Marketing Vodun: Cultural tourism and dreams of success in contemporary Benin

Abstract

Since the 1990s the Republic of Benin, following a path similar to other West African countries, has established itself as a destination for cultural tourism, in which history, ethnic traditions, ancestral values and indigenous knowledge figure as main attractions. The study of recent developments of the Beninese tourism industry sheds light on the ways in which meanings and commodities are produced in encounters between "hosts" and "guests". Reconstructing the polyvocal biographical narratives of two women engaged in tourism activities-a tourist guide and a Vodun priestess-I analyse local responses to tourists' flows while addressing questions of cultural consumption and the harshness of global markets. In order to understand how representations of "Africaness" and "tradition" are produced and negotiated and how cultures are commodified and transformed into artefacts of economic transactions, this paper draws attention to the dynamics through which Vodun cults have been refashioned as a national cultural heritage and a sites of the Atlantic Slave Trade memory, becoming the main cultural assets of the country for international audiences. By blurring boundaries between tourist worlds and everyday life, combining national policies and intimate stories, I look at the ways in which local agents perform and resignify their culture and experience encounters with "others", while exploring paths of "entrepreneurship" and success.