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Ethnicity in Ghana

The Limits of Invention

  • Book
  • © 2000

Overview

Editors:
  1. Carola Lentz

    1. University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany

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  2. Paul Nugent

    1. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Ethnicity in Ghana: a comparative perspective

    • Carola Lentz, Paul Nugent
    Pages 1-28

  3. In the mix: women and ethnicity among the Anlo-Ewe

    • Sandra E. Greene
    Pages 29-48

  4. ‘We stay, others come and go’: identity among the Mamprusi in northern Ghana

    • Michael Schlottner
    Pages 49-67

  5. Asante nationhood and colonial administrators, 1896–1935

    • Ivor Wilks
    Pages 68-96

  6. Be(com)ing Asante, be(com)ing Akan: thoughts on gender, identity and the colonial encounter

    • Jean Allman
    Pages 97-118

  7. Imagined martial communities: recruiting for the military and police in colonial Ghana, 1860–1960

    • David Killingray
    Pages 119-136

  8. Contested identities: the history of ethnicity in northwestern Ghana

    • Carola Lentz
    Pages 137-161

  9. ‘A few lesser peoples’: the Central Togo minorities and their Ewe neighbours

    • Paul Nugent
    Pages 162-182

  10. The 1994 civil war in northern Ghana: the genesis and escalation of a ‘tribal’ conflict

    • Artur Bogner
    Pages 183-203

  11. Promotion of Ghanaian languages and its impact on national unity: the Dagara language case

    • Sebastian K. Bemile
    Pages 204-225

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 226-236
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About this book

Although African ethnicity has become a highly fertile field of enquiry in recent years, most of the research is concentrated on southern and central Africa, and has passed Ghana by. This volume extends many of the distilled insights, but also modifies them in the light of the Ghanaian evidence. The collection is multidisciplinary in scope and spans the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial contexts. A central contention of the volume is that, while there were significant regional variations, ethnicity was not purely a colonial `invention'. The boundaries of `we-groups' have constantly mutated from pre-colonial times, while European categorization owed much to indigenous ways of seeing. The contributors explore the role of European administrators and recruitment officers as well as African cultural brokers in shaping new identities. The interaction of gender and ethnic consciousness is explicitly addressed. The volume also examines the formulation of the national question in Ghana today - in debates over language policy and conflicts over land and chieftaincy.

Editors and Affiliations

  • University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany

    Carola Lentz

  • University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Paul Nugent

About the editors

Carola Lentz is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Paul Nugent is Senior Lecturer in African history at the University of Edinburgh.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Ethnicity in Ghana

  • Book Subtitle: The Limits of Invention

  • Editors: Carola Lentz, Paul Nugent

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62337-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History Collection, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2000

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-312-22405-9Published: 04 August 2000

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-349-62337-2Published: 30 April 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 236

  • Topics: Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary

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