Pragmatic arguments for decolonising tourism praxis in Africa

Abstract

This conceptual essay extends decolonisation debates to the broader context of decoloniality of praxis. It acknowledges the significance of epistemological and pedagogical decolonisation but argues that these do not fully engage with the entrenched coloniality in tourism in Africa. The essay problematises the conventional explanations for Africa’s underperformance in international tourism and its erasure of Africans as tourists. It proffers pragmatic arguments for decolonising tourism in Africa, given the unprecedented decline in international tourism during the Covid-19 pandemic, the historically contradictory images of Africa, the latent demand for domestic and regional tourism, the youthful population of Africa, and the possibility of Africa-wide freedom of movement emanating from implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area. The article emphasizes the need for concomitant representivity of Africans as producers and consumers of tourism experiences from within the continent, partly facilitated through principles of subsidiarity, although potential resistance to such a pursuit is acknowledged.

Keywords:

• Decolonisation
• decoloniality of praxis
• representivity
• Africa
• self-affirmation
• domestic and regional tourism
• covid-19
• African continental free trade area
• subsidiarity

Introduction

The aim of this conceptual essay is to extend decolonisation debates to the broader context of decoloniality of praxis, focused on tourism in Africa. Scholarly debates on decolonisation continue to problematise knowledge production and dissemination, challenging its universalised and hegemonic origins and perspectives which has for the most part, excluded non-Eurocentric world views (Dussel, 1996, 2012; Mbembe, 2001, 2016; Mignolo, 2007, 2011; Quijano, 2000; Wa Thiong’o, 1986, 2016). Critical scholarship in tourism studies is, accordingly, grappling with hegemonic discourses in various contexts, including, through a critique of patriarchy (Lee, 2017; Pritchard & Morgan, 2007, 2017) and the privileging of Western epistemic perspectives, while questioning the disturbing silence about non-Western world views (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Everingham & Motta, 2022; Higgins-Desbiolles & Powys Whyte, 2013; Hollinshead, 1992, 2013). Reflecting on Walter Mignolo’s (2009, 2011) well considered views on epistemic violence inflicted on the non-Western world and the need to respond with epistemic disobedience, Chambers and Buzinde (2015) urge tourism scholars in and from the South to embrace epistemic de-linking. They aver that epistemic de-linking is tenable through a disavowal of hegemonic Western epistemologies to enable the emergence and articulation of other currently marginalised world views and knowledge about tourism. Epistemic de-linking, they argue, ought to transcend disciplinary boundaries which in themselves are part of the hegemonic representations of knowledge. However, decolonial arguments have for the most part, addressed knowledge production and pedagogy as their main object of critique, paying less attention to the wider context of decoloniality of praxis (e.g., Quijano, 2007).

In its broadest sense, decoloniality of praxis is about striving to reverse the multiplicities of entrenched hierarchies and maltreatment resulting from coloniality of power, which is manifested in and through international relations, international division of labour, modern slavery, ecological, spiritual, racialised, gendered, sexual, epistemic, and linguistic hierarchies (Anzaldúa, 1987; Banerjee, 2021: Lugones, 2007; Quijano, 2007). Put differently, decoloniality of praxis is currently not receiving adequate attention in tourism studies which until recently, was under-studied in the African context, and where scholarship in this field had been criticised for its ‘attendant axiomatic reliance upon Western/Eurocentric canon’ (Yankholmes, 2014, p.97; see also Visser, 2015). Yet, most of the observable coloniality in former colonised contexts can readily be found in the production and consumption of tourism experiences (e.g., Benjamin & Dillette, 2021; D’Hautessere, 2004; Dunn, 2004; Hollinshead, 1992; Lee, 2017; Peters & Higgins-Desbiolles, 2012), including voluntourism, (Everingham & Motta, 2022).

Extant critical scholarship addressing this gap previously drew on poststructuralist thinking. Hollinshead’s (1992) critique of the objectification of Indigenous people of North America was a primer. Hollinshead questioned an essentialist ‘White’ gaze that led to disidentification of the First Nations people in cultural tourism, while suggesting ways in which tourism practitioners could come to understand the pluriversity that characterises their world. Similarly, Peters and Higgins-Desbiolles (2012) criticised the conventional, Eurocentric views and imaginings that shape the way in which Indigenous Australians are understood and misrepresented through Indigenous tourism. They show how unequal power relations are intricately woven into Indigenous tourism, marginalising and disregarding Indigenous Australians, their leaders and communities’ self-perception and aspirations for meaningful representation in and through tourism. They make an important contribution by highlighting ‘…visible Indigenous Australian engagement in tourism as tourists, rather than as objects for the gaze of non-Indigenous tourists…’ (2012, p.82).

Epistemic decolonisation in tourism studies as espoused by Lee (2017) also deserves mention here. Lee directs her critique on aspects of tourism research which appear to reinforce coloniality by deconstructing the role of ‘Establishment men’. She uses the term ‘Establishment men’ to describe “… the academics, researchers and policy makers who cause harm or exploit our Black female bodies by privileging Western epistemologies in tourism research” (Lee, 2017, p.96). Lee explicates the workings of the Establishment men rooted in performance theory, prior to articulating a distinctive Indigenous epistemology that speaks with and through the voices of the women of tebrakunna county in Tasmania. This active witnessing with and for the Indigenous women at the time, grounded in their material and lived experiences, is empowering and hence an important way of contributing to epistemic decolonisation in tourism.

More recently, Everingham and Motta (2022) demystified volunteer tourism, which is often gleefully presented through neo-liberalised and neo-colonial discourses on development aid. An awareness of the unequal geographies of volunteering which clearly demarcates those ‘giving’ their time in ‘doing good’ from others that need ‘saving’, culminated in Everingham and Motta (2022) critiquing the entrenched binarism within the system. That is, the tendency within the extant literature, to appeal to and to overemphasise the human capacity for autonomous affective reaction that privileges possibilities over power gradients within which such relations exist. Drawing on decolonial feminist epistemologies deployed in their reflexive accounts of volunteering in Ecuador, they sought to dispense with such binarism whilst re-centring subjectivity, positionality, and corporality.

These examples foreground what is already known about tourism’s role in facilitating the “othering” process mostly from a coloniser-colonised perspective. They also highlight the search for alternative, previously excluded interpretations and re-presentations of colonial experience through the agency of those formerly colonised. However, they have not facilitated our understanding of the role of those in former colonised societies, in “othering” themselves through tourism, which is at the heart of this critical essay. Tourism in Africa, the chosen context, represents an ongoing paradox, borne out of its historical evolution. According to Harrison (2000), it originated during the last decade of the nineteenth century, a period that coincided with colonial rule and the relative increase in European settlers on the continent. Harrison asserts that tourism during this period was “developed by colonialists for colonialists” and that at the time, “black Africans lacked the financial or cultural capital to compete with Europeans” (2000, p. 37; cf. Teye, 1986; Britton, 1982).

This colonial perception of black Africans as non-tourists persists to this day, perpetuated by Africans, and is variously attributed to poverty or lack of interest in leisure (e.g., Dieke, 2000, 2020; Melubo, 2020, Melubo & Doering, 2022; Sindiga, 1996). Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, there had been limited strategic interest in domestic and regional tourism in most parts of Africa (e.g., Kabote et al., 2019; Melubo, 2020; Morupisi & Mokgalo, 2017; Rogerson, 2015a, 2015b; Sindiga, 1996), due to overreliance on tourists from outside the continent. This neglect mostly disregarded the view that majority of leisure (Visiting Friends and Family (VFR)) and business tourists on the continent were Africans (e.g., Rogerson, 2015a, 2015b; Visser, 2015). The pandemic exposed weaknesses in this strategy, given that apart from healthcare, tourism was the hardest hit industry, with complete collapse in international tourism in 2020 (Gössling et al., 2020; Kourentzes et al., 2021). Therefore, this critical essay attempts to proffer pragmatic arguments for decolonising tourism in Africa, focusing on historical, contemporary, and rhetorical issues relevant for the continent. The rest of the paper is organised as follows: first, I present a critical literature review on decolonisation, then, I turn to a decolonial critique of tourism in Africa, followed by some concluding remarks.

Decolonisation and the African context: epistemological and pedagogical decolonisation

Mbembe (2016) outlines two dominant decolonial discourses which are relevant to Africa, one which considers decolonisation as Africanisation in a political sense and another that focuses on epistemological and pedagogic issues relevant for Africa. Decolonisation as Africanisation, which Táíwò (2022) argues, is the proper provenance of the concept, emerged from the struggles for independence and the eventual realisation of this objective from the late 1950s in Ghana up to the 1990s post-apartheid South Africa. During this time, to decolonise was synonymous with nation-building, it was the central focus of the post-colonial governments led by the African middle classes (or the ‘national bourgeoisie’) to whom power had been transferred during independence. Decolonisation in this context is often criticised for its dismal empowerment of the majority in Africa, beyond the initial symbolic transfer of power from colonialists (see also Banerjee, 2021; Colliers and Gunning, 1999; Mengara, 2001; Mignolo, 2011).

Frantz Fanon proffers the most unequivocal critique of decolonisation as Africanisation discourse. Fanon (1967, p.119-120) notes among other things, and worth quoting at length, that:

the traditional weakness which is almost congenital to the national consciousness of under-developed countries, is not solely a result of the mutilation of colonized people by the colonial regime. It is also the result of the intellectual laziness of the national middle class, of its spiritual penury, and of the profoundly cosmopolitan mould that its mind is set in. This national middle class…, also lacked any real economic power to effect meaningful change, given that it did not have financiers or inventors or industrial magnates in its ranks. …, It inevitably took on the role of an intermediary for its colonial predecessors’ interests,…

Although some scholars find Fanon’s views to be quite repugnant (see Lazarus, 1993 for a summary), their significance lies in showing how, part of the responsibility for its under-development lies with Africans themselves, a view that is partly shared in the current paper. Here, for whatever the reason, many post-colonial African nations chose to imitate their colonial masters by adopting and perpetuating laws, policies and strategies previously deployed by the colonialists to control Africans, namely strong police and/or military force, limiting freedom of expression, movement, political association, and human rights abuses to mention but a few (Mengara, 2001; Mignolo, 2011; Wa Thiong’o, 2016). Consequently, “they reproduced a bastardized model of socio-political, cultural and economic organisation that is neither African, nor Western” (Mengara 2001, p.11), but rather a hybrid. This situation led Fanon to conclude that the national middle class had embraced the most corrupt form of colonial thought and practices, which influenced his unequivocal views on tourism in Africa. That is:

the national bourgeoisie will be greatly helped on its way towards decadence by the Western bourgeoisie, who come to it as tourists avid for the exotic, big-game hunting and for casinos. He [sic] organises centres of rest and relaxation and pleasure resorts to meet the wishes of the Western bourgeoisie. Such activity is given the name of tourism, and for the occasion, will be built up as a national industry (Fanon, 1967, p.123).

This most pessimistic view of tourism in Africa is justified by its historical origins (e.g., Harrison, 2000) and some of the more widely known negative impacts of mass tourism elsewhere in formerly colonised worlds. So that to Fanon, ‘if proof is needed…, it is worthwhile having a look at what has happened in Latin America. The casinos of Havana and of Mexico, the beaches of Rio, the little Brazilian and Mexican girls… all these are the stigma of this depravation of the national middle class. Because it is bereft of ideas,…’ (Fanon, 1967, p.123). In more contemporary times, this view is perhaps best captured in Kincaid’s (1988) erudition of a nominally independent Antigua which continues to function as a pleasure destination for its former colonisers, whilst co-opting the agency of the peoples of Antigua, who have endured dispossession and cultural erasure. Recently, a similar sentiment was expressed by Wa Thiong’o (2016) who bemoaned his fellow Kenyans for supposedly choosing to betray their compatriots by joining the ranks of golfing, hunting and country-clubbing colonisers, and for whom such shinny pittance seemed like real treasure worth having.

However, it needs to be emphasised here that tourism in Africa in the twenty first century is perhaps more about the national bourgeoisie actively investing in the sector through neoliberalised public and private partnerships which are increasingly embedded in development strategies (e.g., Mogalakwe & Nyamnjoh, 2017). Nevertheless, the involvement of the national bourgeoisie in tourism has not necessarily addressed the all-important and ongoing problems of dispossessed working-class Africans as previously explicated by Cabral (2016) in his experiences in Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau, and in Kincaid’s work on Antigua, which continue to remain relevant for the African context.

While remaining aware of Táíwò’s (2022) critique of the unfettered decolonisation that goes beyond the original quest for independence, it seems fair to aver that decolonisation as Africanisation constitutes an ideological mask that enables the colonial status quo to continue, albeit under different label, notably neo-colonialism or dependency, in which there are willing collaborators among former colonised peoples (cf. Mengara, 2001; Mignolo, 2011). In such contexts, decolonisation is tantamount to moral deception, making it a questionable pursuit. This emphasizes the importance of extending epistemological and pedagogical decolonisation to praxis, which, in this essay, specifically focuses on tourism in Africa.

Epistemological and pedagogical decolonisation

Epistemological decolonisation, as outlined previously, focuses on a critique of the hegemonic Western epistemic tradition. Here, the main arguments highlighted by Mbembe (2016) resonate with the Latin American tradition variously articulated by Dussel (1996, 2012), Quijano (2000), Mignolo (2009, 2011), and Ortega (2017) among others. The linchpin of epistemological decolonisation is the quest for re-introducing and re-centring those previously devalued, erased, and silenced forms and sources of knowledge. Accordingly, for the decolonial scholar, it becomes necessary to continuously problematise, resist and highlight hegemonic forms of knowledge to show that they are ethnocentric and not as universal as has been proclaimed (Banerjee, 2021; Chambers & Buzinde, 2015).

Furthermore, epistemological decolonisation in an African context prioritises questions of ownership, that is, self-ownership (e.g., Wa Thiong’o, 1986). It requires an avid awareness of the immanent personhood and intellect that has for the most part been misplaced, misinformed, and misrepresented in knowledge construction and all else. More than that, it needs a critical awareness of the implications for praxis, of the prolonged (self)entanglements in coloniality including through production and consumption of tourism experiences (cf. Lee, 2017, Benjamin & Dillette, 2021; Peters & Higgins-Desbiolles, 2012). These views are best captured in the work of Ngugi wa Thiong’o through the lenses of pedagogic decolonisation (e.g., Wa Thiong’o 1986, 2016) and to some extent in Chinua Achebe’s literary works (e.g., Achebe, 1958, 1964).

Decolonisation as pedagogic praxis entails formerly colonised peoples seeing themselves more clearly, and yearning for a liberating perspective that has the capacity to free them from an acquired blindness (Banerjee, 2021; Wa Thiong’o, 1986, Dussel, 2012). Such blindness takes a deep psychological root in the minds of colonised peoples, in what Chimezie (1975, p.62) described as the ‘colonised mentality’, by which he meant “the value-attitudinal-emotional complex in the colonised takes for granted the validity, truth, and superiority of the culture of the coloniser, but assumes that the behaviours, culture, values, life style, moral preferences … of the colonised are invalid, wrong, false, or inferior’. So that wa Thiong’o’s pedagogical decolonisation argues for ongoing struggles for self-liberation from entrenched paradoxes in which formerly colonised peoples find themselves (e.g., former colonised nations fully drawn into capitalist market economies through an agenda set for them by neoliberal multi-lateral institutions) but always from a position of marginality (e.g., Chimezie, 1975; Hickel & Hallegatte, 2021).

In tourism studies, the calls for de-centring it’s intellectual universe by inviting and making spaces for marginal perspectives in the academe (e.g., Chambers & Buzinde, 2015, Lee, 2017; Hollinshead, 2013; Pritchard & Morgan, 2007, 2017) reflect, to varying degrees, aspirations for epistemological and pedagogical plurality that are relevant for the African context. But none of these views, directly addresses tourism praxis in Africa. Scholarly works on tourism in Africa which focus on tourism policy and development, sustainable/eco/wildlife/community tourism, destination planning, management and marketing and the ensuing challenges, among others (e.g., Adu-Ampong & Kimbu, 2019; Akama, 1996; Ayikoru, 2015; Dieke, 2000, 2020) mostly reflect what Naude (2019) describes as the transfer and translation modes of decolonisation. These modes, respectively refer to direct transfer and translation of Western-centric issues, re-examined within an African context (e.g., Banerjee, 2021; Yankholmes, 2014). This points to a gap in decolonisation scholarship, which, for the most part, remains narrowly focused on epistemological and pedagogic debates, without sufficiently critiquing the broader coloniality of power nor the persistence of colonised mentality.

However, Mbembe (2016) emphasises that pedagogical decolonisation as espoused by wa Thiong’o is not a call for Africa to break away from the world, but rather it is a yearning for re-centring Africa so that questions of knowledge construction, curricula, culture, and economy among others are defined in a context where Africa plays a central role. It is a quest for dispensing with marginality. Yet, most African countries are pursuing a modernist developmental agenda within which tourism’s contributory potential is variously emphasised or neglected (e.g., Aryeetey & Kanbur, 2017; Dieke, 2020). This modernist agenda undergirded by a developmentalist ideology entails, according to Dirlik (2014), the fetishization of development in a way that is irrecusable, dominating consciousness while concealing its historical, social, and political underpinning. It thrives on the backdrop of a colonised mentality (Chimezie, 1975; Lumumba, 2022).

In other words, developmentalism represents a latent manifestation of coloniality of power which reinforces and sustains structural inequalities (Quijano, 2007) in former colonies, while engendering full participation and acquiescence of their Westernised elite. An important feature of this developmentalism is the production and consumption of goods and services aimed at a global export market (Dirlik, 2014; Dussel, 2012), which is regarded as a necessary strategy for achieving economic growth. In the absence of an alternative, tourism conceived and developed within this developmentalist logic is bound to be seen narrowly as an export sector for African countries, regardless of whether it addresses the pressing challenges facing majority of their disenfranchised citizens (c.f. Higham, 2020; Lumumba, 2022; Cabral, 2016). This then is the reason that decoloniality of praxis, which is currently less visible in tourism studies, is warranted.

In his critique of cultural hegemony and a search for an alternative to the modernist discourse, Argentinian philosopher Enrique Dussel observed that ‘Western culture, with its obvious “Occidentalism,” has positioned all other cultures as primitive, pre-modern, traditional, and underdeveloped.’ (2012, p.39.). The mercantilist capitalist logic which underpinned much of the relationship between the colonisers and colonised was based on the former extracting raw materials and labour, while disregarding much of the socio-cultural values of the ‘other’ (Banerjee, 2021; Dussel, 2012; Mudimbe, 1988). Dussel (2012) argues that such ‘inferior’ cultures were never colonised fully, leaving their main structures and values to exist silently, alongside the new, hegemonic cosmopolitan culture. It was therefore possible, to revive and to reinscribe these previously negated cultures, albeit imperfectly.

To this end, Dussel proposes an alternative theory of trans-modernity, which entails a negation of modernity by reflecting on it from the vantage point of those whose world views it previously excluded. Here, the transmodern cultures are re-presented as being simultaneously prior to and beyond modernity, continuing to evolve in ways that embrace the positive aspects of modernity evaluated on their own terms. This is simply because despite their peripherality and abysmal, asymmetrical relationships with the metropolitan core during the colonial period, and now even more so in a globalised world system, these former colonised regions of the world, whether from India, Africa or Latin America have the potential for a creative cultural renewal which stands apart from their ‘superior’ contemporaries (Dussel, 2012; cf., Dirlik, 2014). This renewal has the potential to yield fresh and much needed answers to the pressing challenges facing society in the twenty first century. Such challenges partly rooted in modernist developmentalism (Dirlik, 2014) and coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007) include among others, climate change, global ecological destruction, poverty, and food insecurity (Hickel & Hallegatte, 2021), which have already severely affected those in the periphery.

Thus, embracing aspects of modernity that complement peripheral cultures and value systems is not unreasonable, a point that Táíwò (2022) emphasises in his recent treatise titled “against decolonisation”. Whilst questioning the proliferating calls for decolonisation in an African context which has not achieved the much-needed empowerment on the continent, Táíwò (2022) argues that African intellectuals adapting, synthesising, and innovating with ideas originating in colonialism or in modernism ought to be celebrated as a form of strength. In agreement with this observation, and as a relevant example, I draw attention to conservation of wildlife and other natural resources on which nature-based tourism and ecotourism are dependent in parts of Africa, which have their origins and key narratives firmly embedded in coloniality (e.g., Akama et al., 2011). This means historically, and for the most part, conservation efforts ignored and negated Indigenous people’s complex resource use patterns and spiritual values leading to numerous conflicts in Africa and elsewhere (e.g., Akama et al., 2011). However, these historical contexts have now been superseded by a neo-liberalised agenda for saving nature in a way that supposedly pays for itself (e.g., Adams & Infield, 2003; Mogalakwe & Nyamnjoh, 2017, Kalvelage et al., 2022), which have found impetus in tourism on the continent. Given the ongoing challenges from global ecological destruction and climate change, conservation of nature remains an important pursuit that must be embraced, but it can be decolonised, by reinserting previously devalued and negated Indigenous knowledge systems and practices which complement scientific advancements in nature conservation. The choice to embrace relevant moments of modernity could thus be understood more broadly by considering strategies that have explanatory potential in illuminating the paradox in African tourism, which calls for pragmatic decolonisation.

Strategies for decolonisation and relevance for African tourism

Dussel (2012) outlines four main strategies for achieving the transmodern project, encompassing affirmation of the denied exteriority, a critique of tradition with resources of one’s own culture, hermeneutic time, and intercultural dialogue between critiques of their own culture. Affirmation of the denied exteriority is of particular interest in the African tourism context and will be elaborated on briefly here. It requires a process of “self-discovery of one’s own value” within the context of an “evolving, flexible identity” discountenanced by modernity (Dussel, 2012, p.44). The significance of effective decolonisation for such cultures, ought, according to Dussel, to be preceded by self-valorisation, through what he describes as negation of the negation. Highlighting the example of ‘Guatemalan Indian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú’ among others, Dussel explains how self-affirmation may be accomplished in different ways, but ‘always rooted in positive origins of one’s own cultural tradition’, in the face of prevailing opinion(s) (2012, p.45).

These views which are not well articulated in tourism studies on Africa, are surprisingly not new to the continent. Instead, they have been demonstrated by individuals that take African values, sometimes infused with modernist perspectives to reflect nuanced meanings and expressions of the continent’s rich cultural diversity or to address some of its pressing challenges (e.g., Táíwò, 2022). A common example is the proliferation of mobile money and banking, and the ensuing benefits, which reflects African ingenuity in solving specific challenges of financial exclusion faced by majority on the continent (Nan et al., 2021). Additionally, the work of the late Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai who founded the Green Belt Movement (GBM) in 1977, aimed at addressing environmental degradation and implications for rural peasant farmers in Kenya deserves mention. The GBM culminated into the planting of over 30 million trees throughout Kenya, way before some of the current trends seen in mitigating climate change. Maathai successfully mentored rural women to take charge of their own destiny, resulting not only in ecosystem restoration, but also improved socio-economic livelihoods. Her efforts were valorised internally by being appointed as government minister for the environment and externally through a Nobel prize awarded to her in 2004 (Maathai, 2010). In her book appropriately titled ‘The Challenge for Africa’, Maathai (2010) quotes examples of self-affirmation in Africa, by identifying philanthropic, popular culture and literary works which demonstrate the existence of self-valorisation or negation of the negation. What this example shows is that the potential for self-valorisation exists in Africa and can be drawn upon if there is an interest in decolonisation on the continent through deployment of appropriate enablers.

In terms of enablers, concepts such as proximity and subsidiarity have the potential to facilitate the quest for self-valorisation. These concepts have recently re-emerged in tourism scholarship (e.g., Higgins-Desbiolles, 2022; Rantala et al., 2020; Salmela et al., 2021), aimed at reshaping the pre-pandemic, pro-growth global tourism agenda that was fractured by Covid-19. Specifically, proximity tourism gives primacy to the pursuit of more localised leisure opportunities by emphasising travels nearer to home, through a rediscovery and revalorisation of that which for some time, was considered mundane, with an added benefit of low-carbon modes of travel (ibid). Similarly, subsidiarity as currently understood in tourism contexts, reflects the need to rethink the geographical distances covered in ‘touring and travel circuits’ which prioritises travels in and around the home whilst limiting trips further afield which often encompass ‘regional and international’ destinations (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2022, p.5).

Subsidiarity (akin to proximity tourism) represents a clear departure from the often-cited definition of tourism, which, in its geographical context, always entailed temporary, short-term travels away from home in pursuit of leisure among other motives for travel (UNWTO, 2008). It stems from the ongoing quest for tourism to take responsibility for addressing the climate crises and the failure of the pro-growth agenda in global tourism to contribute meaningfully to equitable socio-economic and ecological wellbeing across the world (e.g., Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020; Higham, 2020). Subsidiarity in this context is a useful, enabling concept that can indeed facilitate a serious conversation about tourism’s contributory and remediating roles in addressing these global challenges facing society. However, it’s raison d’etre as currently conceived, does not fully account for one of the enduring challenges facing former colonies specifically those in Africa, where the tourism sector is enmeshed in colonised mentality (Chimezie, 1975) and coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007). In such cases, subsidiarity can be recontextualised as one possible strategy for decolonising tourism in former colonial contexts that continue to grapple with its legacies as will be seen in the next section.

In summary, this article thus interrogates some of the salient issues raised in the decolonisation debates, with relevance for Africa. The main challenge remains, that is, the convincing epistemological arguments articulated by various decolonial thinkers and the stark reality of socio-economic policies, macro-economic development and tourism strategies that remain entrapped in modernist developmentalism and neo-colonial thinking. Tourism in most parts of Africa encapsulates this gap in decoloniality of praxis. Regardless of how this situation has arisen, there can be no greater moral and intellectual offense against devalued groups than that which is inadvertently or wilfully self-perpetuated. It is in this sense that pragmatic arguments for decolonising tourism in Africa are proffered in the rest of this paper.

Pragmatic arguments for decolonising tourism in Africa

A starting point in decolonising tourism in Africa hinges upon the challenges arising from Covid-19 pandemic which, in 2020–2021, significantly curtailed international tourism globally (e.g., Gossling et al., 2020). Here, countries with well-developed domestic tourism were shielded to some extent from the pandemic-induced collapse in demand for international tourism. This compounded the situation for much of Africa with inadequate, if at all, explicit policies, and strategies for nurturing domestic and regional tourism. Recent publications illustrate this gap more clearly. The first of these publications highlights the contrast between Botswana’s successful international inbound tourism, premised on the backdrop of its high-value, low impact policy with the emerging trend in outbound tourism (Morupisi & Mokgalo, 2017, Mbaiwa, 2017). The authors argue that Botswana’s emerging propensity for outbound tourism is a result of limited domestic tourism opportunities, given the focus on high end wildlife tourism experiences and the very high prices particularly of accommodation.

In Tanzania, with a strong demand from international tourists prior to the pandemic, Melubo (2020, cf., Melubo & Doering, 2022) found that historical, socio-cultural, and economic reasons impede local participation in the country’s wildlife-based tourism, mainly in protected areas. Such protected natural wilderness areas symbolise one of the lingering spatial legacies of colonialism which some Africans find offensive (e.g., Akama et al., 2011; D’Hautessere, 2004; Dunn, 2004). The indigenous Tanzanian population therefore perceive tourism as ‘an activity for predominantly wealthy visitors from the global North’ escaping from pressures of modern living and whose romanticised interest in wildlife are not shared locally and where ‘investors establish [high end] accommodation… [aimed at serving visitors with] foreign currencies (Melubo, 2020, p.261; cf. Morupisi & Mokgalo, 2017). Although the pandemic has motivated the Tanzanian government to actively promote domestic tourism, these issues that signify the colonial legacies of spatial and cultural exclusion have persisted (Melubo & Doering, 2022).

Relatedly, Soliku et al. (2021) found that heritage and ecotourism in Ghana’s Savanah region was heavily impacted by Covid-19 due to overreliance on international tourists. The last of these studies looks at domestic tourism in Zimbabwe using situational analysis (Kabote et al., 2019). The authors conclude that domestic tourism operates mostly informally and is not tracked and accounted for in the same way as international tourism. What is clear from these examples is that there is potential demand for domestic tourism, but for various reasons, this has not been harnessed meaningfully either through low level investments in dedicated and affordable tourism products which reflect local values and tastes or simply a neglect due to an overreliance on foreign tourists or other economic sectors (such as oil, minerals, agriculture) (e.g. Dieke, 2020; Helleiner, 1990; Melubo, 2020; Morupisi & Mokgalo, 2017)

The second pragmatic argument focuses on challenges facing African tourism as summarised by Dieke (2020) into several key issues. These include ‘low economic returns, insufficient knowledge of the international market, socio-political discontent, slow reaction by governments to changes in the global market trends, insufficient skilled human resources, and the generally low developments’ (Dieke, 2020, p.21). Dieke identifies the few successful tourism destinations in Africa (e.g., Kenya in East Africa; Morocco and Tunisia in North Africa; Ghana and Senegal in West Africa; South Africa and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa; and Mauritius and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean). He attributes their successes to general level of development, political and other ties as well as proximity to Europe (e.g., North African countries of Morocco and Tunisia), strong presence of foreign enterprises and resident expatriate population, interlaced with historical evolution of tourism (e.g., in Kenya). Most of the less successful destinations were those in which there is ‘structural imbalance in the overall development pattern’ where unclear national development strategies are mirrored in the tourism economy which remains mostly unintegrated with the wider national economy (p.20).

These issues identified by Dieke, one of the few Africans with the longest experience of and intellectual and policy expertise in Africa’s tourism reflect credibility and trustworthiness. What remains is their problematisation, for instance, insufficient knowledge of the market and slow reaction to changing global trends, both encompass coloniality. If in the nineteenth century, tourism was developed with a settler and later expatriate populations as the target markets and source of investment capital, and that market structure was retained several decades after independence, then clearly, therein lies the fundamental problem. Tourism superstructure aimed at serving mostly non-African target market remains unsustainable. It means, the source of investment capital, the resultant product (i.e., overall tourism experiences) exported, will succeed only if there is significant foreign involvement. This is one of the best examples of neo-colonial dependency and colonial mentality (e.g., Britton, 1982; Chimezie, 1975; Wa Thiong’o, 2016), which continues to befuddle tourism in Africa. Dependency on foreign tourists thus ignores the fact that Africa has the youngest population in the world, with an emerging middle class which could be valorised, nurtured, and engaged in tourism as consumers, alongside the non-African markets (Bach & Nallet, 2018; Morupisi & Mokgalo, 2017; Myers, 2019). The outlined challenges, coupled with legacies of the contradictory images of Africa built during the colonial period that romanticise the continent’s wilderness whilst vilifying it for being unsafe and hence needing bravery or caution on the part of the foreign tourists (e.g., D’Hautessere, 2004; Dunn, 2004) implies that expecting large numbers of foreign tourists to visit most parts of Africa would be a misguided optimism.

The insidious legacies of the contradictory images of Africa are thus concomitantly linked to perceived levels of risk to personal safety, which, according to Dieke (2020), partly explains why Africa receives less foreign tourists. But a more critical reflection on such concerns is required. For instance, the much anticipated severe, direct impacts of Covid-19 were not witnessed in most parts of Africa that have under-resourced health systems. Regardless of the magnitude and impacts of an epidemic, the whole of Africa is normally considered to be unsafe. Previously, following the Ebola outbreak, the World Travel and Tourism Council (n.d.) noted that ‘while tourists were urged to avoid the Ebola zone in West Africa, many saw the entire African continent as at risk… countries as far away as Kenya, over 3,000 miles away from the outbreak, reported significant loss in arrivals….’. Similarly, Novelli et al. (2018) document the experiences of the Gambia, which had not recorded any Ebola cases, but was nonetheless avoided by international tourists, with serious implications for the economy.

Such views were aptly echoed by Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo (2017), in a public address hosted by the Royal African Society in London in 2017 on the theme ‘Africa Beyond Aid’. The President noted rhetorically that:

if a bomb goes off in Brussels, it would not occur to anyone to cancel their trip to Amsterdam, but an explosion in Mombasa would have travel advisories warning citizens against journeys to Kampala; a war in Liberia leads to all west African countries being downgraded by credit rating agencies; an outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leon means Ghanaians arriving in airports in Europe and North America get “special” treatment (minutes 2’02-3’03).

These remarks echo the enduring discourse on the contradictory images of Africa that have for the most part, become normalised around the world since colonial times, with further exacerbation during global pandemics. But more than that, they reflect what Chimezie (1975, p.62) described as the ‘ignorance of the coloniser mentality’, which, although, oversteps the boundaries of common sense, often gets misrepresented as a function of ‘intelligence or cleverness’, with serious implications for colonised peoples.

Decolonising tourism in Africa therefore has the potential to tap into the latent and the emerging demand for domestic and regional tourism which can present a credible alternative in the face of prevailing historical and contemporary challenges. Recent, non-scholarly examples include the experiences of two young Africans, Moroccan Othmane Zolati and Kenyan Ciku Kimeria, who embarked on a tour of the continent, and, who, despite facing numerous constraints, advocate freedom of travel and the need to promote African experiences of the diversity and beauty within their continent. Specifically, Zolati sought to demystify the contradictory images of Africa, by travelling across the continent, sharing his unorthodox African adventure in a documentary aptly titled ‘Africa and I’, hence an excellent example of negating the negation. Kimeria on the other hand describes in detail, various constraints imposed by Africans on their citizens, which alienates them from exploring the continent, which in turn loses from an emerging African middle class who find it easier to travel abroad (Quartz Africa, 2016, 2021; cf. Morupisi & Mokgalo, 2017; Bach & Nallet, 2018).

This is perhaps where, at a practical level, an aspect of subsidiarity could be drawn upon, not in the context of degrowth (e.g., Higgins-Desbiolles, 2022), but rather, as a strategy for developing and nurturing a different kind of tourism, one that consciously prioritises the African as the main target market. Specifically, from a regulatory point of view, dispensing with the most oppressive geographical legacy of colonialism, symbolised by borders throughout Africa, which stifles freedom of movement on the continent, would need to be prioritised. The broader context for such a regulatory change has been established through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which came into effect in early 2021 (Ajala et al., 2021). The AfCFTA, which is considered ‘the largest free trade area in the world’, comprising ‘55 countries, 1.3 billion people’ and an estimated ‘US dollars 3.4 trillion GDP’ covers a wide range of policy areas, among which the General Agreement on Trade in Services is perhaps the most relevant for tourism (e.g., Maliszewska & Ruta, 2020, p.11, 17). All that is required is some institutionalisation of freedom of movement facilitated through progressive policies as well as the use of digital technologies across the continent.

To this, could be added, the incentivisation of emerging tourism businesses and existing ones that significantly shift their product and service offerings to cater for the African population (cf. Benjamin & Dillette, 2021). Incentives comprising tax breaks, favourable access to credit facilities and reduced tax burden for private sector organisations that offer generous paid annual leave to their employees could be considered, if there is evidence of such employees using some of this time off on domestic or regional tourism experiences. It would need to focus for example, on re-discovering Africa’s cultural heritage, its histories and diversity of its peoples as an opportunity for learning, and for developing a renewed sense of identity and shared experiences that are necessary for self-affirmation. Destination marketing, particularly those funded directly through national budgets could be facilitated to include targets for mobilising and attracting domestic and regional tourists that are reviewed annually and rewarded commensurately if progress is being made.

What needs acknowledging here is that some form of subsidiarity is already happening in parts of Africa, that can be cited as an early example of its potential viability. Notably, Melubo and Doering (2022) report on the initiatives taken by the Tanzanian government to promote domestic tourism as a strategy for managing shocks from the Covid-19 pandemic. They identify provision of partial or fully subsidised tour packages, significantly reduced entry fees to protected areas, promotional materials presented in Kiswahili, the national language, in a dedicated space for domestic tourism on Tanzanian tourism board’s website and a range of campaigns encouraging self-valorisation by Tanzanians, of their heritage among others. Previously, Rogerson (2015b) explicated ways in which the South African government introduced policies that prioritised domestic and regional tourism as an important strategy for redressing the legacies of Apartheid-era spatial and developmental inequalities in the country. All these arguments and the highlighted examples suggest the time is ripe for Africa to decolonise its tourism industry by revalorising and including Africans as consumers, with potentially sustainable benefits to be realised in the process.

Conclusions

The aim of this critical essay was to extend the intellectual debates on decolonisation to the broader context of decoloniality of praxis. It has argued that while epistemological and pedagogical decolonisation are important, the lived experiences of those in former colonial societies, notably in Africa, is where much decolonisation may be required. Given the loss in international tourism demand occasioned by Covid-19, the latent demand for domestic and regional tourism, the mostly youthful population in Africa, as well as the possibility of an Africa-wide freedom of movement necessitated by the AfCFTA, it stands to reason that a pragmatic approach to decolonisation be considered. This requires that the ongoing decolonisation debates be extended into the realm of praxis. The pragmatic arguments laid out in this article emphasise the need for representivity of Africans both as producers and consumers of tourism experiences through a process of revalorisation of previously negated, disdained and excluded historical, socio-cultural, and spiritual values. Such values clearly differ from those that are currently privileged in tourism experiences aimed at non-African markets, thus constituting an important barrier for participation of Africans. Representivity encompasses the need to formally valorise, reinsert, reinscribe and re-centre the African (Dussel, 2012, Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2020; Mbembe, 2016; wa Thion’go’, 1986, 2016) in tourism consumption on the continent by decolonising the tourism product to reflect broader and more inclusive experiences, and wider participation across the continent (cf. Higgins-Desbiolles, 2022; Peters & Higgins-Desbiolles, 2012).

However, valorisation and insertion of Africans as tourists requires a different, perhaps nascent entrepreneurial ventures, facilitated through principles of subsidiarity, that actively reimagine and re-present the diverse natural and cultural attractions of the continent to a revalorised African audience in Africa and the diaspora (c.f., Benjamin & Dillette, 2021). But, given the prolonged, (self)entanglement in coloniality, and the prevalence of colonial mentality (Chimezie, 1975), there is no expectation that tourism in Africa could be decolonised unproblematically. Instead, as noted by Tuhiwai Smith (2021), this is bound to be a long-term process involving complex debates, self-doubts, even outright rejection by Africans themselves, particularly those who have internalised coloniality, and a colonised mentality, limiting their perceptions and imaginations of alternatives (cf. Chimezie, 1975; Dussel, 2012; Fanon, 1967; Maathai, 2010).

The arguments presented in this article focus on why decolonisation of tourism praxis is needed in Africa. Further debates are required to engage with the question of how the continent or specific countries could approach decolonisation. Future research could explore these issues empirically by engaging in dialogue with stakeholders responsible for and influential in the production of tourism experiences, notably, tourism policy makers and strategists and a wide range of tourism businesses in Africa. It will be interesting to see how such key stakeholders respond to the call for pragmatic decolonisation through representivity of Africans as tourists and a critique of their prior perceptions and practices.

Acknowledgement

I am very grateful to the Special Issues Editors for their diligent guidance and support throughout the process of drafting this manuscript. However, all shortcomings in the manuscript are mine alone.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Maureen Ayikoru

Dr. Maureen Ayikoru is a Lecturer in Sustainability and Business Ethics in the School of Business and Management, at Royal Holloway University of London. Her research interests focus on sustainability, institutions and social innovation. She explores the role of sustainability in responsible business management and socio-economic development. She has a strong interest in social innovation and the role of institutions in addressing structural inequalities within and between countries. She has a specialist interest in tourism in developing countries, with a particular focus on Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa.