Institute of African Studies
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Item The Politics of Purity, Disgust, and Contamination: Communal Identity of Trotter (Pig) Sellers in Madina Zongo (Accra)(religions, 2020) Adum-Atta, R. A.The interplay of food, people, and markets in the multi-religious and multi-ethnic neighborhood of Madina Zongo, Accra, results to some extent in food exchange. In a plural setting like Madina Zongo, an important aspect of their co-existence is the sharing of food; in so doing people claim their identities and mark boundaries; consequently, food in this sense becomes a potential for conflict. My primary aim in this paper is to focus on pig feet (trotter) sellers by drawing attention to their conflicting experiences and encounters in selling trotters. Pig feet (trotter) are a commodity that comes through a global network and is considered haram and unclean by Muslims. Actions by religious practitioners, thereby, play a pivotal role in provoking these experiences and, for this reason, it is prone to triggering tensions. In this paper, I explore the embodied encounters between these traders in the market (inhabited by people of different religious traditions) and, to some extent, the buyers and how this triggers religious sensibilities and at the same time evokes strong responses among those frequenting the space (e.g., market women and customers) and those (trotter sellers) who live in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods. In my analysis of tensions and pollution, I take into consideration groundworks by authors such as Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger, Sara Ahmed’s and Deborah Durham’s notion of disgust and the anthropology of imagination, and inspired works on materiality such as the Latourian Actor-Network Theory (ANT) which draws attention to the agency of the non-human. This paper studies how religiously contested and so-called “contaminated” foodstuffs such as pig feet (trotter) result in boundary-making practices among members of the market and Zongo community. I argue that ideas of purity are influenced largely by cultural and religious convictions which seem not to be compromised by religious practitioners. The paper also investigates strategies people/sellers develop to negotiate these social relations.Item Global Value Chains and Agribusiness in Africa: Upgrading or Capturing Smallholder Production?(Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2019) Amanor, K.S.This article critically examines the concept of agrarian value chains in Africa, exploring the extent to which they reflect the expansion of agribusiness and its influence on agriculture. It traces the rise of agribusiness in the United States as a system based on extracting value through control over input marketing, processing, and retailing in the post-war period. It examines the close relationship between US imperialism and the expansion of agribusiness and the facilitation of agribusiness interests by the rise of neoliberalism and the opening of global markets. Against the the backdrop of monopolies, mergers, and takeovers, it questions the extent to which conceptions of upgrading through smallholder integration into agribusiness chains accurately reflects the fortunes of smallholder farmers. It argues that far from constituting a dynamic system of entre partnership that facilitates the acquisition of new skills by farmers, upgrading of production and higher incomes, agribusiness constitutes a system of value capture in which transnational corporations extend their control overproduction and marketing through takeovers and contractual arrangements that control farmers’ production. This is largely absent from value chain frameworks since they focus on the transformations of commodities rather than the existing relations of production, make assumptions about the relationship between upgrading and integration into global markets, and assume that failures to upgrade result from the peculiarities of national and regional settings rather than agribusiness practice. Three case studies are presented focusing on monopolies within the seed breeding, cocoa and pineapple and their impact on smallholders and national patterns of accumulation.Item Landscape Terms, Place Names And Spatial Language In Àsɔ̀glì Èʋè(University Of Ghana, 2020-09) Klugah, M.A.Culture relates with landscape to influence the ways in which different cultural groups represent physical space in their minds and in the grammar of their specific languages. For this reason, this study explores Àsɔ̀glì vocabulary for categorising the physical environment. It also examines their ways of naming different geographical entities. I show that the terms for ‘mountain’ and/or ‘hill’ tó, and other raised ground forms kɔ́(fist, lump, clot, hill), kpó (mound) have a formal relationship with body parts. For example, the relationship between the body part tó (ear) and tó (mountain) is interrogated. Other terms discussed include tɔ̀(river) and terms for plant cover such as àvè (forest) and gbě (bush) and their subcategories. The spatial parts of these entities are described using spatial relation terms which have evolved from body parts and are used also for talking about the location of entities – people and things – in space. Thus, spaces anchored to tɔ̀(river) for instance are described as tɔ̀tó (river edge) lit. river neck, i.e. the edge of the river. I next explore the strategies the Àsɔ̀glì Èʋè use to name specific places and geographic entities. Some names are descriptive of the spaces they occupy, e.g. Hǒ Dòmè (in the midst of Hǒ). Others are extensions of landscape terms, for example, Hlìhà (laterite) and yet others relate to socio-historical events that took place at the referent location, e.g. Àυàtíɖòmé (under the war tree), a location where war took place. I conclude by drawing relations between landscape terms, place names and body parts to reveal Àsɔ̀glì conceptualisations of the physical environment encoded in their language. The findings show how landscape and culture combine to shape Hǒgbè (variety of Èʋèdòmègbè) and Àsɔ̀glì-specific cultural variety of spatial cognition.Item A Critique Of The Roles Of Indigenous Communicative Acts And The Modern Mass Media In Contemporary Ghana(University Of Ghana, 2020-12) Gbormittah, F.This study is located within the growing scholarship on news-sharing in contemporary mass media channels vis-à-vis indigenous communicative acts and protocols in the Global South, using Ghana as a specific geographical entry point. Evidence showed that news and information sharing, particularly on culturally sensitive matters, in the contemporary mass media channels have drawn a critical attention of some Ghanaians in recent times. The critics appear to have misgivings about the lack of concern for the values of communication and ethics of appropriateness of communication in the modern mass media channels. Consequently, this study critiqued the notions and processes involved in news and information sharing in indigenous communicative acts in relation to contemporary mass media channels, and the perceived tensions, focusing on three cases purposively selected to match three themes on, “news about the dead,” “news on divulging of private information and conversation,” and “news concerning deliberate falsehood.” In view of these themes, this study attempts at establishing whether some indigenous communicative acts and protocols of news-sharing could have served as a solution to the phenomenon, or they have outlived their practicality. Furthermore, it explores how the modern mass media could be socio-culturally positioned to adequately meet the needs of society. Regarding methods, multi-dimensional qualitative approaches of data gathering were employed. Primary and secondary sources of data which include in-depth semi-structured interviews and, media texts (audio-visuals, pictures, newspapers, and internet sources), and administrative texts (press releases, letters, and memos) respectively, were used. Textual, together with critical and interpretive analyses were used. The encoding/decoding model of communication was deployed as the central theoretical framework. This model is very significant in elucidating the comprehensibility of how people make meaning through news-sharing in ‘everyday natural settings.’ This study, therefore unearths a theoretical connection between socio-cultural index of encoding/decoding dualism and news- sharing for the purpose of examining new social media driving forces of convergence and interactivity, globalisation and glocalisation, and proliferation and mass media channels’ ownership vis-à-vis the cultural context. The revealing finding of this study is that participants, comprising cultural experts and media practitioners were influenced by diverse protocols such as intertextual cultural knowledge, personal experiences and dispositions, professional orientation, and biases as they decoded the cases/images. Also, very insightful finding is that the media practitioners often displayed their interest in cultural awareness issues and read the cases in the preferred and negotiated modes of the encoding/decoding model. And that they were not pleased with the originators of the publications and those who shared them. Further finding is that the cultural experts, mainly, used the preferred approach to read and were also irritated by the creators of the texts and those who published them. This study concludes that indigenous communicative acts still address the communication needs of people in rural communities. The contemporary mass media channels are considered as high-class in visuals, therefore are unable to address deep-rooted societal and culturally sensitive issues. Finally, it has also been disclosed that so far as the contemporary mass media channels reach huge audiences and can captivate, the useful values of both media should be integrated to provide effective communication to the people of Ghana.Item Make-Up Aesthetics: Body Adornment Practices Of The Krobo(University Of Ghana, 2020-07) Opare-Darko, F.M.This dissertation investigates body adornment practices as a visual culture of the Krobo of the Eastern Region of Ghana from the mid-nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. In order to also document the depth and impact of Krobo embellishment, the study identifies and confirms a relationship between the different genres of verbal arts among the Krobo and their standards of visual beauty within the Dangme society. The study further analyses the impacts of these ideas and beliefs on Krobo adornment and examines how the Krobo apply them to their daily, ceremonial and ritual forms of dressing. Using aesthetics as a methodology, and positioning it as a framework, this dissertation investigates the perceptions, cultural symbolisms, and significance inherent in the art of Krobo body ornamentation. The methods of research for this dissertation are mainly qualitative; I employ instruments such as interviews, participant-observation and photograph analysis. In this research, I hypothesise that the aesthetics of the Krobo is determined by the people’s worldview and aspects of their verbal arts which are expressed in, and inform, the evaluation of body adornment. Unlike the works of previous scholars whose research focused on the visual aspects of aesthetics in Ghana and the world at large, this thesis makes an important contribution by drawing from the language, religion and philosophy of the Krobo. My research findings further demonstrate that the main principles governing the Krobo social structure, and thus the way they dress, are ground in Mawu (God) and the tripartite concept of eda (uprightness) namely, munyu (speech), hedrami (dress), and su (character). These findings which are largely informed by language, religion and the philosophy of the Krobo people will not only play a major role in illuminating the study of concepts and practices among other ethnic groups with specific emphasis on their aesthetics but also encourage other scholars to pursue the study of aesthetics from different perspectives than those already recognized.Item Pedagogical Approaches To Teaching African Dances In Tertiary Institutions In Ghana: The Case Of Agbekor Dance Form.(University Of Ghana, 2020-11) Quaye, D.E.A.The study interrogates the various pedagogical approaches used in teaching indigenous African dance and proposes standardised practice in teaching indigenous African dance at the Department of Dance Studies, University of Ghana. Through an action-based qualitative research approach, the study advances the argument that the current variety of pedagogical methodologies do not adequately address rich complexities of coded movement gestures. Over the years, teaching and learning indigenous African dance has mostly depended on the instructor’s own approaches and methods of imparting indigenous African dances to students. Students have also created various means of memorising drum rhythmic patterns. These individual experimental approaches tend to breed disparate and non-uniformed pedagogies which undermine effective and meaningful transmission of knowledge and techniques associated with African dances in the educational environment. This research, which is an ethnographic practical approach, employs tools such as participant observation, along with interviews of past and current instructors and selected students to elicit their knowledge on practical teaching approaches of traditional dances in the classroom. With a focus on Agbekor music and dance of the Anlo-Ewes the study examines the close relationship between Agbekor music and dance with reference to the rhythmic structures (drum language). The approach demonstrates how effective the three standardised teaching methods are in tertiary institutions in Ghana by employing the three proposed standardised devices which include: ‘mouth’ drumming, interpretation of drum patterns and use of terminologies based on historical and contextual interpretations. The study adopts the cross sensory integration concept of the eye-and-ear as espoused by Meyer-Kalkus (2007) as a conceptual framework. The significance of the study adds to the existing pedagogical approaches and also develops a uniform approach to teaching indigenous African dance that can match with best practices of teaching dance across the world. Key Words: Standardised, Effective, Transmission, Complexities, LanguageItem Violence in African Young Adult Fiction(University of Ghana, 2019-07) Adjei, E.A.Scholars in the field of young adult fiction agree about the influence of reading on young adults, with research on young adult fiction showing its influence on vocabulary and young adults’ views on bullying and teen violence (Alsup, 2010; Campbell, 2020). What is disputed is the place of violence in young adult fiction. While some scholars argue for the inclusion of violence in fiction (Franzak &Noll, 2006; Piotrowski &Harper, 2013), others argue for the exclusion of violence in young adult fiction (Campbell, 2010). This thesis provides insights into the portrayal of violence in African young adult fiction, and how young adults make meaning of the violence they are exposed to in the story books they read. The research follows two main trajectories. First, I undertake a close reading of a range of texts to track the ways in which novelists employ dominant discourses of violence to depict perpetrators and victims of violence. Secondly, I conduct a survey to examine Ghanaian young adults’ perceptions of violence and how they make meaning of violence in the story books they read. The findings show that as a reflection of the occurrence of violence in society on the one hand and for literary purposes on the other, violence manifests in many forms in African young adult fiction. The findings also show that Ghanaian young adults are able to grapple with the violence in the storybooks they read using their personal experiences.Item For God and Man: A Study of the Clergy-Wife(University of Ghana, 2019-07) Kyere, A.The thesis captures the significant position of one of the most important and prominent women in the church- the Clergy-wife (CW). What this study set out to do was to interrogate the context-specific position of the CW in Ghana by exploring the roles, challenges, and privileges of the CW. I sought to find answers to questions on the roles that CWs played in church and the challenges associated with the playing of these roles. I was further interested in the privileges and powers which the CW had and enjoyed as a result of her position. The thesis used a mixed-methods approach by employing a survey, in-depth interviews and observations to collect data to answer the study problem. I adapted various concepts such as greedy institutions, the two-person career, the calling of the clergyman and femocracy as conceptual frameworks. These were useful in understanding the ways in which CWs engage in their husbands work and the consequent effects of these involvements. The findings indicate that the roles CWs played most in the church were the leadership of groups, counselling, and welcoming and serving visitors. Other roles found were visitations, singing, preaching and cleaning. While these roles were the most played in all denominations, there were some variations within denominations. Some challenges were found to be associated with the playing of these roles while it was also found that other challenges emanated by virtue of their positions as CWs. The study further found that being a CW did not only entail roles and challenges. They also enjoyed some privileges and derived power from their positions. The privileges enjoyed were the special treatments received from church members whiles joys were those intrinsic fulfillment derived from their positions as CWs. On the issue of power, the thesis found that CWs primary source of power was through their husbands. However, other means could be used by CWs to access more power or consolidate the power they already possess. The use of power was found to be a complex terrain with dynamics involving silencing, tensions and open conflicts. The work concludes that the position of CWs is different from that of other women because of their unique involvement in the husband’s work.Item ‘Alternative’ Female Genital Cutting Discourses? A Study of the Maasai of Kajiado, Kenya(University Of Ghana, 2018-12) Kimani, R.W.The study examines knowledge construction on female genital cutting (FGC) and notions of womanhood and the resultant discourses by the Maasai community in Kajiado, Kenya. There has been a global upsurge in anti-FGC interventions by the international community, feminist movements, national governments, and NGOs in the last three decades which have described FGC as a barbaric practice that violates the health and human rights of docile and helpless women and girls. Kajiado has been a recipient of those interventions but reduction in prevalence of FGC has been slow in the community. This study interrogates how the Maasai construct FGC and womanhood. The study utilized qualitative methods in data collection and analysis: 34 in-depth interviews of men and women above 18 years of age and three focus group discussions of naturally occurring women‘s groups. Overall, the study reveals a multiplicity of discourses on FGC in the community. Five of these are steeped in Maasai culture and include the supernatural, social transition, sexual morality, economic benefit and social integration discourses. The other five are influenced by the anti-FGC campaign messages and other modern ‗alternative‘ concepts and include the medical, modernistic, sexual fulfilment, bodily integrity discourse, and the illegality discourses. Another key finding of the study is that although the Maasai demonstrate familiarity with the anti-FGC arguments, they have not owned those arguments as it is demonstrated by their regular use of the phrase ―they say‖ in their reference to those arguments. The older women‘s categorical rejection of claims in those arguments that FGC results in loss of sex drive, excessive bleeding, difficult child birth and death clearly shows that exposure to the anti-FGC arguments does not necessarily convince targets of the interventions. The study also found out that Maasai women are not passive victims of patriarchy and tradition but are rather organizing themselves into groups called „chamas‟ from which they are clearly prioritizing their agency through the raising of independent incomes, access to education and skills training for themselves and their daughters to free themselves from subservience to men, culture and confinement to the domestic sphere. Clearly, FGC is not considered by Maasai women as big a problem as lack of economic independence and education. Further, the assumed equivalence of agency of women with rejection of FGC is undermined by the fact that young educated women are not automatically renouncing FGC, some are actually demanding it. Based on these findings the study recommends an all-inclusive community engagement strategy by the change agents that will clearly empower the Maasai people to construct development in their own terms by naming their major concerns and identifying culture-specific ways to address those concerns. In so doing, the community will be encouraged to get more involved in their own culture change and development. This study contributes to the scarce literature on knowledge construction on female genital cutting, one of the most hotly debated issues regarding African women, by practicing communities. By highlighting the intricacies of the contexts within which this construction is done, these findings rend support to the social constructionist perspectives.Item ‘Alternative’ Female Genital Cutting Discourses? A Study of the Maasai of Kajiado, Kenya(University of Ghana, 2018-12) Kimani, R.W.The study examines knowledge construction on female genital cutting (FGC) and notions of womanhood and the resultant discourses by the Maasai community in Kajiado, Kenya. There has been a global upsurge in anti-FGC interventions by the international community, feminist movements, national governments, and NGOs in the last three decades which have described FGC as a barbaric practice that violates the health and human rights of docile and helpless women and girls. Kajiado has been a recipient of those interventions but reduction in prevalence of FGC has been slow in the community. This study interrogates how the Maasai construct FGC and womanhood. The study utilized qualitative methods in data collection and analysis: 34 in-depth interviews of men and women above 18 years of age and three focus group discussions of naturally occurring women‘s groups. Overall, the study reveals a multiplicity of discourses on FGC in the community. Five of these are steeped in Maasai culture and include the supernatural, social transition, sexual morality, economic benefit and social integration discourses. The other five are influenced by the anti-FGC campaign messages and other modern ‗alternative‘ concepts and include the medical, modernistic, sexual fulfilment, bodily integrity discourse, and the illegality discourses. Another key finding of the study is that although the Maasai demonstrate familiarity with the anti-FGC arguments, they have not owned those arguments as it is demonstrated by their regular use of the phrase ―they say‖ in their reference to those arguments. The older women‘s categorical rejection of claims in those arguments that FGC results in loss of sex drive, excessive bleeding, difficult child birth and death clearly shows that exposure to the anti-FGC arguments does not necessarily convince targets of the interventions. The study also found out that Maasai women are not passive victims of patriarchy and tradition but are rather organizing themselves into groups called „chamas‟ from which they are clearly prioritizing their agency through the raising of independent incomes, access to education and skills training for themselves and their daughters to free themselves from subservience to men, culture and confinement to the domestic sphere. Clearly, FGC is not considered by Maasai women as big a problem as lack of economic independence and education. Further, the assumed equivalence of agency of women with rejection of FGC is undermined by the fact that young educated women are not automatically renouncing FGC, some are actually demanding it. Based on these findings the study recommends an all-inclusive community engagement strategy by the change agents that will clearly empower the Maasai people to construct development in their own terms by naming their major concerns and identifying culture-specific ways to address those concerns. In so doing, the community will be encouraged to get more involved in their own culture change and development. This study contributes to the scarce literature on knowledge construction on female genital cutting, one of the most hotly debated issues regarding African women, by practicing communities. By highlighting the intricacies of the contexts within which this construction is done, these findings rend support to the social constructionist perspectives.