1. BALLICEAUX: Heritage, Memory & the Ancestral Legacy of Garifuna Identity – Fashioning a Model of Diasporic Tourism
Dr. Yanique Hume
Lecturer in Cultural Studies
University of the West Indies
Cave Hill Campus

2. Structure of Presentation
Overview of spatial dislocations of the Garifuna and the sacred significance of Yurumei and specifically Balliceaux
Characteristic Features of Diasporic & Heritage Tourism
The role of domestic and diasporic communities in bolstering cultural identity
Key Recommendations

3. St. Vincent as critical site of Ethnogenesis and Dispersion

4. Sites of Garifuna Settlement

5. Garifuna Diasporic Horizons
Garifuna culture express and embody multiple diasporic horizons and sites of memory and belonging:
- St. Vincent
- Central America (Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua)
- USA (NY, LA),

6. An Overlooked Niche Market
DIASPORA TOURISM

7. Scope & Context for Rise of DiasporaTourism
Diaspora tourism is an untapped resource but one that has great potential for growth.
Small-island states are some of the most impacted by migration with substantial percentages of their native populations residing in global cities.
Diasporas represent a pivotal global constituency poised to actively participate and shape tourism products and experiences.

8. UNESCO listing of Sacred Sites of the Caribbean
Belize:
Ruins of Altun Ha
Cuba:
Basilica of our Lady of Charity of El Cobre (Basílica Santuario Nacional de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre)
Church of San Lazaro (Santuario Nacional de San Lázaro)
Dominican Republic:
Basílica Catedral Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia
Santuario Santo Cristo de los Milagros 
Santuario Nacional Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes de Santo Cerro
Iglesia de San Francisco de Asís

9. UNESCO listing of Sacred Sites of the Caribbean
Haiti:
Saut-D’Eau waterfall
Plaine-du-Nord, Church of St. James
Soukri Danach Vodou Shrine
Souvenance Vodou Shrine
Badjo Vodou Shrine
Potential to petition for Balliceaux?

10. Sustainable Tourism Framework
Economic Sustainability
Ensuring Long Term Profitability & Attractiveness
Socio-Cultural Sustainability
- Improved well being for locals
- Satisfying Visitors Experience
Community Empowerment
Maintenance of Cultural Heritage & Integrity
Environmental Sustainability
- Resource Management
-Future well being depends on how resources are treated

11. Diaspora Tourism: Characteristics Features
Diaspora tourism is characterised by short, occasional visits by the transmigrant to the homeland in order to:
Maintain and solidify kinship ties and social networks
Negotiate cultural identities and sense of belonging
Educate Diasporan children about their homeland, language, culture and history
Facilitate participation in family activities, national cultural events
Develop business partners/markets

12. Diaspora Tourists & the Link to Homeland
Poetics of Nostalgia
Articulations of Belonging: Place & having shared identity
“Myth of Return” (Ali & Holden 2006)
Reconnection with Ancestral Roots

13. Typology of Diaspora Tourism

14. Typology of Heritage TOURISM

15. Defining Diaspora Tourism
Diaspora tourism focuses on transmigrants whose socialisation, networks, values and heritage link them to communities and kinship ties in their birth country or that of their ancestors; and who travel back to these communities primarily to (re) connect with the people and the place.

16. Key Stakeholders in Diasporic Tourism

17. Rationale for Investing in Heritage/Diasporic Tourism
Bolsters cultural confidence in society
Strengthens the indigenous component of the tourism product
Enhances destination image and IP branding.
Breaks with “commodity tourism”.

18. Marketing Diasporic Tourism: Things to Grasp:
(1) configuration of diasporic communities
(2) understand diasporic motivations
(3) understand the range and type of local cultural assets that can be promoted
(4) exploit nostalgic triggers
(5) align the emotional and sentimental attachments of specific localities to the destination promotions
(6) utilise images of “home” beyond the sun, sand and sea
(7) align the sentimental attachments of specific sites to educational and heritage tours

19. Garifuna Settlement Day Re-enactment of November 19th Arrival to Dangriga, Belize

20. Key Tactics for Branding Heritage Tourism
Mythologize the history
Build a story around a cultural product
Emphasize its otherness
Show a direct link from the past to the present

21. Recommendations
Develop strategic alliances between the various Garifuna communities in Central America and the US.
Utilize HTAs as a source for sharing knowledge, expertise and advertising of events.
Establish cultural exchanges between Garifuna communities across diaspora.
Actively engage with policy and cultural advocacy

22. Construct a Garifuna culture database, which houses information on lifeways and practices.
Use local media to disseminate information
Stage culture as a means of safeguarding and preserving it.
Develop pilgrimage tours to Baliceaux
Re-enactment of Departure
Stage rituals of remembrance (e.g. Dugu) and festive forms

23. Dugu

24. Garifuna Drumming

25. Wanaragua

26. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION!
GRACIAS *** SERIMEI