Refining memory

Sugar, oil and plantation tourism on Louisiana’s River Road

Bibliographic Data

ID12905587
AuthorsJessica Rapson (0000-0001-5779-5252, King's College London, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume13
Issue4
Pages752-766
Publication date2018-05-09
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMemory Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-6980 • E-ISSN: 1750-6999
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1750698018766384
OpenAlexW2801036592
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited22

This article explores the contemporary mediation of memory at two plantation heritage sites on Louisiana’s River Road. These sites, I argue, are systematically ‘refining’ cultural memories of African American enslavement, in a metaphorical echo of the industrial processing of commodities (oil and sugar) which takes place in the same landscape. The essay draws on initial informal ethnographic fieldwork at Oak Alley (the most-visited River Road plantation) and St Joseph (a working plantation) in 2015. I identify ways in which curatorial direction, guided tours and visitor facilities at each site elide the reality of slave sugar production. The results of this fieldwork are considered in light of a range of existing literature on contested heritage and environmental criticism, enabling a provisional contextualisation of ‘refined’ memory-making within the broader socio-economic and environmental context of River Road

Archaeology · Context (archaeology · Ethnography · Geography · Mediation · Refining (metallurgy · Social science · Sociology · Tourism · Visitor pattern · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History

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