A trip to the zoo: colonial sightseeing and spectacle in Sudan (1901–1933). Issue 3 (2nd September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tuttle, Brendan
• Is Part Of: Journal of tourism history. Volume 11:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 217
• Page End: 242
• Publication Date: 2019-09-02
• Subjects: Sudan -- South Sudan -- chiefs -- British empire -- colonialism -- sightseeing -- tourists; Tourism -- History -- Periodicals; 910.9
• DOI: 10.1080/1755182X.2019.1642962
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1755-1838

Abstract

ABSTRACT: During the early years of British colonial rule in Sudan, 'notables' from the colony's southern provinces travelled to Khartoum on diplomatic missions and to visit friends and family. Sightseeing became a regular part of these diplomatic visits, which helped to establish and maintain colonial relations. By the late 1920s, tourism practices in Sudan offered British officials a way to reassert colonial distinctions and place more distance between themselves and their subjects. Tourism in Khartoum, with its characteristic way of focusing on difference and authenticity, offered officials a way to simplify relationships and to rewrite history by staging and restaging 'first encounters'. Drawing on contemporary sources, this paper examines sightseeing tours organised for chiefs from places like Nasir, Bor, and Yambio (in what is today South Sudan) in the 1920s and 1930s, and how these visits contributed to the construction of images of the remoteness of South Sudan.