The politics of cultural tourism in Nigeria: People, culture and power in the Calabar Festival

Abstract

Cultural tourism has been the subject of numerous academic and policy engagements in the Global North for its broad social, economic, and political functions in cities (Richards, 2018; Du Cross & McKercher, 2020). In the Global South, similar trends are emerging with dynamic patterns of exchange and transformations, yet they have captured much less academic attention so far. This thesis attempts to address the gap by analysing a particular case study in Nigeria, the Calabar Festival. Specifically, the research aims to unravel the dynamic interactions between the state, tourists and local communities as they interact and challenge each other in producing and consuming the festival. Drawing on ethnographic and policy research of the Calabar Festival, I seek to create an enhanced understanding of how cultural tourism can be a force reshaping situated power dynamics by setting the contexts for new relational frameworks that influence the cultural processes of places. The research findings unravel a complex interplay of power relations among the various stakeholders across geographic spaces. The Calabar Festival is a highly politicised event that connects broader local and transnational social and economic development practices and cultural negotiations through tourism. This study offers two original contributions. First, taking Du Gay et al.’s (1997) circuit of culture as a theoretical starting point to understand cultural tourism processes, this thesis develops the neo-circuit of cultural tourism framework and thereby demonstrates how the state, tourists and locals mutually construct destinations’ cultural offerings. Through interaction with each other and the event, these stakeholders are equipped with different power forms, to influence and contest cultural meanings on social and individual levels. Second, by advancing the notion of tourists as ‘modern cultural curators,’ this study highlights the spectrum of curation outside the traditionally restricted system of learnt practices, extending to one formed around more open and reciprocal exchanges. This thesis concludes that the interaction of stakeholders in the tourism circuit and their co-creation of cultural meanings appear to blur the boundaries of established forms of cultural agency, particularly as tourists are currently seen to perform as modern cultural curators. In doing so, the neo-circuit of cultural tourism framework provides a robust framework to understand current cultural conditions better.