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.

Advancing Civil Justice Reform and Conflict Resolution in Africa and Asia: Comparative Analyses and Case Studies

Advancing Civil Justice Reform and Conflict Resolution in Africa and Asia: Comparative Analyses and Case Studies
Author: Yin, Elijah Tukwariba
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2021-06-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1799878996

The civil justice system is characterized by a distinct dispute resolution and law enforcement functions, although these functions are not always explicit and their relationship can be vague. People normally turn to this legal system to address an “unjust" situation they encounter. This makes civil justice both socially and economically important, as it may be driven by efficiency or access to justice concerns. The literature suggests that law reform has an uninspiring record in this field. This is because it has, largely, not been considered with a detailed, empirically informed evaluation of proposed solutions. This legal system is complex, and research in this field is correspondingly challenging, interesting, and important. Advancing Civil Justice Reform and Conflict Resolution in Africa and Asia: Comparative Analyses and Case Studies provides significant empirical research findings as well as theoretical reviews and frameworks on a wide array of issues within civil justice and the legal system. This includes topic areas such as access to justice and legal representation, the challenges to developing civil justice, courts and procedures, and civil justice reform. This book is valuable for lawyers, human rights lawyers, court officials, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, consultants, professionals, academicians, students, and researchers working in the field of law, socio-legal studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, social work, social policy, economics, and criminal justice, along with anyone seeking updated information on the current reforms and challenges within the civil justice and legal systems.

Hindu Gods in West Africa

Hindu Gods in West Africa
Author: Albert Wuaku
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2013-07-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004255710

In Hindu Gods in West Africa, Wuaku offers an account of the histories, beliefs and practices of the Hindu Monastery of Africa and the Radha Govinda Temple, two Hindu Temples in Ghana. Using historical material and data from his field work in southern Ghana, Wuaku shows how these two Hindu Temples build their traditions on popular Ghanaian religious notions about the powerful magicality of India's Hindu gods. He explores how Ghanaian soldiers who served in the colonial armies in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma during World War II, Bollywood films, and local magicians, have contributed to the production and the spreading of these cultural ideas. He argues that while Ghanaian worshippers appropriated and deployed the alien Hindu religious world through their own cultural ideas, as they engage Hindu beliefs and rituals in negotiating challenges their own worldviews would change considerably.

African Religions

African Religions
Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199790582

This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.

Faith in Flux

Faith in Flux
Author: Devaka Premawardhana
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2018-04-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812249984

Anthropologist Devaka Premawardhana arrived in Africa to study the much reported "explosion" of Pentecostalism, the spread of which has indeed been massive. It is the continent's fastest growing form of Christianity and one of the world's fastest growing religious movements. Yet Premawardhana found no evidence for this in the province of Mozambique where he worked. His research suggests that much can be gained by including such places in the story of global Christianity, by shifting attention from the well-known places where Pentecostal churches flourish to the unfamiliar places where they fail. In Faith in Flux, Premawardhana documents the ambivalence with which Pentecostalism has been received by the Makhuwa, an indigenous and historically mobile people of northern Mozambique. The Makhuwa are not averse to the newly arrived churches—many relate to them powerfully. Few, however, remain in them permanently. Pentecostalism has not firmly taken root because it is seen as one potential path among many—a pragmatic and pluralistic outlook befitting a people accustomed to life on the move. This phenomenon parallels other historical developments, from responses to colonial and postcolonial intrusions to patterns of circular migration between rural villages and rising cities. But Premawardhana primarily attributes the religious fluidity he observed to an underlying existential mobility, an experimental disposition cultivated by the Makhuwa in their pre-Pentecostal pasts and carried by them into their post-Pentecostal futures. Faith in Flux aims not to downplay the influence of global forces on local worlds, but to recognize that such forces, "explosive" though they may be, never succeed in capturing the everyday intricacies of actual lives.

Urban Ghana and Privacy in the Digital Age

Urban Ghana and Privacy in the Digital Age
Author: Elad Ben Elul
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2022-04-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 100057010X

This book explores privacy practices and the role of digital technologies in the lives of urban Ghanaians, considering how they use language, materiality, and culture to maintain sharp boundaries between the private and public. Focusing on the harbour town of Tema, it offers rich ethnographic portraits that cover topics such as nightlife, domestic architecture, religion, and social media. The volume demonstrates how transformations across Africa such as Pentecostal reformation, neoliberal reforms, and rapid digitisation all raise the need for privacy among middle-class urbanites who use brand new (and very traditional) strategies to uphold an image of their economic or religious state. Overall the book highlights how digital technologies intertwine with local cultures and histories, and how digital anthropology enhances our understanding of the offline as much as the online. It makes a valuable contribution to discourse about the right for privacy and surveillance in the digital age, and will be of interest to scholars from anthropology and African studies.

Kongo Political Culture

Kongo Political Culture
Author: Wyatt MacGaffey
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2000-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780253336989

Lutete devoted much of his attention to aspects of Kongo ritual and religious belief, including minkisi and the rituals for the installation of chiefs. The original text of what he had to say about chiefship is printed, with translation notes. The work of other informants is also used."--BOOK JACKET.

Divining the Self

Divining the Self
Author: Velma E. Love
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2015-06-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0271061456

Divining the Self weaves elements of personal narrative, myth, history, and interpretive analysis into a vibrant tapestry that reflects the textured, embodied, and performative nature of scripture and scripturalizing practices. Velma Love examines the Odu—the Yoruba sacred scriptures—along with the accompanying mythology, philosophy, and ritual technologies engaged by African Americans. Drawing from the personal narratives of African American Ifa practitioners along with additional ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Oyotunji African Village, South Carolina, and New York City, Love’s work explores the ways in which an ancient worldview survives in modern times. Divining the Self also takes up the challenge of determining what it means for the scholar of religion to study scripture as both text and performance. This work provides an excellent case study of the sociocultural phenomenon of scripturalizing practices.