Nima-Maamobi in Ghana's Postcolonial Development

Nima-Maamobi in Ghana's Postcolonial Development
Author: Charles Prempeh
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2022-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9956552216

This book provides a deep insight into the socio-economic reality and complexity of two of Ghana's largest slums - Nima and Maamobi - located in the capital city, Accra. It identifies and analyses the socio-religious, cultural and political contexts of the two communities. These are ethnically and religiously diverse populations with a common history of migration and integration. The book shows that the causes of economic stagnation and underdevelopment in the two slums are deeply contextualised, complex and nuanced. Through a biographical examination of the political activism of Agnes Amoah, a foremost local leader, the book brings to bear how Mrs. Amoah also brought socio-economic transformation to the communities by breaking cultural, religious and gender barriers in the interest of conviviality. In context, the book sheds important insight on the urban, political and the local and translocal histories that have shaped the social transformations of Nima and Maamobi.

Gender, Sexuality and Decolonization in Postcolonial Ghana

Gender, Sexuality and Decolonization in Postcolonial Ghana
Author: Charles Prempeh
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2023-01-19
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9956553735

Since the turn of the millennium, in Ghana and in other African countries, there has been a vociferous debate over the history and present condition of the family. The debate has largely fragmented the Ghanaian constituency into two nearly intransigent camps: those who think the indigenous family system should experience cultural osmosis to accommodate the seismic Western cultural revolutions and the overwhelming religious constituency who advocate the retention of conservative family system. This book is a contribution to the debate. Written by an African Studies academic, it seeks to use the resources of both the social sciences and religion to assess the merits of the various parties to the debate. The author believes in the legitimacy of the traditional family system as conditio sine qua non for preserving human civilization. Nevertheless, the goal of this book is not to further polarize the Ghanaian front, but build bridges, by inviting the various parties to the debate to walk the complex pathways of exercising compassion without compromising the values that support human flourishing. Charles Prempeh is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Cultural and African Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana.

Communicative Perspectives on COVID-19 in Ghana

Communicative Perspectives on COVID-19 in Ghana
Author: Nancy Henaku
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2023-09-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000936562

This collection explores the communicative dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana, redressing the absence of perspectives from Africa and the Global South in pandemic discourses and highlighting the importance of considering the impact of local contexts in global crises. The volume critically reflects on the significance of communicative dimensions, understood here as the effects of communication on bidirectional flows between senders and receivers, on many different aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. Grounded in transnational and interdisciplinary perspectives and drawing on data from the Ghanian experience, the book showcases how important it is for local factors to be taken into account by governments, medical professionals, social commentators, and everyday people in communicating during a pandemic, when local cultures, histories, and infrastructures all play a role in shaping communication and the dissemination of knowledge. Chapter examines such topics as the role of metaphor, the use of social media in disinformation, and the range of strategies and channels employed by stakeholders. This volume centers the pandemic experience in a Global South context, demonstrating the importance of a greater focus on local contexts in understanding communication in a time of pandemic. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in intercultural communication, crisis communication, health communication, discourse analysis, and African studies.

The Political Economy of Heaven and Earth in Ghana

The Political Economy of Heaven and Earth in Ghana
Author: Charles Prempeh
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2023-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9956553905

In March 2017, the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufu announced his intention to build a national cathedral to the people of Ghana. The announcement elicited watertight counter arguments that morphed into two a priori re-litigated assumptions: First, Ghana is a secular country and second, religion and state formation are incompatible. Informed by a frustrating paradox of an overwhelming religious presence and concurrent pervasive corruption in the country, public conversation reached a cul-de-sac of “conviction without compromising.” In The Political Economy of Heaven and Earth in Ghana, Charles Prempeh deploys the national cathedral as an entry point to provide both interdisciplinary and autoethnographic understanding of religion and politics. The book shows the capacity of religion, when properly cultivated and curated as a worldview to answer the why questions of life, will foster personal, moral, collective and ontological responsibility. All this is needed to stem the tide against corruption, commodity fetishism, environmental degradation (illegal mining—galamsey), heritage destruction and religious exploitation. Prempeh recuperates a historical fact about the mutual inclusivity between religion and politics—politics helping to manage differences, while religion provides a transcendental reason for unity to be forged for human flourishing. Separating the two is, therefore, ahistorical and an obvious threat to the intangible virtues that answers, “why and how” questions for public governance.

Digital Technologies, Elections and Campaigns in Africa

Digital Technologies, Elections and Campaigns in Africa
Author: Duncan Omanga
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2023-11-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1003801560

This book looks at how digital technologies are revolutionizing electoral campaigns and democratization struggles in Africa. Digital technologies are giving voice and civic agency to a cross section of African voters, providing important spaces for political engagement and debate. Drawing on cases from Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe amongst others, this book traces the shifts and tensions in this changing electoral communications landscape. In doing so, the book explores themes such as hate speech and disinformation, decolonisation, surveillance, internet shutdowns, influencers, bots, algorithms, and election observation, and looks beyond Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube to the increasingly important role of visual platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Particularly highlighting the contribution of African scholars, this book is an important guide for researchers across the fields of African politics, media studies, and electoral studies, as well as to professionals and policymakers in political communication.

Centres and Peripheries in Literatures

Centres and Peripheries in Literatures
Author: Hassan Mbiydzenyuy Yosimbom
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2024-11-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9956554553

For millennia, literature across the globe has captured the essence of life, survival, and human relationships – how we come together and how we fall apart. These stories, born from diverse cultures and perspectives, transcend time and space to resonate with audiences far beyond their origins. Literature, a tapestry woven from many threads of logic, teaches us to embrace complexity and reject simplistic thinking. “Centres and Peripheries in Literature...” invites us to question why some works become classics while others fade into obscurity. In an age striving to define “world literature,” this book is especially relevant, examining the forces that shape literary canons and the interplay between Western and non- Western traditions. It boldly confronts the dominance of hegemonic canonism, shedding light on the power dynamics that determine which voices are heard and which are silenced. “This important book addresses issues of legitimization and consecration of literary works from around the world, highlighting how non-Western authors are pushed to the peripheries while Western authors are moved to the centre. It offers diverse perspectives on these dynamics.” Viviane Koua, (PhD) Department of World Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Auburn University, Auburn AL. USA. “Centres and Peripheries in Literatures: Interrogating Hegemonic Canonism critically examines how power dynamics between the Global North and South shape literary canons, urging scholars and readers to contemplate and recognize marginalized voices from the Global South.” Achirri Ismael, (PhD) Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Policy Studies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, USA.

Author:
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 240
Release:
Genre:
ISBN: 3031484312

Living (In)Dependence

Living (In)Dependence
Author: Ndi, Bill F.
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2018-11-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9956550760

Living (In)Dependence: Critical Perspectives on Global Interdependence embraces a multidisciplinary approach to the interconnectedness of independence and dependence in every ramification of the words. These scholars and academics, from different disciplinary area, examine “independence” & “dependence”, not simply as polar opposites in their Saussurian sense but as a binary embedded in the concept of “independence”. Herein, scholars have had to challenge their perceived or preconceived notions about “Independence” and “dependence” from their respective disciplinary discursive perspectives. This book is a rare gift to the curious reader thirsty for knowledge and understanding of the underlying heightened and drummed rhetoric on exclusion; which rhetoric is aimed at legitimizing nationalist and isolationist positions and, with exclusionists clamoring for walls separating people who supposedly live in a global village. Living (In)Dependence: Critical Perspectives on Global Interdependence is a timely reminder, especially when the world is at cross purposes with generation old alliances falling apart like the Berlin Wall that less than 30 years ago fell to mark an end to sadness and separation that same engendered from 1949-1989. In short, this study explores the binary of life experience of independence and that of dependence—as constituent flipsides of a coin whose meaning can only be grasped by taking a closer look at each facet.