Roots tourism experiences, identity construction, social equity and social justice: a mixed methods approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT The incidence of African diaspora’s pilgrimage to their ancestral motherland in Africa has recently increased. Indeed, initiatives such as the Black Travel Movement and Year of Return have increased the desire for black diasporans to ‘go back home’. Evidence in the literature illustrates that this homecoming is a deliberate effort towards identity construction. Using a mixed-method research approach (and W.E.B Du Bois’s sociological; terror management, and substantive identity negotiation theories), this study examined root tourism’s effects on identity construction, social justice, and equity using data from the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles in Ghana. The study’s key outcome shows root tourism’s power to influence social justice and human rights equality. Furthermore, the study discovered that terror management and substantive identity negotiation theories are limited in their relevance to non-Western contexts. This study demonstrates how managers of tourism firms can rightly position root tourism as a distinct tool for identity construction, social justice and social equity. The study also discusses its implications, limitations and future studies.