Plantation afterlives in São Tomé and Príncipe: Tourism and the coloniality of leisure

Colonial plantation complexes, or 'roças,' in São Tomé and Príncipe are being repurposed as heritage sites and leisure destinations, yet their histories of slavery and racialized extraction persist. The study introduces the concept of 'coloniality of leisure' to describe how these violent pasts are softened or reframed into appealing experiences through strategies like 'ruinous nostalgia' and 'colonial reenchantment.' These approaches, combined with spatial arrangements such as land concessions and foreign investment, perpetuate colonial patterns without addressing underlying inequalities. Plantation tourism thus serves as a contemporary mechanism of postcolonial governance, managing memory, value, and inequality while avoiding resolution. The research analyzed 28 travel features, corporate materials, policy documents, and archival sources to uncover these dynamics.

Nascimento Rodrigues, I. (2026). Plantation afterlives in São Tomé and Príncipe: Tourism and the coloniality of leisure. Cultural Geographies. https://doi.org/10.1177/14744740261465376