Fort Jesus: Guiding the Past and Contesting the Present in Kenya

Abstract

This paper focuses on the interpretation of Fort Jesus, Kenya, a late sixteenth century Portuguese-built fort, and attempts to discuss its significance in the region and in the country, and its role within the context of recent tourism development in Kenya. By exploring the ways in which a sample of local tourist guides engage with tourists and with the heritage and memory that Fort Jesus represents in this coastal region, some of the challenges facing tourism development in post-colonial Kenya are analysed. While the study reveals that the guides are not a homogeneous group, one of the shared positions is their resentfulness towards the inability of the coastal region to control and benefit from tourism. At the same time, despite some of the guides revealing to be skilful cultural mediators, the vast majority construct their mediation upon a predominantly colonial knowledge of the Fort. Résumé: Fort Jésus: interprétation du passé et contestation du présent au KenyaCet article se concentre sur l'interprétation de Fort Jésus, au Kenya, un fort construit par les portugais au seizième siècle, pour discuter de sa signification dans la région et dans le pays, ainsi que de son rôle dans le contexte du développement récent du tourisme au Kenya. En explorant la façon dont unéchantillon de guides touristiques locaux se conduit vis-à-vis des touristes et par rapport au patrimoine et la mémoire que Fort Jésus représente pour cette zone côtière, j'analyse les problèmes auxquels le développement du tourisme dans un Kenya post colonial doit faire face. Bien que l'étude révèle que les guides ne sont pas un groupe homogène, l'incapacité de la région côtière de contrôler et de bénéficier du tourisme les contrarie tous. En même temps, bien que les guides se soient révélés des interprètes culturels habiles, la majorité construit ses interprétations d'après une connaissance du fort essentiellement coloniale. Diese Studie konzentriert sich auf die Interpretation von Fort Jesus in Kenia, einem portugiesischen Fort aus dem späten sechzehnten Jahrhundert, und strebt an, seine Bedeutung für die Region und das Land sowie seine Rolle im Zusammenhang mit den jüngsten Tourismusentwicklungen in Kenia zu diskutieren. Indem die Art und Weise untersucht wird, mit der eine Auswahl von lokalen Reiseführern sich mit Touristen sowie mit dem Kulturerbe und den Erinnerungen, welches Fort Jesus für diese Küstenregion darstellt, auseinandersetzt, analysiere ich einige der Herausforderungen, die der Tourismusentwicklung im postkolonialen Kenia gegenüberstehen. Während die Untersuchung zeigt, dass Reiseführer keine einheitliche Gruppe darstellen, so ist doch eine der gemeinsamen Positionen ihr Aufgebrachtseinüber die Unfähigkeit der Küstenregion den Tourismus zu kontrollieren und von ihm zu profitieren. Zur gleichen Zeit, und obwohl einige der Reiseführer sich als gekonnte Kulturvermittler hervortun, basiert die Wissensvermittlung für dieüberwiegende Mehrheit hauptsächlich auf kolonialem Wissenüber das Fort.

The Possibility of Promoting the Cultural Heritage of Serbia Through a Cultural Route of Fortified Towns

“…There are numerous studies on castle and fortress tourism. Some of them represented fortresses as potential tourism destinations (Sharma, 2008;Sarmento, 2010;Zaras-Januszkiewicz, Botwina, Żarska, Swoczyna, & Krupa, 2020;Morar et al, 2020;Muzaini, Teo, & Yeoh, 2007), others represented them as potential cultural routes (Gajete, Rojas, & Millán, 2018;Belij, Ilinčić, Belij, & Belij, 2014;Sanches, Secomandi, Scherer, & de Castro, 2009), and management strategies for sustainable use (Benfield, 2001;Song, Park, & Kim, 2020;Radosavljević & Kuletin-Čulafić, 2019;Song & Kim, 2018;Marina, Muntean, & Stefani, 2009), their interpretation (Koo, Kim, Kim, Kim, & Cha, 2019), tourists' experience (Boateng, Okoe, & Hinson, 2018) or valorisation (Lečić, Mitković, & Manić, 2018;Stanojlović, Ćurčić, & Pavlović, 2010).…”

After Decolonization: Changes in the Urban Landscape of Platô in Praia, Cape Verde

“…As demonstrated in different African countries, colonial cities can be protected while simultaneously performing the commemorative, symbolic and touristic functions on which their income is based. Gorée Island, Senegal, 86 and Fort Jesus, Kenya, 87 are examples of combining protection of colonial legacy and profiting from tourism. This possibility may well be irrevocably lost in Praia.…”

Tourism as reflexive reconstructions of colonial past

“…Colonial heritage is often perceived as 'undesirable heritage' (Macdonald, 2006), 'ambivalent heritage' (Chadha, 2006) and 'negative heritage' (Meskell, 2002). It is not uncommon that heritage sites are eager to discard colonial history as a shameful national past while striving to promote their colonial connections as tourism resources (Sarmento, 2010). The cultural and architectural heritage of a colonial power is suppressed or even discarded in favour of the cultural legacy of a pre-colonial period that is appropriated for the creation of 'new' national identities (Harrison, 2005), which is evident in the case of South Korea.…”

“…Despite some notable exceptions that examine intra-European colonialism and tourism (Pitchford, 1995;Kneafsey, 2000;McGuire, 2012) and other postcolonial contexts such as East Asia (Chang and Holt, 1991;Oakes, 1998;Kim and Prideaux, 2012), unequal and exploitative power relationships between Western colonisers and non-Western colonised still prevail in postcolonial tourism scholarship. Furthermore, the extant heritage tourism literature has mainly been discussed from the perspectives of either supply or demand, with specific reference to utilising colonial heritage for tourism development (Teather and Chow, 2003;Basu, 2008;Sarmento, 2010). Little scholastic investigation has focused on unravelling the ways in which locals as tourists discursively construct and articulate their own colonial past.…”