Troubling Bodies in Follow the North Star

Abstract

In this essay, Ruth Laurion Bowman recounts and analyses her experience participating in the immersive performance developed by Conner Prairie Interactive History Park, in Indiana, where visitors pay to play the part of nineteenth-century runaway slaves. Bowman draws on body, performance, and critical race theories to argue that the performance deactivates the agency of the fugitive slave while nonetheless implying that the experience is personal and relevant to the consumer. In this way, the park implements and profits from new service economy strategies and serves as a troubling model for how complex issues such as race and slavery are performed.