"This is Ghanaian territory!" Land conflicts in transnational localities on the Burkina Faso-Ghana border

Traditional land rights in Dagara and Sisala societies in Burkina Faso and Ghana which were stateless in pre-colonial times are closely connected with the concept of earth-shrine parishes under the protection of a local land god and ideally under the control of the “first-comers” to the area. The earth priests perform regular sacrifices at the shrine and allocate land to later immigrants as well as the right to build houses and to bury their dead, often in exchange for gifts. The international border between Ghana and Burkina Faso, which was drawn up in 1898 and runs along the 11th parallel, often cuts across earth-shrine parishes. Particularly since the border demarcation exercise in the 1970s, the spatial separation of the Sisala earth priests on one side of the border from the Dagara immigrants on the other side has given rise to intricate conflicts over land rights. The paper will present the history of one such conflict and look at the various landrelated discourses – traditionalist, nationalist, and Christian – which the adversaries put forward in order to substantiate their claims

Settlement histories and ethnic frontiers

One of the powerful conventional images of pre-colonial Africa is that of a continent of more or less immobile ethnic groups, living since time immemorial on their ancestral lands, steeped in their traditional cultures. In this image, Africa appears like a mosaic, with clearcut ethnic boundaries, each sherd representing a different people cum language cum culture cum territory. Since a number of years, however, historians and anthropologists of Africa have insisted that this image is misleading. Most pre-colonial societies were characterised by mobility, overlapping networks, multiple group membership and the contextdependent drawing of boundaries. Communities could be based on neighbourhood, kinship and common loyalties to a king, but this did not absolutely have to include notions of a common origin, a common language or a common culture. Our own research on the West African savannah has also shown the enormous importance of mobility. Among the societies of southern and southwestern Burkina Faso, for instance, which several projects have studied, there is hardly a single village whose history has not been characterised repeatedly by the arrival and settlement of new groups and the departure of others. In some cases, we can even speak of systematic practices of multilocality

Travelling emblems of power : the Ghanaian ‘Seat of State’

This paper presents a case study of the self-confident and creative fusion of European and African political symbols and rituals that is characteristic of Ghanaian statehood and nation-making. It explores the aesthetic and historical genealogy of the Ghanaian ‘Seat of State’, a throne-like stool on which the President sits when attending Parliament on important state occasions. The Seat was crafted in the early 1960s by Kofi Antubam, one of the chief ‘state artists’ during the Nkrumah regime, and incorporates symbols of Asante royal authority, European aristocratic imagery as well as Ghanaian neo-traditional emblems such as the Black Star. The discussion of the Seat of State’s political meaning is followed by some more general observations on the history of party politics and parliamentary procedure in Ghana as examples of travelling political paradigms

Elites or middle classes? : Lessons from transnational research for the study of social stratification in Africa

In diesem Arbeitspapier will ich zur künftigen Forschung über soziale Stratifikation in Afrika beitragen, indem ich die theoretischen Implikationen und empirischen Herausforderungen der Konzepte "Elite" und "Mittelklasse" untersuche. Diese Konzepte stammen aus teilweise miteinander konkurrierenden Theorietraditionen. Außerdem haben Sozialwissenschaftler und Historiker sie zu verschiedenen Zeiten und mit Bezug auf verschiedene Regionen unterschiedlich verwendet. So haben Afrikaforscher und -forscherinnen soziale Formationen, die in anderen Teilen der Welt als Mittelklasse kategorisiert wurden, meist als Eliten aufgefasst und tun dies zum Teil noch heute. Elite und Mittelklasse sind aber nicht nur Begriffe der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung, sondern zugleich Kategorien der sozialen und politischen Praxis. Die Art und Weise, wie Menschen diese Begriffe benutzen, um sich selbst oder andere zu beschreiben, hat wiederum Rückwirkungen auf sozialwissenschaftliche Diskurse und umgekehrt. Das Arbeitspapier setzt sich mit beiden Aspekten auseinander: mit der Geschichte der theoretischen Debatten über Elite und Mittelklasse und damit, was wir aus empirischen Studien über die umstrittenen Selbstverortungen sozialer Akteure lernen können und über ihre sich verändernden Auffassungen und Praktiken von Elite- oder Mittelklasse-Sein. Weil ich überzeugt bin, dass künftige Forschung zu sozialer Stratifikation in Afrika außerordentlich viel von einer historisch und regional vergleichenden Perspektive profitieren kann, analysiert dieses Arbeitspapier nicht nur Untersuchungen zu afrikanischen Eliten und Mittelklassen, sondern auch eine Fülle von Studien zur Geschichte der Mittelklassen in Europa und Nordamerika sowie zu den neuen Mittelklassen im Globalen Süden

Ghana@50 – celebrating the nation : an eyewitness account from Accra

This article offers an account of the 50th Ghanaian independence-day celebrations during March 2007. The multi-perspective approach examines how celebrations were experienced in the Ghanaian capital Accra by the political elite and the grass roots at a variety of official and unofficial events that took place on 5 and 6 March 2007. During the festivities the authors accompanied Ghanaian friends from different political factions and thus provide close-hand accounts of political controversies over issues regarding how the nation ought to organise and celebrate its Independence Day, controversies which provide important insights into Ghanaian political culture. From this it is clear that the celebrations not only serve as expressions of national pride but also moments of critical reflection on the nation, national values and socio-political unity. These reflections, manifest as disputes about national and ethnic symbols, centre on the conditions and limits of political, social, ethnic and regional inclusiveness. At the same time, underlying such disputes are commonalities resting not on substantive symbols, cultural traits or other objectifiable characteristics, but on a Ghanaian consensus to agree on the issues at stake and on the rules of debate. Controversy thus functions not to divide but rather to strengthen national consciousness and deepen a sense of commonality that Ghanaians generally express as their commitment to ‘unity in diversity’

Contested boundaries : decentralisation and land conflicts in northwestern Ghana

IntroductionAdministrative decentralisation and the devolution of political power to local communities have been key concepts in the recent democratisation projects in Africa. With the slogan “bring the government to the people” the Rawlings’ government in Ghana announced, at the end of the 1980s, the creation of new districts. Throughout the country, this announcement set in motion intense lobby politics and political mobilisation at the local level. Population and economic viability were th..

McCaskie, T. C. – Asante Identities: History and Modernity in an African Village 1850-1950

When I was asked to review McCaskie’s latest book on Asante history, I hesitated at first. In recent decades, Asante history and ethnography have become a rich, multifarious field of specialists’ studies and debates that are often not easily accessible to “outsiders”, like myself, who are researching societies in northern Ghana that lack traditions of pre-colonial statehood and are relatively marginal to the mainstream of Akan-centred studies. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that ..

Chieftaincy has come to stay

Pourquoi la chefferie a-t-elle persisté au-delà de son introduction coloniale ? Parmi les raisons qui expliquent la réussite de la nouvelle institution, il faut d'abord évoquer le fait que celle-ci constituait la seule instance de médiation effective entre la concession et le village ou hameau, d'un côté, et l'État colonial de l'autre. Cette fonction de relais a assuré également la continuité de la chefferie au moment de la décolonisation. La continuité était en outre préservée grâce aux effets d'une politique d'éducation coloniale qui, au Ghana du Nord, visait dans une large mesure les fils de chefs. Il en résultait très tôt une fusion et une convertibilité entre élites néotraditionnelle et moderne. Ces tendances prédominent encore de nos jours. Les conflits intenses qui ont lieu au moment de la succession d'un chef de canton (paramount chief) montrent que cette charge constitue un véritable tremplin pour une carrière sur la scène politique nationale. La scène politique locale, par contre, a connu une diversification avec les régimes « révolutionnaires » populistes d'Acheampong et de Rawlings, au pouvoir dans les années 1970 et 1980, avec l'élargissement de l'élite éduquée et avec la fondation de nombreuses associations de ressortissants (youth associations)."Chieftaincy Has Come to Stay" : Chieftaincy in the Acephalous Societies of Northwestern Ghana. -- Why have chieftaincies in the acephalous societies of northwestern Ghana survived beyond their introduction by colonial authorities ? Among the reasons for this success is that this new institution was the only effective intermediary between households, hamlets and villages, on the one hand, and the colonial state, on the other. Thanks to this role, chieftaincies continued existing after decolonization. Without any exceptions, the new administrative units were identical to the paramount chiefdoms of the colonial era. Colonial education policies in northern Ghana also favored this continuity by tending to target chiefs' sons. These trends still prevail. As can be seen through the intense conflicts that break out during successions, the paramount chieftaincy serve as a springboard for careers in national politics. However local politics diversified under the populist "revolutionary" governments of Acheampong and Rawlings during the 1970s and 1980s, as the educated elite expanded and several youth associations formed

Contested boundaries : decentralisation and land conflicts in northwestern Ghana

IntroductionAdministrative decentralisation and the devolution of political power to local communities have been key concepts in the recent democratisation projects in Africa. With the slogan “bring the government to the people” the Rawlings’ government in Ghana announced, at the end of the 1980s, the creation of new districts. Throughout the country, this announcement set in motion intense lobby politics and political mobilisation at the local level. Population and economic viability were th..