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2 - The Door of Return

Framing Race and Reconciliation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2022

Ferdinand De Jong
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Summary

Positing that African countries willingly commemorate the transatlantic slave trade but forget the legacies of domestic slavery, this chapter examines the continuation of slavery in the shadows of the House of Slaves at Gorée Island. To examine these hidden legacies of slavery, this chapter looks at the history of the mixed-race Signares and their historical implication in the slave trade and domestic slavery. One of the moral conundrums in the legacy of the Signares is their mixed parentage of European fathers and subordinate Black mothers, placing race at the heart of the cultural creolization (métissage) that is celebrated today as the legacy of Signares. This chapter establishes that the heritages of the slave trade and the Signares are framed as irreconcilable discourses that lead to divergent interpretations of the material culture of the island. Examining a controversial statue, the island’s architectural legacies, the impersonators of Signares, and the Festival of Return, this chapter establishes that the antinomies between the legacies of the slave trade and the Signares are occasionally overcome in rituals of reconciliation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Decolonizing Heritage
Time to Repair in Senegal
, pp. 73 - 103
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • The Door of Return
  • Ferdinand De Jong, University of East Anglia
  • Book: Decolonizing Heritage
  • Online publication: 10 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009086189.004
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  • The Door of Return
  • Ferdinand De Jong, University of East Anglia
  • Book: Decolonizing Heritage
  • Online publication: 10 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009086189.004
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Door of Return
  • Ferdinand De Jong, University of East Anglia
  • Book: Decolonizing Heritage
  • Online publication: 10 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009086189.004
Available formats
×