Corpo, memória e disputas discursivas no afroturismo

Body, Memory and Discursive Disputes in Afrotourism: proposition for an embodied discursive analysis

Abstract

Tourism can be included among the most emblematic phenomena in contemporary society, forming a network of meanings traversed by disputes of memory, power and representation. In the Latin American context, marked by colonial heritage, processes of racialization and black diasporas, such disputes become ever more evident in narratives on patrimony, culture and identity. The objective of this work is to propose a methodological approach for the analysis of Afro tourism as a critical field crossed by tensions between visibility, erasure and production of memory of populations whose origins can be traced back to Africa. To do this, we propose an embodied discursive analysis, structured in five dimensions: institutional, discursive, performance-related, memorial and in the effects of meanings projected by discourses. Through illustration by analytical procedures, the Recife Afro Guide has provided us with empirical resources. It has been published by the Secretary of Tourism and Leisure with the permission of the City of Recife, alongside two news items linked to the period when the material was launched. The aim is to show Afro Tourism as a player in the territory of discursive and memorial disputes, where body, territory and ancestry operate to inscribe alternative narratives of the past, the city and the experience of tourism in Latin America.