13 research outputs found
Earning identity and respect through work: A study of children involved in fishing and farming practices in Cape Coast, Ghana
Survival and Resilience of Female Street Children Experiencing Sexual Violence in Bangladesh: A Qualitative Study
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AUTHORITIES AND DECENTRALIZED STRUCTURES IN GHANA: CONFLICTING ROLES OR A STRUGGLE FOR POWER AND LEGITIMACY
History and Ideology of an Akan Centre: The Cosmological Topography of Wiawso
This paper documents in a specific setting, the Sefwi variant of the Akan civilisation of West Africa, the complex interplay between history and ideology in the establishment of settlementsâ hegemony. The text scrutinies sources on specific historical circumstances concerning the transformation of Wiawso, the town chosen for this exercise of cosmological topography, over the last three centuries. The demographic, social, ritual and urban dynamics are discussed with reference to the semantics of the spatial dimension of Akan settlementsâ hegemonic ambitions. The focus on the interplay between history and ideology elucidates two issues. First, the importance of strategic and historically-specific evocation and display of objects, sites and narratives claiming reference to the past, in generating and mobilising structures of signification sustaining Wiawsoâs recognised prominence. Second, the persistence over time of certain Akan ideological features concerning principally what the past entails and the standards for evaluating settlementsâ success in centralisation