitarianism in which participants displayed‘‘an interest in memorialisation to prevent the reoccurrence of similaratrocity’’ (Ashworth 2002:363). The ideological predispositions thatunderpin these established interpretive narratives of multiculturalismand humanitarianism provide comfort, convenience, and familiarity;facilitating the affirmation and maintenance of self-definition.

Conversely, the dominant publics drew upon shared discoursesfounded upon tropes of American memory and nationalism. They in-voked public imaginings to reunite with the past through warmthoughts of home and heritage. They fantasized about the past andreconstructed nostalgic, mythical narratives that enabled them to main-tain a positive and memorable suture to their ancestral ties; one thatwas unmarred by the contentious past of slavery. Interestingly, onecan draw parallels between the nature of their interpretations andthose of African Americans journeying on the Diaspora route. Bothgroups are in search of a pristine and nurturing ‘home’ which theyarticulate by rendering any socio-political ills ‘‘irrelevant, even antithet-ical, to [their] voyage of self discovery and nurturance’’ (Ebron2000:920). For instance, as is illustrated in Ebron’s (2000) work, the


diasporic imaginings espoused by some African Americans exclude anyaccounts of poverty or political instability as they pertain to the Africancontinent; this is not unlike the imaginings of the dominant publicswho invoked memories that silenced the slavery past. These groupsmight differ in their recollections of the slavery past but by travellinghome, be it to the plantation or though a transatlantic journey to Afri-ca, both reunite with their past—not factually, but through ‘‘con-structed memory, fantasy, narrative and myth’’ (Hall 1996:226).

In decoding the plantation, participants engaged in dialogism asthey drew upon common assumptions, thoughts, value systems, prac-tices and traditions characteristic of their interpretive communities(Bakhtin 1981). They constructed their own meanings of the planta-tion through discursive strategies of presencing/absencing and, assuch, endorsed certain discourses while disenfranchising the possibilityof others. The variance both within and outside the groups was attrib-utable to the argument that all texts function as a response to texts thathave gone before, and in anticipation of a response from texts that willbe created in the future (Bakhtin 1981). In essence, the Hampton waspart of a larger cognitive backdrop which influenced the constructionof meaning as participants carried with them previous experiences(Bruner 1994; Chronis 2005) while anticipating future occurrences.

CONCLUSION

This study sought to understand how preferred readings encodedduring production processes were decoded. Within this framework,decodings were categorized as dominant, negotiated or oppositionalbased on the degree of divergence from the original encoding (Hall1980). The findings revealed evidence in support of the dominantand oppositional frames. The absence of the negotiated frame is attrib-uted to the fact that the participants were relatively removed from theintricate socio-political nexus that defines the Hampton and its sur-rounding community. Tourists who adopted a dominant frame acqui-esced to the preferred reading while those who espoused anoppositional approach opposed the dominant text. The site as a cul-tural text was decoded by tourists based on the varying meaning struc-tures and knowledge frameworks within which they were respectivelysituated. In this sense, members within each group were viewed asbelonging to the same interpretive community wherein certain ele-ments of a given cultural object or event were rendered meaningful(Berkowitz and Terkeurst 1999). Each public was united throughshared mnemonic socialization, discursive strategies and collectiveinterpretations of the plantation and/or slavery.

In addition to the dominant ideologies promoted by various inter-pretive communities, the act of interpretation is further complicatedby the notion of identity because, ‘‘to be a member of any human com-munity is to situate oneself with regard to one’s past, if only by rejectingit’’ (Olick and Robbins 1998:122). In fact, the articulation of a certaincultural identity is often a key factor in the consumption of heritage


tourism (Breathnach 2006). Moreover, when tourists decide to visit asite, they are choosing to partake in an experience that often becomesa continuation of their psycho-social selves. It therefore follows thatindividuals, be they dominant or resistant publics, construct meaningswhich serve as a foundation on which to base their identities. Thesemeanings of the past are not static as they are constantly adjusted tofit the needs of those who espouse them, while rejecting counter mean-ings that could potentially threaten group identity (Breathnach 2006).

Slavery related sites are increasing enacting the role of representingthe past in inclusive ways which challenge the use of metannaratives todeflect discussions of slavery (Alderman and Campbell 2008:353). Thistask has been challenging as sites try to remove themselves from theirlegacy of colonialism. This legacy has entailed ‘‘amongst other things,the unequal power relation between majority and ethnic minoritygroups within society, a relation affected by colonial history, westerndomination of non-westerners and by the discourse of ‘Self’ and‘Other’’’ (Lagerkvist 2006:52). As heritage audiences become increas-ingly international and multicultural, slave related sites ought to craftmetanarratives that incorporate pluralistic perspectives. Representa-tions focused on a tourist-centered ethos will allow for portrayals thatlure diverse populations and facilitate wider voice resonance withindepictions (Buzinde, Santos, and Smith 2006). Subsequent investiga-tions are necessary to augment knowledge on how societies commem-orate the plantation era. Such endeavors can commence by posingquestions such as: How do locals interpret plantation sites? And, howare commemorated plantations constructing healing and holistic mes-sages? These are important issues that could contribute to the globaldialogue on consumption of slavery related heritage.

Acknowledgements—The authors thank Edward Bruner, Cameron McCarthy and WilliamStewart for their assistance on the earlier part of this project as well as the officials atHampton Plantation for access to the site.

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Submitted 4 June 2008. Resubmitted 11 October 2008. Resubmitted 29 January 2009. FinalVersion 25 February 2009. Accepted 26 February 2009. Refereed anonymously. CoordinatingEditor: Lee Jolliffe

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