Which heritage? The construction of place in Ghana's tourism

UNESCO world heritage sites, Cape Coast and Elmina castles, are largely remembered in contemporary Ghana for their role in housing captives during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This branding of heritage sites fails to highlight other significant aspects of their history. For example, Portuguese merchants established what later came to be known as Elmina Castle in the late 15(th) century, yet the details surrounding this are not emphasized in contemporary guided tours of the castle. Culture and history are significant factors that serve to explain how sites become sacralized (MacCannell 1976) and meanings reified through the process of memory construction. Memories are mediated through the interpretation of tour guides, museum exhibitions, visitors' comments, public performances, and television, films, and the internet. This paper considers the processes that contribute to heritage production by examining ethnographic data from two notable heritage tourism destinations in Ghana, Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle. This paper also addresses broader theoretical questions of why certain features are obscured from view while others are underscored in the place-making of heritage sites for tourism more broadly.