Kofi Awoonor: the Essays of a Humanist 139 Olúfẹmi Táíwò

Philosophical Foundations of the African Humanities through Postcolonial Perspectives Cross/Cultures Readings in Post/Colonial Literatures and Cultures in English

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Gordon Collier Geoffrey Davis† Bénédicte Ledent

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David Callahan (University of Aveira) Stephen Clingman (University of Massachusetts) Marc Delrez (Université de Liège) Gaurav Desai (University of Michigan) Russell McDougall (University of New England) John McLeod (University of Leeds) Irikidzayi Manase (University of the Free State) Caryl Phillips (Yale University) Diana Brydon (University of Manitoba) Pilar Cuder-Dominguez (University of Huelva) Wendy Knepper (Brunel University) Carine Mardorossian (University of Buffalo) Maria Olaussen (University of Gothenburg) Chris Prentice (Otago University) Cheryl Stobie (University of KwaZulu-Natal) Daria Tunca (Université de Liège)

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Contributors ix List of Figures and Tables xvi

Introduction: Mediating a Hapless Postcolonialism through Experiential Critique 1 Helen Yitah

Part 1 The Humanities and the Postcolonial Experience

1 Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 11 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

2 The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience: The Jubilee Year 32 Kofi N. Awoonor

3 Beyond the Labor Market: Reinforcing the Epistemic Advantage of African Universities in the Global Knowledge Society 45 Helen Lauer

4 Contemporary Ghanaian Dance: A Basis for Scholarly Investigation of the Human Condition 72 Francis Nii-Yartey

5 The Formulation of Research in the Humanities: Perspectives from the Creative Arts 88 J. H. Kwabena Nketia

Part 2 The Humanities and National Identity

6 The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 103 Kwasi Wiredu vi Contents

7 Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’: Multiple Interfaces between Rural and Urban, Traditional and Modern 120 E. John Collins

8 Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist 139 Olúfẹmi Táíwò

9 Sell, Borrow, Work or Migrate? Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 152 Abena Oduro

Part 3 Language and Knowledge Production from Postcolonial Perspectives

10 Scientific Decolonization and Language Use in the Study of African Medicine, Religion, and Art 171 Alexis B. Tengan

11 Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse: Increasing the Awareness of Ghanaian Graduate Students 197 Gordon S. K. Adika

12 About the English Language in Ghana Today and about Ghanaian English and Languaging in Ghana 220 Kari Dako

13 Polylectal Description: Reflections on Experience in Ghana 254 M. E. Kropp Dakubu

Part 4 Afterwords

14 Nii: A Recollection on Obits 277 James Gibbs Contents vii

15 Memories of Kofi Awoonor in Texas 283 Bernth Lindfors

16 Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu: A Tribute 287 Helen Lauer

Index 289

Contributors

Gordon Senanu Kwame Adika is an associate professor and the director of the Language Centre, University of Ghana, where he teaches all aspects of academic discourse to undergraduate and graduate students. He has an MPhil in English and Applied Linguis- tics from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Ghana. He has been lecturing, researching, and publishing for several years, and serving as a consulting editor for various organizations and publishing houses in Ghana, including the University of Education at Win- neba. For two years he was the consulting editor for the Heritage, an independent Ghanaian newspaper. He is also a member of the Publications Board of the University of Ghana, a member of the Distance Learning editorial team of the university, and a former editor of the Legon Journal of the Humanities. He organized the launch of the American Council of Learned Societies’ African Humanities Fellowship Award scheme.

Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor (1935–2013) was a distinguished scholar, poet, novelist, essayist, dramatist, dip- lomat, statesman, and African cultural icon. Awoonor earned a BA from the University College of Ghana, an MA from the University College, London, and a PhD in comparative literature from SUNY Stony Brook. He translated Ewe poetry in his critical study Guardians of the Sacred Word: Ewe Poetry (1974). Other works of literary criticism include The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the His- tory, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara (1975). A collection of his essays, The African Predicament, was published in 2006. He is the author of novels, including This Earth, My Brother (1971) and Comes the Voyager at Last (1992), and his collections of poetry include Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964), Night of My Blood (1971), Ride Me, Memory (1973), The House by the Sea (1978), The Latin American and Caribbean Notebook (1992), and a volume of collected poems, Until the Morning After (1987). His posthumous collection The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems was launched in September 2014.

John Collins (E. J. Collins) is a professor and former head of the Music Department of the University of Ghana at Legon. He has been active in the Ghanaian and West African music scene since 1969 as a guitarist, percussionist, harmonica player, band leader, music union activist, writer, and popular performing-arts x Contributors producer. He obtained his BA degree in sociology/archaeology from the Uni- versity of Ghana in 1972 and his PhD in ethnomusicology in 1994 from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. He is currently Chairman of the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation (BAPMAF), an NGO. He is a patron of MUSIGA (Ghanaian Musicians Union), the Afrika Obonu music ther- apy drum group, and Basil Yaabere King’s Drama Company. He has served as a consultant for a World Bank project to assist the African music industry, and since 2007 has been a board member of the Danish Embassy’s Ghana Cultural Fund. He has worked, recorded, and played with numerous Ghanaian and Nigerian bands, including the Jaguar Jokers, Francis Kenya, E. T. Mensah, Abla- dei, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Koo Nimo, Kwaa Mensah, Victor Uwaifo, Bob Pinodo, the Bunzus, the Black Berets, T. O. Jazz, S. K. Oppong, and Atongo Zimba. In the 1970s he ran his own Bokoor highlife guitar band, which released twenty songs; during the 1980s and 1990s he ran the Bokoor Recording Studio, eight miles outside of Accra. Collins has published (in Europe, the USA, Japan, Nige- ria, South Africa, and Ghana) over a hundred journalistic and academic works (including seven books) on African popular and neo-traditional music. His forthcoming book about Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will be published in Europe. He has given many radio and television broadcasts, including over forty for the BBC. In 1978 he wrote and presented the BBC’s first-ever (five-part) series of radio programs on African popular music, called ‘In The African Groove’; he has also served as a film consultant and facilitator for the BBC, IDTV of Amsterdam, the German Huschert Realfilm, Danish Loki Films, and New Jersey’s Films for the Humanities and Sciences. He is co-leader with Aaron Bebe Sukura of the Local Dimension highlife band, which toured Europe in 2002, 2004, and 2006 and released a CD in 2003 entitled N’Yong on the French Disques Arion label. Along with Professor J. H. K. Nketia and the Ghanaian folk guitarist Koo Nimo, in 1987 he was made an honorary life-member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM).

Kari Dako is an associate professor in the Department of English, University of Ghana. She has a background in Germanic studies at the University of Oslo, Norway and Justus Liebig University (Giessen, Germany); but she switched fields in Ghana to take her BA and MA in English at the University of Ghana. Her research and publications are mainly on English in Ghana, Pidgins in Ghana, and the Ghanaian novel. Among her publications is the book Ghanaianisms: A Glossary. She has also translated into English, from the original Danish, Thorkild Hansen’s famous trilogy on the Danish/Norwegian slave trade from the seventeenth century to 1850. Kari Dako is also a writer of fiction. Contributors xi

Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu was Professor of Linguistics and Professor Emerita at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. She was Director of the Language Centre, editor of the Research Review, the journal of the Institute of African Studies, and Head of the African Studies Publications Unit.

James Gibbs was educated in the UK and USA, and taught at universities in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Belgium, and the UK. Since retiring from teaching at the University of the West of England, he has continued working as a researcher, reviewer, and editor. A founding and series editor of African Theatre, he took particular responsibility for the series’ volumes on Theatre Companies (2008) and Theatre Festivals (2012). With Femi Osofisan, he has recently co-edited the 2016 volume on another important but neglected area: African Theatre: China, India and the Eastern World.

Bernth Lindfors is Professor Emeritus of English and African Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written and edited a number of books on anglophone African literatures and on African and African American performers.

Francis Nii-Yartey was an associate professor and was reappointed as head of the Dance Studies Department of the University of Ghana’s School of Performing Arts. As former artistic director of the University’s Ghana Dance Ensemble and of the National Theatre’s National Dance Company of Ghana, he was at the forefront of contemporary African dance-theatre development in Ghana; for his services in this area he was awarded the State of Ghana’s Grand Medal. He was the founding director of the country’s premier Noyam Institute of Dance. He died in 2015.

J. H. Kwabena Nketia is founder and director of the International Center for African Music and Dance (ICAMD), based in Legon. He trained at Akropong Presbyterian College, where he subsequently served as Acting Principal in 1952. In 1963 Nketia became a full professor and the Institute of African Studies was inaugurated; two years later he was appointed its director by Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah, in whose government Nketia maintained a central role as musical director, emissary, and cultural consultant from its inception. Since the late 1940s he has studied in the UK at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London, and the Trinity School of Music, also xii Contributors in London. In the USA he attended the Juillard School of Music, Columbia University in New York, and Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois). He served as Professor of Music at UCLA as well as at the University of Pittsburgh, and has lectured at many top universities in the USA, Europe, Africa, and Asia, including the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, Indiana, the City Uni- versity of London, and the China Conservatory of Music. He is the recipient of various national music awards and honorary degrees from foreign universities. He has worked with UNESCO as a consultant in their Intangible Heritage programs worldwide. When the Institute of African Studies commissioned its new complex in 2005, the main conference hall was named after him. Now in his nineties, Nketia continues to travel internationally, giving lectures, demonstra- tions, and workshops on African music. In July 2008 he presided as emcee over the national award ceremony of the Critics and Artists of Ghana Association, of which he is a founding patron. He has pioneered new signature techniques for scoring African meter, and is among the first to fuse traditional folkloric melodies and rhythms with post-Stravinsky symphonic compositions. His compositions for choral and for orchestral settings are performed worldwide. He wrote the University anthem, “Arise, O Legon.”

Helen Lauer is a professor of philosophy and former head of the Philosophy Department of the University of Ghana, Legon. She received her PhD in Philosophy from the City University of New York Graduate and Research Center in 1986. She has compiled many cross-disciplinary anthologies of critical theory of the humanities and social-scientific literatures focusing on Africa. Her areas of specialization in philosophy are social ontology and intentionality.

Abena Oduro is an associate professor in the Economics Department, University of Ghana. Formerly Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, she is currently the Di- rector of the Centre for Social Policy Studies, University of Ghana.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, New York City. Scholar, teacher, literary theorist and feminist critic, she is one of the most celebrated authorities in global academia. A pioneer in feminist and postcolonial studies, she has received recognition for her work on people marginalized by Western culture—women, immigrants and the working class—including the Kyoto Prize (2012). Her 1976 translation of Derrida’s Of Grammatology earned her a place as one of the first translators of his work into English. Her Contributors xiii famous 1985 essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak,” is considered a founding text of postcolonialism. Among her numerous publications are: Myself I Must Remake (1974); In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987); Thinking Academic Freedom in Gendered Postcoloniality (1993); Outside in the Teaching Machine (1993); A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Pres- ent (1999); Death of a Discipline (2003); Nationalism and the Imagination (2010); An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalisation (2012). Her other translated works include Mahasweta Devi’s Imaginary Maps, Breast Stories, Old Women, and Chotti Munda and his Arrow.

Olúfẹmi Táíwò is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University. He was Professor of Philosophy and Direc- tor of the Global African Studies Program at Seattle University, Washington State, USA. Educated in Nigeria and Canada, he obtained his BA (1978) and MA (1981) from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, in Ilé-Ifè, Nigeria. He received a further MA (1982) and his PhD (1986) from the Universi- ty of Toronto. He taught at Obafemi Awolowo University from 1986 to 1990 and Loyola University, Chicago, from 1991 to 2001. He has been Visiting Professor at Scranton College, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea; Ford Foundation Postdoctoral and Teaching Fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro- American and African Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (2000); Visiting Professor at the Institut für Afrikastudien, Universität Bayreuth, Germany (1999); Visiting Distinguished Minority Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, (1997); Rockefeller Postdoctoral Fellow, Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY (1990); Staff Development Fellow, Canada-Nigeria Linkage Programme in Women’s Studies, Institute for the Study of Women, Mount Saint Vincent University, and Centre for Interna- tional Studies, Dalhousie University, both in Halifax, Canada (1988). Professor Táíwò is the author of Legal Naturalism: A Marxist Theory of Law (1996). His book, How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa (2010), was a joint winner of the Frantz Fanon Book Award of the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2015. His works have been translated into French, German, Italian and Chinese.

Alexis B. Tengan is a Ghanaian Independent Scholar in social and cultural anthropology resident in Belgium and a former teacher of Religious Sciences. He studied at the University of Ghana (Accra), at Lumen Vitae Pastoral Institute (Brussels) and at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He has taught for many years, both in Ghana and in Belgium. He has also been a visiting scholar to xiv Contributors many higher institutions in Europe and Africa. He has carried out research on farming systems throughout northern Ghana; on the relationship between art, medicine and religion; and on the Dagara Bagr secret society and myths. His publications in these areas include Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara Black Bagr (2006) and The Art of Mythical Composition and Narration: Dagara White Bagr (2012), both published by Peter Lang. He has established and is curating a private museum of sacred art and objects, with studios in Belgium and Ghana.

Kwasi Wiredu is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the Department of Philoso- phy at the University of South Florida, where he has been based since 1987. He gained his undergraduate degree in philosophy at Legon and did his graduate work at Oxford University, where he studied with Peter Strawson and Stuart Hampshire as his tutors and Gilbert Ryle as his thesis supervisor. He has held visiting professorships at a number of universities, including the University of California at Los Angeles (1979), the University of Ibadan (1984) in Nigeria, and Duke University (1994, 1999–2001) in Durham, North Carolina, USA. Upon graduation he was posted to North Staffordshire at the (now named) Universi- ty of Keele. He returned to Ghana upon his graduation from Oxford to head the Department of Philosophy at Legon, where he taught for twenty-three years. He has been a visiting professor at UCLA, at Duke University, at the University of Richmond in Virginia, and at Carleton College in Minnesota. He is Vice- President of the Inter-African Council for Philosophy, and for fifteen years has been a member of the Committee of Directors of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies. He has been a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson In- ternational Center for Scholars and of the US National Humanities Center. His work has been the subject of session panels internationally (including the World Congress of Philosophy at Brighton, UK in 1988, and the online multilingual polylogue, whose 2002 theme was “Kwasi Wiredu’s Ethics of Consensus”). He has been honoured with the festschrift The Third Way in African Philosophy , edited by Olusegun Oladipo (2002). His books include the classic Philoso- phy and an African Culture (1980) and Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (1996). More recently he edited A Companion to African Phi- losophy (2004).

Helen Yitah is an associate professor and former head of the Department of English, Uni- versity of Ghana. She obtained her PhD in English at the University of South Carolina in 2006. A literary scholar and cultural critic, she has published Contributors xv books and essays on gender identity in literature, particularly oral and written African literature, American literature, children’s literature in Ghana and women’s cultural production in colonial and contemporary Ghana. She is the Founding Director of the University of Ghana-Carnegie Writing Centre, which was established through her initiative. Figures and Tables

Figures

7.1 Diagram of the two-way relation between popular & traditional African music. The Akan konkoma of the 1930s and 1940s 126 10.1 Item representing the life cycle of the physical cosmos and universe. Theme one: symbolic representation of the cosmic realm as life source (the space- above or rain and the space-below or earth). © Alexis B. Tengan 188 10.2 Items representing the metaphysical abstraction of the cosmos and universe. Theme two: objects and beings as source agents of life transmission (the plant and mineral kingdoms). © Alexis B. Tengan 189 10.3 Items representing the life cycle of the undomesticated. Theme three: the reproduction of life in the human and animal kingdom (sexuality and fertilisation). © Alexis B. Tengan 190 10.4 Life transmission and sustenance of the life cycle. Theme four: life sustenance (marriage, childbearing and rearing). © Alexis B. Tengan 191 10.5 Diagnostic items and the cyclical passing of life. Theme five: life sustenance (disease and life threats and diagnostic process). © Alexis B. Tengan 192 10.6 Healing items and the external body: maintaining life in the human cycle. Theme six: life sustenance (prescriptive and healing process). © Alexis B. Tengan 193 10.7 Healing items and the internal body: maintaining life in the human cycle. Theme seven: medicine and life conservation. © Alexis B. Tengan 194

Tables

10.1 List of items from basket one 181 10.2 List of items from basket two 182 13.1 Variation in the pronunciation of some Ga words 259 Introduction Mediating a Hapless Postcolonialism through Experiential Critique

Helen Yitah

The ‘crisis rhetoric’ that has characterized scholarly debates about the humanities, and about their possible disappearance, is well known. In this genre of blame, some have pointed to neoliberalism and the corporatization of the university as dangerous to the very existence of the humanities.1 One response to this outcomes-oriented rhetoric rehearses the usefulness of the humanities as a forum for the deep intrapersonal explorations and relational investigations that soothe the spiritual longing for answers to the meaning of life.2 Other responses highlight the humanities’ development of those “abilities crucial to the health of any democracy internally, and to the creation of a decent world culture capable of constructively addressing the world’s most pressing problems.”3 Despite the loftiness of these goals for the humanities, behind the false neutrality embroidering this talk of a “world culture,” there lurks a discursive instrument of ‘global’ domination, a conceptual device perfectly calibrat- ed to deny the values intrinsic to existing marginalized cultures and peoples, a precision tool that itemizes and quantifies their inferiorities, thereby designed to construct flawlessly yet another plank in the foundation of Western ‘super iority’. In this light, the humanities sustained by postcolonial societies must continue to raise vital questions about alterity, about difference, about how the Other is perceived and defined, subdued, and transformed. Herein lies the relevance of a book such as this one. Examining the processes of knowledge production in and about Africa provides insights into the shape and direction that both imperial and indigenous meaning frameworks impose upon the human condition. Social-scientific

1 Jeffrey Di Leo, Corporate Humanities in Higher Education: Moving Beyond the Neoliberal Academy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Frank Donoghue, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (New York: Fordham UP, 2008); Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 2010). 2 Anthony T. Kronman, Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up On the Meaning of Life (New Haven CT: Yale UP, 2007). 3 Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 7.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_002 2 Yitah concepts have functioned centrally in the constitution of contemporary and historical Africa as objects of inquiry, as representations depicting the human dilemma in extremis, and as a space for legitimizing various enterprises and practices prohibited elsewhere. The lens of Africa thus provides a fruitful way of discovering previously unimagined possibilities for overcoming the major obstacles to human flourishing, as well as for opening newly emergent dimensions of human fulfillment and understanding. This book presents interventions at key points in debates that dominate postcolonial and African studies, by scholars who all have their feet firmly set in the humanities. Each contributor engages with the humanities as it explores some aspect in the life of the mind, and this matters in a post/neo-colonial world where daily life’s exigencies compel a perpetual focus on the material. In Part 1, “The Humanities and the Postcolonial Experience,” the essays featured eschew theoretical complacency in favor of the committed decolonizing of thought and practices that reconfigure ourselves as postcolonial subjects. These essays adopt an ideologically expansive standpoint regarding postcolonialism, renouncing insularity yet advocating a radical critique of systems, models, and structures of Othering. These authors indicate that cultural production by postcolonial peoples need not be read as the product of marginalized status. The section opens with Gayatri Spivak’s essay laying the ground for the rest of the chapters, providing intellectual connective tissue that links them, and challenging the grounds upon which we interpret and evaluate the ‘Other’s’ text. Spivak admonishes that we must not settle for any “alternative” to the dominant; instead, we must press forward with opposition: “The dominant is grabbing the emergent and changing it from dynamic, potent opposition to ‘the alternative’. But opposition is active, constructive, potent criticism which beats at the country’s sins.” She urges us to think in terms of that which is universalizable, which is different from postulating universals. This resonates with Kwasi Wiredu’s contention: “If what one language suggests is valid, then in principle it should be arguable in any other language.” We must look beyond our nation and language, Spivak argues, and enter another’s space to engage in what she terms “critical intimacy with the text of the Other,” or “imaginative activism,” and by so doing we avoid solipsistic philosophizing. Without this extension of intimacy toward the Other’s point of view, there is no truly universalizable content to one’s thought worth shaking a fist at. For this reason, Spivak has no time for analytic philosophy. In his essay, Kofi Awoonor stresses that the dominant voice in the humanities unleashed the syndrome of a “massive inferiority complex” upon Africans from the onset of European conquest, creating a situation that was reinforced through colonial education in the last decade and a half before the end of the Mediating a Hapless Postcolonialism 3 colonial regime in Ghana. Awoonor reiterates that, for Africans, the period from the first encounter with the West to date has been a continuum of dispossession and humiliation. Given this situation, scholarly complacency is as hazardous as colonialism itself has been. Decolonization is necessary before postcolonialism; otherwise the latter is simply a misnomer. The potent opposition to this dominant stance is “our political and social revolution” as captured in earlier thought by African intellectuals such as J. E. Casely Hayford and Kobina Sekyi, who advocated for the “cultural development and social resilience” needed for Africans to retain their identity and integrity as autonomous political agents. Awoonor proposes that the findings of research in the African humanities should be made the knowledge foundation of school education, in order to transform students into “self-assured people” who can “stare the world boldly in the face and announce their readiness to take part in the global game.” The world culture game requires that postcolonialism not only be ideologically expansive but also culturally, politically, and socially inclusive, although not in the sense of a beige, homogenized ‘global’-ized culture, as implicitly postulated by the values of Nussbaum and others. Truly global culture has yet to be achieved, because of the theoretical privileging and othering that have always held sway in ‘global’ academic discourse and practice. Broader governmental and nongovernmental operatives contribute to the underdevelopment of truly global culture by devaluing the products of postcolonial scholars or by using their knowledge and insights as tools to dominate non-Western peoples. Helen Lauer examines the social injustice caused by the global polarization of intellectual labor between knowledge traditions associated with the global South and those related to the global North. The former are typically delegiti- mized because they are considered as lacking mature, rational, reliable, and authoritative judgment, whereas the latter are given legitimacy because they appear to be in accord with modern scientific methodologies. Lauer argues that African universities can help address this “hermeneutical hegemony”4 and “hermeneutical injustice.”5 But to do so they must reinforce liberal arts training drawn from a cross-cultural base, to build corrective and innovative bridges between modern and traditional, formal and informal, modes of knowledge production. In Chapter 4, F. Nii-Yartey takes up another polarity in knowledge

4 Tsenay Serequeberhan, “African philosophy as the practice of resistance,” Journal of Philosophy: A Cross Disciplinary Inquiry 4.9 (Spring 2009), https://www.questia.com/ library/ journal/1G1–218028476/african-philosophy-as-the-practice-of-resistance (accessed 1 November 2015). 5 Miranda Fricker, “Hermeneutical Injustice,” in Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (London: Oxford UP, 2007): 147–175. 4 Yitah organization: the view that things of the mind are to be valued over matters of the body. Dance, rightly understood, envelopes both, and does so effortlessly. Nii-Yartey looks at dance in contemporary African society as a resource, not only for expressing values, cultural memory, and identity, but also for formulat- ing thought about the human condition, and for recording events of history. In the performance and critique of dance, one cannot separate the rational from the non-rational, nor theory from practice. Doing so is a function of historically white ignorance. J. H. Kwabena Nketia’s essay closes Part 1. Nketia advocates an approach to research in the creative arts, particularly in music, which originates in a creative vision, and which must be informed by a consciousness of identity. Research, as he envisages it, is a process of gaining experiential knowledge in the thought-zones of both one’s society and elsewhere, which can lead to theories that further deepen our knowledge of the creative arts and of human behavior. Part 2, “The Humanities and National Identity,” features four essays, by Kwasi Wiredu, John Collins, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, and Abena Oduro, which challenge the kind of culturalism that undermines social practice at the national level. They privilege experiential knowledge as the basis of culture and articulate a need to reassess history (colonial and national) and identity (individual, social, cultural, national) in light of everyday people’s experiences. Wiredu looks at epistemic identity in Chapter 6 with reference to the humanities, using the specific context of Ghana. He observes that it is in the humanities that the study of human culture is captured in the philosophical implications of everyday work and exceptional ritual experiences. From this data an empirical reality is abstracted, with all the anticipated complexity of its cognitive, normative, and aesthetic aspects. While acknowledging the usefulness of the past, Wiredu also urges independent thought and judgement, which he terms “due reflection,” in critiquing facile perceptions of postcolonial identity. Using illustrations from religion and politics, Wiredu demonstrates how we might “bend the resources of the modern world” to construct national identity. Such an identity need not be the reproduction of a traditional model, but it can be reminiscent of one. In chapter 7, John Collins examines “neo-traditional” music in Ghana from the standpoint of development theories. Neo-traditional music comprises modern forms of traditional recreational music and drum-dances that combine imported music and technology with local resources and use mainly local instruments. Using four examples of such musical forms—konkoma, simpa, borborbor, and kpanlogo—Collins illustrates ways in which neo-traditional genres challenge the applicability of development theories to non-Western contexts; in particular, he is concerned with building a model that reflects the ricochet of Mediating a Hapless Postcolonialism 5 reciprocal influences that have occurred throughout history between African polyrhythmic music and genres developed through the movement of colonial militias, and the Middle Passage, to Caribbean beats, South American sambas and calypsoes, and North American jazz. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò focusses on the essays of the late Kofi Awoonor, which have received very little scholarly attention. Táíwò’s goal is to sample the broad range of topics in Awoonor’s essays and to analyze some of his recurrent themes (including democracy in the aftermath of Africa’s honeymoon with socialism; global peace and justice; and Africa’s enforced dependence on foreign aid). Táíwò emphasizes the philosophical standpoint of humanism that undergirds Awoonor’s essays. Like Wiredu, who urges attention to traditional models in the reflection upon and reconstruction of one’s national identity, Táíwò observes that Awoonor acknowledges “the value of traditional Africa as a worthy base” from which to contemplate and transform the rest of the world. The focus on agency, which is a main thrust in other essays in this book, is identified by Táíwò as the ultimate indicator of Awoonor’s philosophical humanism. Abena Oduro concludes this section with her chapter on what strategies households deploy in times of dire need or crisis (e.g., illness of a family member or loss of assets through theft). More importantly, she examines how it is that African economic subjects rationally choose one particular survival strategy over another, upsetting the standard model of economic change where circumstances and conditions buffet the vulnerable in Africa as passive objects of misfortune. Oduro finds that most adverse situations are caused by policy shocks such as increases in the cost of fuel, utilities, and major foods consumed, and that households resort strategically to effective informal social protection mechanisms such as borrowing from friends and relatives, selling assets, or reducing food consumption as a last resort. These harsh realities reinforce Táíwò’s point about Awoonor’s essays: for widespread poverty to be eradicated, the rational agency of Africans must be restored to its rightful place at the center of life and thought, policy and planning. All four authors in this section underscore the importance of building epistemology upon the observation of human practices in a specific context. Part 3, “Language and Knowledge Production from Postcolonial Perspec- tives,” brings together discussions of language use in postcolonial contexts. These essays point to the need to oppose the ideological and epistemological assumptions that have framed languaging in Africa since colonial times. Alexis Tengan’s essay (Chapter 10) examines three areas of knowledge among the Dagara of northwestern Ghana—religion, art, and medicine—which are routinely treated as divergent realms of understanding, leading to their being ‘mischaracterized’ as out of sync with reliable scientific knowledge—a 6 Yitah point which resonates with Lauer’s argument that African systems of knowledge are mistaken as nonrational by foreigners from G-8 countries. “Scientific colonialism”6 and “negative representation” are the labels Tengan affixes to describe this situation where ill-defined terms such as ‘herbal’ and ‘divinatory’ are applied to African medicine while others like ‘sorcery’, ‘witchcraft’, ‘Satanism’, and ‘magic’ are applied to African religions and arts. He explains, as Wiredu does with respect to the Akan people, that rapid, large-scale conversions to Christianity among the Dagara have failed to result in wholesale christianization. On the contrary, the Dagara exercise due critical reflection, in the manner posited by Wiredu, by selecting elements of Western Christian cosmology and integrating these into the traditional Dagara belief system “as a way of dealing” quite successfully “with current sociocultural changes.” In the final section of his essay, Tengan examines ethnographic data comprising two identical sets of Dagara/Lobi sacred art objects (bɛr-tibɛ) which are linked to the ancestral cult (a religious and medical institution). He concludes that art, religion, physics, botany, architecture, metallurgy, and medicine constitute a “common knowledge area” through which the healing specialists of Dagara understand the science of nature, human life, and the environment. In Chapter 11, Gordon Adika takes up the issue of training in academic writing given to students in tertiary institutions in second-language contexts. Adika observes that despite the crucial role of rhetorical moves in academic discourse, research in the Ghanaian context seldom goes beyond grammatical correctness and paragraphing strategies. He argues that expertise in teaching academic discourse is still at an incipient stage. To investigate students’ awareness and mastery of the communicative protocols in scholarly writing, Adika analyzes examiners’ reports on Ghanaian graduate students’ theses from both the humanities and the sciences, concluding that students demonstrate a poor grasp of the rhetorical character of academic discourse. However, any corrective models must take Ghanaian students’ experiential knowledge into account. Therefore, based on their unique educational and socio-cultural circumstances, Adika proposes strategies for increasing students’ awareness of the relevant communicative practices so that they can enhance credibility and accountability in their scholarly writing. He thus brings the lessons of empowerment into the very mundane and practical business of transforming English into a tool for overcoming hegemony. Kari Dako continues this focus on Ghanaian English in Chapter 12, where she looks at the complex attitudes surrounding the use of the English language in (post)colonial contexts. On the one hand, English has been used to dominate

6 Johan Galtung, “Scientific Colonialism,” Transition 30 (1967): 10–15. Mediating a Hapless Postcolonialism 7 all aspects of life among anglophone African peoples, and for this reason they resent it. On the other hand, English was the language in which the discourse of nationalism and liberation was first articulated and propagated. Using the case of Ghana, Dako notes that after Independence, English, because it was considered a neutral language devoid of ethnic associations, was maintained as the official medium of the new nation. Although this choice meant shelving the question of a national language, elites have continued to deploy English to perpetuate their own power and control. Yet Ghanaians have fashioned out of English their own modern form of the language by indigenizing English as a process of decolonizing themselves. This localization is evident in the vocabulary of Ghanaian English (GhaE), particularly in semantic shifts that English items undergo and in the widespread transfer of local items, and also in GhaE’s distinctive structural and idiomatic usage. Yet, indigenized or not, English is emerging as a first language among many urbanized Ghanaians who consider it more prestigious than their local languages. This situation seems to be pos- ing a substantial threat to the existence of indigenous languages. If indigenization has redrawn the boundaries between the English language and the many local Ghanaian languages with which it is in daily contact, the boundaries between the local languages themselves are no easier to distinguish, especially with languages that are closely related or dialect contin- uums that spread over considerable areas. This is the subject of the late Mary Esther Dakubu’s essay in Chapter 13. She reflects on the problems pertaining to the development of polylectal grammars in several of the languages spoken in Ghana. Polylectal grammars seek to account for variety in a language— geographical, social or idiolectal—and there are various models for such grammars: the hierarchical, the additive-sequential, the additive-contrastive, and the dynamic. Dakubu finds that earlier grammars, such as Christaller‘s on Twi (1875) and Westermann’s on Ewe (1907), were hierarchical; they used a single dialect as the main basis of the written language, and the authors sought a single standard based on a natural dialect rather than an artificial creation. Such scholars also showed “attitudes to literary language, national language and language purity that were current in Europe at the time.” Dakubu concludes that linguistic considerations (of mutual intelligibility) are not the only ones for determining what is part of a single language; there is also always a political dimension: nationalist sentiments, perceptions of ethnic identity or differentness, political boundaries, past and present enmities. These essays test some of the disciplinary discourse of postcolonial studies against the lived realities of practice in postcolonial times and places. Their authors all illustrate ways in which such an exercise can broaden our knowledge of the human condition. They can also nudge us towards thinking along 8 Yitah posthumanist lines—towards ‘reading’ the interface between dichotomies of received models for thinking academically about being human: mind/body, nature/nurture, emotion/reason, matter/spirit, indigenous/modern. They all gesture toward what I would term a functionality of wholeness in sense and sensibility which merges vision with what, how, when, where, and why things are as they are in a particular social context. Thus, by focussing on the experiential nature of critique, these essays can help to remedy the haplessness of leading contributors to the field of postcolonial studies today who dispense with experiential knowledge in their mission to lead those lost in darkness toward cultural assimilation. This book is also a tribute and homage to our three colleagues who passed away during the course of preparing it: Kofi Awoonor (1935–2013), Francis Nii- Yartey (1946–2015), and Mary Esther Dakubu (1938–2016). The three tributes in the Afterword testify to their standing as eminent scholars in the African humanities who pioneered research and teaching in their respective fields of study and influenced countless scholars and students outside their areas of expertise. We will remain saddened by their departure, but feel fortunate to have worked with them for many inspiring years.

Works Cited

Di Leo, Jeffrey. Corporate Humanities in Higher Education: Moving Beyond the Neoliberal Academy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Donoghue, Frank. The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (New York: Fordham UP, 2008). Fricker, Miranda. “Hermeneutical Injustice,” in Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (London: Oxford UP, 2007): 147–175. Galtung, Johan. “Scientific Colonialism,” Transition 30 (1967): 10–15. Kronman, Anthony T. Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up On the Meaning of Life (New Haven CT: Yale UP, 2007). Nussbaum, Martha. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 2010). Serequeberhan, Tsenay. “African philosophy as the practice of resistance,” Journal of Philosophy: A Cross Disciplinary Inquiry 4.9 (Spring 2009), https://www.questia .com/library/journal/1G1-218028476/african-philosophy-as-the-practice-of-resis tance (accessed 1 November 2015). Part 1 The Humanities and the Postcolonial Experience

⸪

CHAPTER 1 Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Abstract

These conversational excerpts from 2014 reflect a two-hour session of Gayatri Spivak thinking aloud with doctoral students enrolled in varied programs across the College of Humanities at the University of Ghana—linguistics, English/literary studies, philosophy, archaeology and heritage studies, religious studies, African studies, teaching English as a second language. That year she was the English Department’s featured visiting scholar, contributing to a lecture series that exposed PhD candidates to the foundational skill sets of their chosen professions and to conceptual threads in their disciplines. Spivak shared her insights and experience of the human dynamics that are common to reading, teaching, and treating culture as a subject of study. She rein- forces the importance of resisting the reification of hegemony: hence teaching as well as reading is construed as a seeking of intimacy and as a dance with the Other; culture is presented as something that one has to do rather than write reports about, when interpreting works of fiction and revealing the cultures of people whose geo-political footing and linguistic integrity are under threat.

A keynote is the lowest note that holds the whole composition. I will therefore try to speak to the subject of the lecture series. My general method is to learn to recognize mistakes and try to learn from them. Homemade practical Sophism. I begin therefore with a mistake of mine. I asked the students to read “Pterodactyl,” a novella by Mahasweta Devi, in preparation for these remarks. Let us move to the “Afterword,” where I, as trans- lator, talk about the novella.1 When, in the story, Mahasweta, the author—the Bengali protocol is to go by first name—makes the character say that what is needed for the ruling class toward the oppressed castes and India’s Aboriginals is love, I, in my comment, talked about ethical singularity.2 I was wrong. In

1 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Afterword,” in Mahasweta Devi, Imaginary Maps: Three Stories, tr. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (New York: Routledge, 1993): 197–205. 2 They are two separate groups but can be thought through by using Antonio Gramsci‘s unifying word “subaltern,” as in his title “Ai margini della storia. Storia dei gruppi sociali subaltern”

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_003 12 Spivak the years that have passed in between, I learnt things, from my own teaching among the rural landless illiterates. What, in fact, “Pterodactyl” may be trying to teach us is what we might call reading, earning a critical intimacy with the text that has been produced by the other side: whether that’s literally reading or not. We generally do it with Shakespeare and Shelley, but if you understand that text is weaving—in Latin, the verb is texere ‘weave’, which is why we use the word ‘textile’—you know that a text is not just words printed on a page, or oral material, it is weaving. If you understand that, you realize that the secret of success of the ‘world wide web’ is that it stumbled upon the right metaphor that makes the world go around, texere, text as a woven product. From the paid teaching experience that I have (1959–61 in Calcutta as a private tutor; 1965– in the United States as a full time university teacher; and 1986– among the children of the landless illiterate, middle, top, bottom), I think I have learned that in order to be able to do anything remotely like teaching, you have to approach the mental machinery with which the student is learning and ‘read’ it as literary reading teaches you. In other words, you try to achieve critical intimacy. The teacher needs to know the people whom she teaches; I need to know what they read before I can begin to make any kind of sense. I am my students’ servant in that sense, and you can’t be a servant sitting at a high table with a group of senior people. I made a mistake in that “Afterword.” Love is not that heavy-duty phrase—“ethical singularity.” It sounds good, whatever that means, but love in this context is the act of reading in its very broad sense. This has something to do with the practical foundations of the humanities as a scene of exchange. Your mistake would be to think of my teaching work as a literacy project. Learn from it; why cast me in that type? Literacy is a statistic, which is a quantity. It is produced by the State in many different kinds of ways so that the state can climb up the Human Development Index. I am not that keen on literacy alone. When I send my child to school, I don’t send my child there to be literate, I send my child there for an education. It is an education project and it is not whatever little I can do. It is a training of the largest sector of the electorate, the children of the largest sector of the electorate, future voters in the world’s largest so-called democracy, inserting the intuitions of democracy in the children

[On the Fringes of History: The History of Subaltern Social Groups], in Gramsci, Quaderno 25 (XXIII) (1934), in Quaderni del carcere, vol. 3, ed. Valentino Gerratana (Rome: Einaudi, 1968): 2277–2294; cf. “History of the Subaltern Classes: Methodological Criteria,” in Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, tr. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell Smith (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971): 52–54, translation mine. Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 13 of those who have next to nothing; because democracy is not just ‘me, me, me, me, me’ like the so-called human rights efforts justifying the self-interest of the very poor. Yet the very poor vote, producing body count, not through democratic judgment. For democracy is also other people. How do you teach that to people who have nothing? Indeed, it is also a problematic teaching endeavor for people who have a lot: my teaching is also at the top. The practical- philosophical founding question of the humanities is teaching. Back to the rural elementary schools in India. The children will have one vote each in a few years and I too have no more than one vote. This is the hard lesson of equality. This is why it is so hard. If you teach this, you have to be ready to follow up, because these people are at the mercy of even the rural gentry. I wanted to get this said, because the hard demands of a democratic foundation of the humanities as teaching are almost always ignored. Love, then, in “Pterodactyl” is more like reading as the effort toward critical intimacy, which is also the sacredness of teaching. Further, my teaching anywhere, at Columbia or in Birbhum, is not for literacy—an instrument for reading in the weakest sense—but for education in the intuitions of democracy. To repeat, then: love in the “Afterword” is a description of the act of critical intimacy, of trying to get to know the mind machine with which the other side is knowing, which is the most robust description of reading; teaching is within that reading; you read your students with this kind of devotion in order to re arrange their desires. So love is that. Nationalist culturalism, on the other hand, is a problem for the upwardly mobile educated classes rather than a solution for the subaltern. It is this message that I carry, because of those more than three decades of very careful work where I do nothing but make mistakes.

The way I think is not the only way to think, and I don’t think philosophy is the foundation of the humanities. We are speaking of the philosophical foundations of the humanities. Philosophy is not the foundation of the humanities. It is one of the humanities, as long as we are using the English word ‘humanities’. The obligation is to translate what we understand by doing the humanities in many of the languages of the world, not just our own first language. In Africa you are better gifted by the miraculous circumstances of the continent; you are not confined within one language, but the politics of thinking through the philosophical foundations of the humanities in Africa’s wealth of languages by English majors at Ghana-Legon is another kind of issue. The greatest resistance to this idea that I found was in fact from a black African woman trained 14 Spivak in the colonial discipline of linguistics. She told me that the humanities folks are just ignorant when they want to celebrate the unwritten languages. I cannot develop this here, but it would relate to our topic. The discipline, if we cling to its archaic Western outlines (the best of the West has left them behind) really can close your mind also. The obligation is to translate what we understand by doing the humanities in many other languages of the world, not just our own group of languages. Then one would see that, if an idea is good, perceptive human beings will have thought some version of it everywhere in the world. The access to its elaboration depends on classed and gendered access to institutional education. The staging of the idea finds its logic within the permissible narrative in the particular social formation. Permissible narratives; we see this in migrancy all the time, mother thinks honor, daughter thinks reproductive rights. They are thinking the same—a woman’s body belongs to her—but those are completely different permissible narratives. Access to the elaboration of the permissible narratives—e-laborare ‘working out’—depends on classed and gendered access to institutional education. The staging of the idea finds its logic within the permissible narrative in the particular social formation, which has diversified material determinations depending on class, gender, and access to funding. We cannot be aware of the diversity of ways in which our permissible narratives are determined. This materiality of intellectual description for which providing a national essence, let’s say an Indian aesthetic or a British analytic philosophy, is equally symptomatic, revealing a historical symptomaticity. Those national or continental epithets are also denials of the notion that if an idea is good, in one way or another, perceptive people would have thought it; the staging of it will depend upon material determinations. That thought opens our minds. Although born and educated in India, I am a Europeanist by choice, and I’m obliged often to listen to the spirituality claim of the Indian way of thinking. By my reckoning, such ideas exist elsewhere. We must learn to spot, to track, to look; this is called a humanities education. This is called love, this is called critical intimacy with the text of the Other, this is even called—I will not elaborate on it, because it is a scary thing—it is even called ‘saying yes to the enemy’: imaginative activism. So this is very different from class-determined nationalist culturalism; this is where I begin in terms of foundations. Now, this brings me back to the words I said at the beginning of my remarks: what we understand by doing the humanities. “What are the philosophical foundations of the humanities?” is an onto-phenomenological question like all ‘what-is’ questions. Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 15

If I were materially produced in a certain way, I would say: God has shown me that my words are good and that is my philosophical foundation. That is a permissible narrative. My mama would say to me—she had said many times—“you should be a Buddhist nun, they don’t need to believe in God,” but she would simply say, because she was such a fantastic person: “Dear, you know, I don’t really believe in anything. I believe in a great force,” etcetera. And I would say, “Ma, I know your great force. Your great force is a huge man with flowing silvery locks wearing Birkenstocks on his feet, and that’s your great force, right?” Don’t forget that I am from an idolatrous culture, so I will say to her, “that’s your great force, Ma.” And I will say to her, if I found the parking spot quickly, I will say to her, “Ma, in New York City, to quickly find a parking spot is really a miracle. Ma, you got to believe in the bearded gentleman.” See, that’s what will happen if my permissible narrative were that one. I certainly can respect belief, but I’m not one who wants to share in it. So, “what are the philosophical foundations of the humanities?” is an onto- phenomenological question. In other words, it’s ontological (what is it?) and phenomenological (how does it develop?). So it is an onto-phenomenological question, which is the kind of question that can be answered if you believe you have the correct answer, although the answer should be subtle. Being of a different frame of mind, I do not know how to ask or answer such questions and am not very interested in finding out what the philosophical foundations are, because I will not be able to get around my own historical symptomaticity. What is it to do the humanities? I must, rather, ask. Doing the humanities is playing in the theatre of imaginative activism of many different kinds; this ranges from the landless illiterates in India to Columbia University in the City of New York, with many institutions in between, Ghana-Legon, the University of Costa Rica, Kwara State University in Nigeria, Yunnan Normal University in China, going all the way to the mud schools on the border of Laos while they still existed, doing the humanities, learning from the receiver how to do them differently. And, even, what is it to do the humanities here, now, rather than what are the philosophical foundations of the humanities?, which is an onto-phenomenological question, the answer to which fixes a definition, at worst blindly checked within the discipline, especially in postcolonial education systems; not acknowledging the necessary determinations of definitions. The literary humanities are, first, training in entering another’s space with critical intimacy, whereas philosophizing, which is the other part of the humanities, teaches you to tease out the truth of living, doing, thinking, the self and the world. It is in a kind of active contradiction that the two parts of the humanities live with each other. When you treat literature as evidentiary, 16 Spivak you are undoing that powerful, productive, and defining contradiction at the heart of the doing of the humanities. At the end of “Pterodactyl,” Mahasweta is very careful to say that her text is not evidence. She’s tired of people trying to take a short cut to learning about Indian culture. We cannot learn about cultures, we can only learn languages, and that leads us into a lingual memory. Not situated in one human mind, but in the practiced history of a language—there is culture. But she is tired of people taking a short-cut to so-called learning of and about culture by reading novels, so she says, right at the end, that her text is not a text which deals with any kind of factual reportage about the tribes that she is writing about. But this comes at the end of the whole thing, so, if you are reading carefully, this criticizes what you have been doing, because if, like most readers of literature today, you are trained in that way, you have been reading it as if it’s about Indian culture. It has nothing to do with Indian culture—that’s what she is saying right at the end: I’m not giving you evidentiary information. I will not offer my fiction as a short-cut fixed answer to your onto-phenomenological question about something called ‘Indian culture’. The writer is historically symptomatic of other forces which you have to learn another way; number 1. Number 2: then you begin to think about the signals that the novel threw at you about what was evidentiary and what was not evidentiary, and you will find that there is one huge evidentiary thing there. The actual name of an actual place on a map, not the place in the title, which does not exist. In the middle, open for whom? The prepared reader. We had read Coleridge in college, very carefully taught by very knowledge- able Bengalis who had not gone to Britain but who taught well. They really taught us to say ‘yes’ to the enemy because we read Coleridge, trying, in our teachers’ words, to recapture the original vision. We didn’t know what it was we were doing, but that’s what we were doing: saying ‘yes’ to the enemy. That uncritical response could lead the immediately postcolonial intelligentsia, of which I was a part in the making—(we became independent in 1947; we were the first group to go to an elite school to learn English)—to claim at once a version of what we will today call global citizenship. A fiction, of course. That generation, just that generation, historically marked, and not the entire generation but members of it at the best university at that point, which people still said was the second public university of the Empire. A ridiculous thing to say, but by contrast, by the time it was possible to write A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, postcolonial theory had acquired a proper name and the legitimate liberal goal could indeed be described in terms of responses to the canon, the third person of dialogue becoming first and second person. Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 17

We, the first generation of English honors students after Independence, by my stereotype of my biographical past, did not yet have that bilaterality achieved for them: the USA or the UK on the other side and at this end ourselves changing our third-person status to first and second. Today, we limp forward to a diversified globality through the British Romantics as originary condition- ing of the unconditional. So, in my student days, the particular material determinations that I just described did not allow me to see clearly Coleridge’s love for Bishop Middleton, whom he considered a mentor. Bishop Middleton presided over the founding of my prestigious College, calling us imbeciles incapable of being converted or understanding the Scriptures; therefore, a reading of Murray’s Grammar was all that we were good for. And it was to this that we learnt to say ‘yes’, and this is why there was a relentless and strong ethical training. We came out of that fire in that very good school, understanding at least, late in life, the meaning of the word love, unconditionally. Let us go back to “Pterodactyl.” That place on the map, if you have trained yourself to read this, as you would train yourself to read The Prelude, learning about the French Revolution, then you would notice it, a real place-name in a book that so strongly claims the imagination: ABUJHMAR. I leave you with this name, to see how the author is proposing a fictive method of describing or staging an alternative to top-down development politics as well as violent opposition. The place-name is enough of a clue. You work it out; remembering that my position is to emphasize doing the humanities rather than to look for their foundation.

Question, Answer, and Comment Session

Ebenezer (PhD student: area of study, Teaching English as a Second Language): Prof., please, you read from that hand note that you had, that you don’t think philosophy is the foundation of the humanities, but is one of them, yet this course is the ‘Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities’; rather, you said philosophy is just one of them, and not the foundation. Could you explain it more? GCS: In fact, excellent question. I was not thinking about philosophy but about the phrase ‘the foundation of’ something, because if you have something as the foundation diagnosed, then you get into the ‘who is correct?’ game, which is how academic learning, the idea of knowledge as knowledge about knowledge, has been organized now for many centuries. And that game gives you a certain degree of power because, according to this view, ‘knowledge is 18 Spivak power’. Some of us have been fighting to uncouple education from power all our teaching lives so that it does not remain confined to the game of who is right and who is my master. That is why we think of philosophy and literature as two humanities subjects, rather than one having a foundational position. Let me say something about learning the teaching of English as a second language. In my home state, the Education Ministry is issuing new textbooks for the entire primary school system written in the newest way by persons trained in the teaching of English as a second language. The government primary school teachers in the poorest areas are completely nonplussed, because nobody is thinking about them and they are not taught to use those kinds of books. I can see that they have been written in good faith by wonderful people who have gone to Sussex or wherever and have learnt TESL, Teaching of English as a Second Language. And I keep telling my teachers, ‘Hey, you know, these are good books’; they are resentful, because they don’t understand how on earth to use these books. So I’m passing this on to you as a bit of practical advice; if ever you get into an Education Ministry producing textbooks, you can turn to me, as I’ve told the people in the Education Ministry that make the textbooks . They know ‘who I am’, unlike my students in the villages. They just think I’m a crazy person, but the people in the Education Ministry, they are coming to my apartment to be told how to make these textbooks mean anything, beautifully produced through Teaching of English as a Second Language (TESL) but useless at the very bottom. They also told me, ‘we are trying to get the children of the upper middle class who are going into the English-medium schools and not remaining within the national primary education system’. And so, they are in a class bind. I can’t force them, because it is those in the English-medium schools who will be the CEOs, and the project managers and knowledge managers, the scientists and technologues. On the other hand, the electorate, the largest sector way down at the bottom, having their votes bought and sold where there’s no democracy, no practice of freedom, don’t know how to use these newfangled books built on the elite principles of teaching English as a second language where the presumed student’s mindset is middle-class and above. Kofi Nutakor: I am a PhD student, in French combined with linguistics, and I am interested in bilingualism and how Africa’s plurilingual heritage can be used for enriching the lives of students. I will just start with a little quote which is supposed to be a gift for you; I’m saying this because of your careful distinction between literacy and education, and so this quote says, “regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value,” and it says, “education can, alone, cause—” Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 19

GCS: Where does this come from again? I didn’t understand. KN: It is a quotation and I can’t give the source but it’s not mine, just the idea of it. So it says “regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable humanity to benefit therefrom.”3 So, it shows the role of education in revealing the inner value of man for the benefit of humanity. GCS: What happened to women? KN: ‘Man’ in the generic sense. GCS: There is no such thing, dear; if we took our clothes off, there would not be a general sense. That’s the first problem. I was talking about the patrilineal system etcetera, etcetera and there’s nothing called ‘man’ in the general sense. When you are born, one knows that that creature without a phallus is not a man in a general sense. You know what I mean, so carry on. KN: If I translate this into my local language, the word man becomes ‘Ama’, which simply means ‘person’. GCS: It doesn’t matter. You see—let me stop you for a moment—this is the kind of stuff one hears also from my native language. Because there is no gender differentiation in this sort of parallel between linguistic behavior, especially in a language which now has become a sort of cultural good. There is no isomorphic parallel between how people think and the gender structure of the language. To say that Bengali does not have any gender differentiation because there is no gender in the personal pronoun at all is simply a mistake. That’s what I called unexamined culturalism. Don’t go into that sort of translation, synonym-hunting in order to justify. I mean, one saw that you translated it “man.” So, let me thank you for the gift; but go on a little bit more. KN: So it was that idea and looking at the notion of how to do the humanities; my question is: to what extent should humanities seek to give life to or bring out the value in human beings so that they can benefit the human race. Just before I go, I was giving a little lecture over here, and I was debating on the fact that, in African humanities, we often spend a lot of time criticizing the whole colonial and Western etcetera, etcetera, forgetting that our responsibility is to give new hope to our youth and coming generations, to show them who they are and what they can do and not necessarily what someone has done to them or is trying to do to them and things like that. So that’s the link between the quote I gave and this issue.

3 Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, tr. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette IL: Baha’í Publishing Trust, 1971): CXXII, 260. [Ed.]. 20 Spivak

GCS: Wonderful, wonderful, it’s a very sincere question and I thank you for that. But, as I said, you don’t start a question with that sort of quote. If you remember, I’m against hero-worship, and quoting without citing the source is that kind of hero-worship; I don’t go for it. I say this because of what I have learnt, you see: remember what Kofi [Anyidoho] said in his introduction, quoting me—“cognitive damage” through historical crimes against the very poor. So the idea that man’s mind is full of jewels etcetera, I’m afraid that is not correct. That would mean the historical does no damage. That means burning the universities. The so-called mind is a part of a body. It has to work in order to become what it can be. I have sustained experience of this. I have learned the hard way that oppression at one end and power at the other ruin the mind. It is only the elite politicians who can think of those jewels. There is no such thing as some in-a-vacuum idea of the human mind. Yes, certainly Kant thought so, but Kant, himself a fantastic thinker, was class-bound, race-bound, and thought that the subject of the Enlightenment was the scholar. Secondly, last month, I think it was the 17th of February, I was at the Birla Institute for Technology and Science in Pilani, Rajasthan, and the ancestral home of a very rich financier in India, to the extent that before Independence, G. D. Birla was the sixth-richest man in the world; we’re talking money. So, they have this institute in the ancestral place of technology and science, and they invited me, the young people, because they had this insane festival of Youth Building a Nation. I am very honest, especially where I’m a citizen so I can do something, and I was very careful in telling them about what happens when the youth in such a nation suddenly think of building a nation. Therefore, I think the task of doing the humanities is not to go on about values, not to give hope, not to empower, not to do anything of that sort. Paulo Freire long ago talked about that kind of ‘banking’, of stuffing people.4 That way, again, we go to nationalism. If one teaches in the sense of going toward the other, then that teaching may create a vision of democracy as other people. If you want to be an athlete you don’t just show big athletic events and talk about athletics. You absolutely scourge the body in order to produce muscle memory, which we call reflex. You do the same thing in humanities teaching with the mind: you produce ethical reflexes. You don’t talk about value with heavy-duty quotations while people continue to live in shanties in inexpressible dirt.

4 Paulo Freire, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education as an Instrument of Oppression,” in Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo, foreword by Richard Shaull (Pedagogia do oprimido, 1968; New York & London: Continuum, 1993): 71–86. Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 21

I was, at the time when this speech was first uttered, the only humanities person, practitioner of the moral philosophizing rather than just a theorizer, on the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum. The richest men in the world, and I mean ‘men’, because even women can be ‘men’ if they are sufficiently patriarchalized. So I was on the so-called Council on Values figur- ing out how they can be good rich men. For all its talk about values, the Council was disbanded. And they want young people. There was a young person sitting beside me—in fact, it was a young African female sitting beside me—at the recent meeting at Davos. All she’s doing is Smartphoning. She’s not listening and she’s saying, “what are the people talking about down there?” What are the people talking about down there, VALUES! When the African starts to speak, she looks, when the Arabs speak, she looks, when the German starts speaking, ‘no’, when the Indian starts speaking, ‘no’. And these will be global agenda holders? No. So let us not say my language makes me better because my language doesn’t have gendering. German has a word, ‘Mensch’, which is both male and female. You notice the Nazis being nice about male and female? Language and epistemology are not isomorphic. They are not the same form. It’s a hard lesson to learn. And, to repeat, the mind is dependent upon historical access to intellectual labor, both at the top and at the bottom, for every generation. Edward (PhD in Teaching English as a Second Language): My question is simple. In the introductory session of your lecture, you did say that you made a mistake and now you’ve found the answer and it has to do with love. And you defined love as reading critical intimacy. GCS: Reading with … that’s a completely different thing. Edward: Reading with critical intimacy … thank you. Now, my question is, in a typical cosmopolitan class, where you have students from diverse backgrounds, different races, beliefs, and values, how do we apply this? Just a while ago, you gave an example of an African who wouldn’t listen to any other person unless the person was an African. How do we treat others equally and how do we apply this theory, your scope of love, in a classroom setting? GCS: It’s a very fine question, excellent question, Edward. See, I was not defining love or anything. I was saying that, in the “Afterword” to the piece that I had asked people to read and that no one read (that’s why I ended so incon- clusively, without ‘giving’ you a reading), I made a mistake by talking about love. If you had read the piece as requested, you would have understood me. You would have seen that in the “Afterword” to the novella, where I talked to the author, I talked about the fact that, in the novella, she talks about what is needed—love. But in practical politics, reading tries to develop a critical 22 Spivak intimacy with what is being read. I said, also, that literature is not evidentiary, so it is not going to give you a blueprint for what to do in a classroom. What might be meant by love in the context of the novella, which is un- verifiable, and what I say in the “Afterword,” which is ethical singularity, are not identical. I should, rather, have spoken of the responsibility of the teacher in a teaching situation—doing the humanities rather than fixing their philosophical foundations for students unprepared for such talk. Teaching/doing the humanities, understood in that way, is the same as, or is related to, the responsibility of the reader in a reading situation, and the teacher therefore teaches how to read. That’s the first part. One needs to know it precisely in order to assign meaning, making a definition, etcetera, etcetera. I am not interested in definitions of love. I was just correcting my misreading because I had not been prepared enough the first time around. Then I said that just one-shot deals are not good enough when you carry such a notion of teaching. A one-shot deal is a one-time-only lecture, like just sitting in this room, talking at you. What I was saying was that the task is to get to know the student body to the extent that you can begin to—not change their minds but rearrange desires. These students are all united in one thing, which is, wherever you teach, they are all there. In other words, they are not just produced by their so-called cultures, they have to pass exams, and get admitted and so on—they are also produced by a very strong academic culture for their entire lives. They have gone through more or less the same structure, kindergarten, taking exams in classes, annual exams, passing or failing, going up or down, taking a school leaving exam, going to college, etcetera. That is called academic culture, which is much like any initiation in the past. So, therefore, SATs, annual exams, this and that; therefore, take advantage of that, teacher. That is not a cosmopolitan classroom. ‘Kosmopoliteia’ means ‘world governance’, ‘politeia’ means ‘ways of behaving like a citizen’—the real title of the book written by Plato, which 500 years later Cicero mistranslated as Republic. Politeia, Plato’s title, relates to polis or city-state. Plato only knew a city like Hong Kong or Singapore, therefore ‘polis, politeia’, behaving like a citizen. When Europe began to colonize, intellectuals and politicians felt they could think about the world: they said ‘kosmopoliteia’, kosmos being their idea of the world. The word means, roughly, the governance of the world, understood as colonialism, but today, the word means something else: global governance as dictated by the postcolonial globe. Therefore these classes are not, strictly speaking, cosmopolitan. They are just people from various nationalities and various classes, and various genders and races. They become more or less the same; that’s what unexamined culturalism does. Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 23

Therefore, the idea here is to grasp the unifying culture, which is the academic culture, and be responsible towards students so that you can teach them. And the last thing I will say: I cannot tell you how to teach them, because it’s like teaching how to play the piano in one lesson. The only way I can teach you is if you and I were teaching together. So, do not apply my theory. There is no theory to apply. One does not apply theory. Theorizing is a practice which is a half-way house, absolutely resisted by and normed by what you experience. Theorizing is important, very, very important, but not by people who idolize theory. It is not for application, funny as it may seem, so please, what I say is not necessarily correct. On the other hand, it is tried and tested. Theorize yourself, and see how your theory breaks down, and learn from the specificity of the breakdown. Justice Quainoo (Department of English): I am very privileged to have this opportunity to test my understanding. GCS: Are you a PhD student? JQ: Yes, please GCS: What are you doing your PhD in? JQ: I’m trying to look at identities, youth identities now, where it’s heading in the discourses that are prevalent here. As I said, I’m very privileged to be here for this lecture. First of all, I’d like to know if I understand something very clearly. I understand now that doing the humanities should be seen as a process, and we should as much as possible try and weave ourselves into the processes in order to probably bring up solutions to whatever is happening. And that’s one point of my understanding. I remember I heard you say in a presentation somewhere, relating such issues to the use of the toothbrush, brush- ing your teeth every day, even though you know you’ll die one day, for instance, and that the issue is staring us right in the face. My question is—the first one is: is the issue of the humanities supposed to be perceived from an abstract angle, and if it is supposed to be seen as an abstract element, are we to end up generalizing or universalizing it? That’s the first one. I’d be very grateful if I could understand where the issue of the tangible comes in—is it in the spotting, tracking, and looking, which actually comes into the issue of the humanities? Thank you very much. GCS: Fantastic question, and, really, all three questions were sufficiently different and they are really drawing something out from me. Thank you very much for that question. Now, abstract element, yes, of course you can’t not generalize. When I say ‘universalizable’, of course there is abstraction. That is a poison that distances us from experience, but that is also medicine, for abstraction allows us to communicate, even as it leaves communication floun- dering in the concrete. It’s fascinating to try to track this as it escapes. 24 Spivak

I’m coming from the University of Cambridge. I was asked to give the cap- stone lecture of the Juliet Mitchell lectures and I worked very hard as usual, and there was a workshop after the lecture with the students. The objections to the lecture were strong, there was some sort of competiveness in the room, and I realized that that current of resentment was going to teach me how to write the piece. Thus is theorizing a half-way house, and I’m not going to pass on this word as something you can use as a defined fixity. Toni Morrison knows this, remembers that a novel is not evidentiary, when she says, toward the end of her magnificent novel Beloved: “this is not a story to pass on”—“Just weather.”5 So the fact that we generalize is not something that one can fight; I mean, it is not possible to make that binary opposition between the general and the particular, because the word ‘particular’ is general. And what I was trying to say in the material determination etcetera is that all generalities are historically symptomatic, so, rather than keep on worrying about that, you are not an ordinary person, you are in an English department. The literary person really does take this as a solution rather than a problem, because this resembles life. We are alive and dying at the same time; this resembles life—it’s not a problem. Number two, ‘tangible‘. What that means—tangible is an abstract adjective; that adjective in the English language, and it’s a Latin adjective coming from the verb tangere, right? So, how do you say ‘tangible‘? You mean, like, ‘he becomes tangible to me’: the word is touch. Therefore, it’s no use going on about this; as I was saying to Edward, I can’t teach you how to teach, because I will have to teach with you. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean I’m giving up the theory. I’m just saying that you cannot have that opposition if you want to be just absolutely concrete; you would have to be a starfish or perhaps not even that. How do I know? I haven’t been a starfish; critical intimacy with starfishes is something I have not earned, so I don’t know. So, as far as that opposition goes, a better question to ask is, in what interest am I proposing this opposition?, because the opposition is heavier on one side. You may not think so, but anybody who reads you may realize that you’re trying to push a little bit against that abstraction, because you are abstracting all the time and gender is our first instrument of abstraction. I am not going there now, because I want to close with the idea that you gave me (I think the last one)—the idea of teaching itself. You cannot take the situation of teaching and make it into a tangible kind of abstraction at all,

5 Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987; London & New York: Vintage, 2004): 322. Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 25 because teaching in itself has a certain kind of violence attached to it, moving languages. I mean, it’s all very well to say ‘human dynamics’, ‘have you hugged your kids today’, etcetera … but the idea of that power within someone and— you should know this—our cultural descriptions are teachings, and they are not yours and mine, are not without this encryption of power. The idea of the power in the situation of the older person, I have spent more time knowing and passing it on, etcetera, etcetera. That has to be undermined constantly so that it doesn’t become something that can be abused. And you will never ever join in that effort if you create that kind of opposition within which you work. Process—the word ‘process’ is too bland a word. I did not say ‘process’ at all. I said ‘activism‘, which is quite different from ‘process’. Process is passive, and I wish I had the time to talk about fatalism and Kant right now, but I will be meeting you again. Process: think about Raymond Williams, and that’s what’s happening in our countries. He talked about studying every moment of culture as a dance, almost. Didn’t use this word. The dominant is sitting there grabbing everything, is his image. I’m not going to mention everything on his list. I’m just going to mention the opposition and the emergent. The dominant is grabbing the emergent and changing it from opposition to an alternative.6 Opposition is active, critical, constructive criticism that beats at the country’s sins, and ‘alternative’ is a consolation prize that accepts that. So the dominant constantly takes the emergent and turns it from oppositional to alternative. I’m not talking about that kind of process, I’m talking about activism … and the spotting and the tracking is something that the dominant cannot grasp, but we can try, although we also will never grasp this fully. It is Williams’ extremely important idea of the pre-emergent, and that’s what I was talking about. And don’t come to me and say ‘here is the pre-emergent’. The pre-emergent does not appear. Again, it is something I was so pleased about—that when I was saying ‘universalizable‘ but not ‘made universal’, you gave your agreement. This was just a wonderful thing, because I need people of experience giving their agreement, and I’ll just go back there: that you don’t universalize this pre-emergent and say ‘oh yes, I just got the pre-emergent’ and become famous and so, ‘oh! He’s caught in the pre-emergent’. That fame is hollow, completely hollow, because the pre-emergent is only for tracking. From here, I would go into ‘sign’ and ‘trace’, but that’s too complicated. So that’s your answer: not process but activism. You put your finger on the right place. It’s the pre-emergent because the emergent is being changed into ‘alternative’, and abstract/concrete is a useless binary opposition; put it behind you.

6 Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977): 121–122. 26 Spivak

Josephine Brew Daniels (PhD student, Department of English): I have two concerns that arise out of your presentation. You said that when you send your child to school, you send your child to be educated and not for literacy. My question is, what will be the difference? Or are there interconnections between literacy and education? My second question is, you made mention of the role of the humanities in the world. But I didn’t hear whether you made mention of the role that the humanities play in the world. Thank you. GCS: Excellent question. The literacy question is this … see, there is … You are in the English Department; you mentioned you are a PhD student, and what are you working on? JBD: I’m working on the stylistic analysis of students’ essays. GCS: Okay, that’s wonderful, stylistic analysis of students’ essays. Now, the literacy: you see, I was talking from my field of work. Generally speaking, literacy is just being able to recognize the alphabet and that’s how it’s understood in low-level literacy; in your schools, you are taught in lower-level training and then being able to read simple texts. One doesn’t go beyond that, and in the Human Development Index that was put in place in 1998 to make the Development Index more humane, that’s what one understands by literacy, whereas, as I was trying to say, the word ‘education’ is a much more complex word which can try to change—not so much change as rearrange—the epistemological machinery of the student: that is to say, the way in which the student constructs objects of knowing. This is rather different from literacy, which is seen as a more limited activity. Simply put: what can you do with your literacy? Even for the makers of the Human Development Index, there is only interest in years of schooling for the index, no interest in quality, whereas when they look for education for their own children, they go around to find quality. So, there is a certain kind of distinction between literacy and numeracy, on the one side, and government statistics and index statistics, on the other. So that’s what I was saying. I hope that this is satisfactory for you. You can, in fact, be educated if you are illiterate. It’s not something that one does anymore, but I can give you examples from the people I know. Top of the line linguists are learning how unwritten languages are taught, writing on memory; pre- scientific digitizing, as it were. As for what the humanities are doing in the world, not much. The way in which, in that fifteen-minute talk, I don’t know my audience and you see most of them have drifted away. I’m not the kind of person who would claim— I hope that was clear from my talk—who would make claims that are completely unsupported. I think the humanities have become trivialized by universities all over the world except for places where it is known that they may produce CEOs. Anthony Grafton, who teaches at Princeton, co-wrote a thing in Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 27 the Chronicle of Higher Education about what CEOs do.7 In fact, I taught at the Modern Languages Association of America, which is our professional organization, and I began with a quote, once again from a former student of mine, a woman called Crystal Bartolovich, who had also written, this time in Academe, making it very clear that these students of ours who go into these companies are not really taken very seriously if they try to rock the boat too much. I have given Crystal a message, saying: Try to get out of the acceptance of powerlessness as normal, it stops us from learning. Acknowledge complicity—in the sense of being folded together with what you are criticizing—and act the conjuncture. The conjuncture means, of course, the political, historical, economic determination of whatever we say or do, the material thing. The conjuncture calls on you to make statistical reports, to become digital, to forget intellectual labor, not to do the humanities but to carry on defining them ad nauseam and not being able to recognize what the humanities can do. Crystal’s actual words are as follows:

coming out of a generally conservative climate into the liberal university, bright students can develop their ‘critical thinking’ skills in ways useful to business and government so long as they don’t think too critically for too long—something that corporate elites do not appear to be concerned will happen. They know that professors are small fish in a very big pond.8

And I have told you how I responded to this. My own beloved department keeps cutting down dissertation topics to fit the market. That’s not how you train humanities folks. Therefore the answer is, I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to make unjust claims. I hope I speak to the philosophers of the future. When you think you have solved a problem, that’s when the problem begins, was Frederick Douglass’s remark about John Brown when he was killed.9 All of the four questions have been questions that have instructed me, because this is also my field work, ‘what do they ask?’

7 Anthony T. Grafton & James Grossman, “The Humanities in Dubious Battle: What a new Harvard report doesn’t tell us,” Chronicle of Higher Education (1 July 2013): online. 8 Crystal Bartolovich, “Small Fish, Big Pond” (review of Neil Gross, Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?), Academe 99.6 (November–December 2013): 41. 9 “If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery”; Frederick Douglass, John Brown: An address by Frederick Douglass, at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, May 30, 1881 (Dover NH: Morning Star Job Printing House, 1881): 28. 28 Spivak

J. B. Amissah-Arthur (English Literature, PhD student looking at the phenomenon of caging in the novel): I realized that authors create cages, all kinds of cages, linguistic cages, and the people there would be characters, and what I see there is characters trying to either resist the forces that pushed them into the cage, or they are actually in the cage trying to come out. I try to look at that in African literature. My question concerns race. Yesterday at a lecture by [Kofi Anyidoho], there was talk about African geography and how Africans or African academics have tried to construct Africa. The politicians have used economic means to create a bureaucracy; the African Union tries to use economics as a basis for unity. To a large extent, that has failed, and therefore we are looking at race as a way of uniting Africa. That’s what I want to ask—what is race? GCS: That is an onto-phenomenological question that, as I said earlier on, I can’t answer or ask—‘What is, what are’, the philosophical foundations, as if there were such. I will pass on that, and I will say that, for a literary person, what is more interesting is how we do race. And this is a very diverse field, and obviously we can’t open that cage now, okay? By the way, ‘cage’ is good. Read Assia Djebar; nobody will ask you to read her, but you should read her, about cages. I’ll talk to you about two people who have talked about this in a very interesting way. One of them is a Dalit thinker. Caste Hindus like myself typically think that we are better than and different from the untouchables and tribals who, in their resistance, have taken on the name ‘Dalit’, although it has not percolated to the lowest sections of these subaltern groups. This leader’s name is Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, and he was himself a Dalit and an opponent of Gandhi’s, because of Gandhi’s caste pride. He is more or less responsible for the constitution of India; he became a Buddhist. Anyway, him, and, on the other side, W. E. B. Du Bois, who I’m working on right now. Ambedkar, presenting in a graduate seminar at Columbia, suggested that caste, rather than being given a racialized explanation, should be seen as the general law of group-formation, and it reflects how, in an endogamous society, there are different rules for surplus-men and surplus-women. This is a thought- provoking argument, situating gender upstream from race. W. E. B. Du Bois, in his Black Reconstruction, says again and again that the way in which the entire polity was changing could only be given a racial—a racialized—explanation by the Southern plantation owners, as well as the abolitionists, but in fact the enslaved folks knew better. They downed tools in a general strike, helped capital find its proper format, and changed the shape of the American Civil War. He raises racial identity politics to a much broader level of effectivity by suggesting that it is so pervasive in the USA and indeed perhaps the world in general Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 29 that it offers the best instrument of explanation. Of course, Du Bois was incapable of grasping gender in a nuanced way. I would go back and forth between these two positions to fight the phenomenology of racism in its many forms of appearance, rather than, perhaps predictably, fix it in a definition. Helen Atipoka Adongo (Department of Linguistics, working on the phonology of Frafra in northern Ghana): My question is about the author’s comment on people taking short-cuts, like reading novels, because they should not be read as evidence. That could be true, but I was thinking: couldn’t that be a way for younger people to learn about their cultures, since now they don’t have time to go to the rural areas to learn about them? GCS: Well, I can’t give you advice on this, because you are within a certain problem. I can only tell you what I do. I think that one cannot learn culture. If you have to learn culture, then it isn’t culture. When a culture is functioning, you think it’s human nature; culture alive is always on the run. It’s not a body of practices—of how you dress etcetera. They don’t need to learn that one. They are in a culture and they don’t need to learn it, because they are the culture. It does not resemble, but integrates, things that belong to whatever you are calling culture. Not only is culture alive, always on the run, but when it is alive, the moment you have said ‘my culture’, culture on the run disproves what you have just said. If you are thinking the rural holds ‘tradition’, it is a polite way of saying they are backward, not quite modern yet. And, of course, young people can read history, read anthropology, and perhaps even travel to the interior sometime. Culture as something to be studied was invented by the elders of groups all over the world because they needed to make the younger generation be like them, but the younger generation hasn’t exactly been like them. When the cultural initiation was active, when it was like your software, when it was brand new, when it was your performative, then the younger generation was not always blind followers of some kind of culture that you can learn, but culture has been taught in this way as initiation, by elders, an older generation to a younger generation in order to keep, generally speaking, property and children intact; children of one father, many mothers, or one father, unknowable mother, unless captured through cultural rites, etcetera. So this is cultural practice as rules taken to be natural. It is not something that you learn except in the doing of culture. When anthropology invented culture, which is a little different from this initiation within so-called communities, that was the study of a subject. But, let me tell you, they took much greater care—whether their motives were good or bad is not what we are talking 30 Spivak about—they took much greater care to learn cultures other than their own as tightly enclosed things determining people who behaved exactly as if they were examples of their culture. They took much greater care. Therefore, I would say that just generally teaching them quickly what culture is, is not a useful thing. When you go down not just to the grassroots but way below, earning the right to work with people, below the NGO radar, you will see what a culture actually is. It is always changing, but when you do a culture as a performance, that is also a solid thing, like anthropology. It’s an exhibition of songs, literary writing, hypotextual material, museums, curricula. I learnt this from some Aboriginals in Western Australia; it is laid out in my book Critique of Postcolonial Reason. The Warlpiri in Western Australia now say, ‘We’ve lost our language’. By this they do not mean that they cannot speak their language, but, again in the robust understanding as reading and speaking, that they were no longer performing it in the interiority of their lives. When the Warlpiri said, ‘We’ve lost our language’, what they meant was that they were no longer being run actively by that cultural system. So they started making demands for curricular inclusion, exhibitions, acknowledgement, recognition, moving from the performative, the hardware that runs many, to performance, from a culture that I am performing and celebrating into the mainstream. Young people do not learn culture by reading books; they learn information. Culture is not information; culture is how you live and I, in my Other Asias book, talked about Hong Kong. There was cultural stuff that I never saw anybody look at, but the students were right there wearing a badge saying ‘Ethernet, Ethernet, Ethernet’, eight, ten of them, smiling, wonderful students. I said, “Here is culture, here is culture,” so, to an extent, the idea of learning culture by the shortest cut is to do it. Kofi Awoonor and I had just started what Kofi Anyidoho recognizes: a friendship. It’s my great misfortune that he is gone; so many miss him. When he writes, “I did not know it would return, this crashing urge to sing only sor- row songs, the urge to visit again the last recesses of pain,” he is actively doing the best he can to make this performance accessible to practitioners of another culture, in ways that no student can learn by reading notes. So poetry is elsewhere, and you must learn to read it, not as information but as an invitation to merge in affect.

Works Cited

Bahá’u’lláh. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, tr. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette IL: Baha’í Publishing Trust, 1971). Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities 31

Bartolovich, Crystal. “Small Fish, Big Pond” (review of Neil Gross, Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?), Academe 99.6 (November–December 2013): 41–44. Douglass, Frederick. John Brown: An address by Frederick Douglass, at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, May 30, 1881 (Dover NH: Morning Star Job Printing House, 1881). Du Bois, W. E. B. Black Reconstruction, intro. David Levering Lewis (1935; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995). Freire, Paulo. “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education as an Instrument of Oppression,” in Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo, foreword by Richard Shaull (Pedagogia do oprimido, 1968; New York & London: Continuum, 1993): 71–86. Grafton, Anthony T., & James Grossman. “The Humanities in Dubious Battle: What a new Harvard report doesn’t tell us,” Chronicle of Higher Education (1 July 2013): online. Gramsci, Antonio. “Ai margini della storia. Storia dei gruppi sociali subaltern” [On the Fringes of History: The History of Subaltern Social Groups], in Gramsci, Quaderno 25 (XXIII) (1934), in Quaderni del carcere, vol. 3, ed. Valentino Gerratana (Rome: Einaudi, 1968): 2277–2294. Cf. “History of the Subaltern Classes: Method- ological Criteria,” in Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, tr. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell Smith (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971): 52–54. Morrison, Toni. Beloved (1987; London & New York: Vintage, 2004). Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Afterword,” in Mahasweta Devi, Imaginary Maps: Three Stories, tr. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (New York: Routledge, 1993): 197–205. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 2003). Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Other Asias (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2008). Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977). CHAPTER 2 The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience: The Jubilee Year

Kofi N. Awoonor

Abstract

In his essay, Kofi Awoonor examines what he terms the syndrome of a “massive inferiority complex” that the colonial system has unleashed upon Africans—a condition which is being reinforced through the colonial legacy of education. A corollary to this situation is that the encounter with the West has left Africans dispossessed and humili- ated, their self-respect, confidence and identity all but eroded. For real decolonization to be achieved, Africans must restore their self-confidence and retain their identity as autonomous political agents. African humanities scholars can play a major role in this pursuit if their research addresses colonialism’s denigration of Africans and its distortion of their history and current reality. Their findings can then be made the knowledge foundation of a school education that can transform students into self-assured people ready to absorb the so-called global knowledge-system.

The postcolonial situation cannot be discussed without examining the very nature of the entire colonial project.1 Without risking a tedious trip into history, we can draw the simple conclusion that Britain, our last and longest-lasting colonial master, did not undertake her conquest and annexation of the territories which became known as the Gold Coast because she was most desirous to bring us civilization and Christianity. Commerce, with its twin components of procuring both raw materials and markets for British goods, was the principal objective of colonization. For this objective to be attained without any hin- drance whatsoever, brute force, subterfuge, and deceit by fraudulent treaties were engaged as useful tools. We must not forget that colonialism replaced the trading era, which began with the trade in gold and ivory, and which was quickly superseded by the export of human beings, cruel and unpaid labor in the so-called New World. The

1 Keynote address presented at the Faculty of Arts Colloquium, University of Ghana, 23 April 2007.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_004 The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience 33 forts and castles on our shores were not built as holiday resorts. They were trading posts, military garrisons, and prisons intended for storing valuable cargo for shipment to the western islands of the Caribbean. I am also on record as having repeatedly said that all these enterprises not only received the bless- ings of Christian princes of Europe but were also always accompanied by the emissaries of the Christian faith. Through all this, our important new human element, a new African, began to emerge, not merely as a collaborative agent of the European but also as an inevitable by-product of his visitations. The need to teach our true history, culture, and knowledge-system to our children lies in the fact that, right from the onset of the European conquest and after, this history was distorted, and the nature of the visit presented as a benevolent enterprise designed to redeem our ancestors from barbarism and unmitigated savagery. Claims were made that the African was not exactly one of God’s fully made creatures, proofs for this claim being laid out that this obvious calumny was based on the proposition that the African did not have any notion of God, of good; nor did he master the art of writing or technology. A. B. Ellis, an English anthropologist, wrote in 1890:

Africans evince a degree of intelligence which, compared with that of the European child, appears precocious and they acquire knowledge with fa- cility till they arrive at the age of puberty when the physical nature masters the intellect and frequently deadens it.

Ellis continues:

The peculiarity, which has been observed amongst others of what are termed the lower races [sic], has been attributed by some physiologists to the early closing of the sutures of the cranium.

Here comes the coup de grâce: “They can imitate, but they cannot invent or even apply. They constantly fail to generalize a notion.”2 There is quite a large body of European opinions in this vein which would be rather tedious for us to review in this essay. The African, it was generally concluded, was half-child, half-monster, pathologically violent, cruel, noisy, dishonest, unreliable, devoid

2 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, Their Religion, Manners, Customs, Laws, Languages, &c. (London: Chapman & Hall, 1890; Chicago: Benin Press, 1965): 9, quoted in Casely Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (London: C. M. Phillips, 1911; London: Frank Cass, 1969): vi. 34 Awoonor of any capacity for philosophical musings, and, above all, governed by superstition and satanic impulses, and guided only by his passions. It will not be possible within the constraints of time to look at colonial education, even in my time during the very last one-and-a-half decades of the end of the colonial system, as a consistent program for reinforcing a massive inferiority complex. Even today, the educated African retains a huge dosage of this condition in his general reflexes to his former conqueror. The imperial ideology had to construct and maintain the myth of our inferiority in order to justify the project of exploitation which was its fundamental aim. African underdevelopment, imposed since the fifteenth century, was sustained by multiple fixtures, most notably the psychological control mechanisms of christianization and education. It was not from a wellspring of charitableness that the missionaries took control of the African child through school and church. This was all designed to make us enthusiastic collaborators in our exploitation as a people. We have already indicated that, from the very onset of this intervention, a group of Africans was emerging, first as collaborators programmed to serve the European project, and, later, in a very few but vociferous instances, as critics and conscientious objectors. Among the first crop of the Euro-Africans who began to object to the program of control and manipulation was a Gold Coaster called Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford. He was born on 3 September 1866, twenty-two years after the bond that gave a good portion of the coastal territories of much of present-day Ghana to the British. This document is a study in duplicity and hypocrisy. Casely Hayford had the ‘benefit’ of a Wesleyan (Methodist) education in Cape Coast, and a Fourah Bay College University stint in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He later entered the Inner Temple and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in November 1896 (six years after Ellis published his insults), returned to the Gold Coast, and practiced law in Cape Coast, Axim, Sekondi, and Accra. Casely Hayford was the one member of the early educated African elite on the Gold Coast, and perhaps in the whole of West Africa, who articulated most profoundly the unease of the African product of European contact, revealed the implications of this contact, and keenly anticipated the malaise in which the generation of his grandchildren would be trapped. The center of Hayford’s social and political views can be found in a series of discourses on African political and cultural institutions designed to enable the African to retain his identity and personality. It is he who articulated the concept of the ‘African personality’, originally mooted by Edward Wilmot Blyden in a bid to demolish the myth of African inferiority.3

3 Cf., for example, “Let us do away with the sentiment of Race. Let us do away with our African personality and be lost, if possible, in another Race”; Blyden, “A Lecture to the Young Men’s The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience 35

He had a keen interest in the original Gold Coast political institutions of the Fanti variety and meticulously described these, especially chieftaincy and land-tenure, arguing that the colonial authority would be better to “con- fine” itself to external administration and leave the internal government of the people “to develop upon the natural lines of their own institutions.”4 His close attention to the details in the original African governance system might have persuaded the colonial power, following the Lugard prescription, to allow some cases, even if mostly inconsequential, to be assigned to the chiefs. His Gold Coast Native Institutions (1903) constitutes a significant record of the eternal debate between the conquered peoples and the occupier. This debate has remained central to all of the various discussions we undertake even today as to which directions we have to take as a people. It evolves around the issues of modernization, development, westernization, identity, and the necessity to make choices to our advantage. At the core of Casely Hayford’s discourse on our Africanness is the notion of Ethiopianism, constructed around the survivalist imperial state of Ethiopia whose spectacular resistance and escape from colonial European intervention remains a special example in the entire saga of Africa’s loss of independence. This, the stuff of which Black Nationalism was made, took its impulse from the Old Testament, through our African-American and Caribbean relatives , who used it to take inspiration from the Jewish national cause of Zionism. Again, Hayford’s ideas drew heavily on Edward Blyden, whose work Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1888) enunciated the quaint notion that, through the suf- fering imposed by both slavery and colonization, the Negro had been provi- dentially prepared for a leadership role in the world. This notion was adopted and used most effectively by the Jamaican Marcus Garvey, the ‘Black Moses’ who took the USA by storm in the 1920s, raising the banner of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and the back-to-Africa movement guided by the Black Star which was later appropriated by Kwame Nkrumah for the new state of Ghana. It is evident that it is he, more than any other black libera- tionist, who made the greatest impression on Nkrumah. Casely Hayford’s insistence on African nationality defines a total perspective on the various details of this nationality. These details are reflected in his political work in the West African National Congress, which he founded to provide a broad framework for bringing together the various colonial subjects of

Literary Association of Sierra Leone, May 19th, 1893,” Sierra Leone Times (27 May 1893). See also M. Yu Frenkel, “Edward Blyden and the Concept of African Personality,” African Affairs 73/292 (July 1974): 277–289. 4 Casely Hayford, Gold Coast Native Institutions, with Thoughts upon a Healthy Imperial Policy for the Gold Coast and Ashanti (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1903): 7. 36 Awoonor

British-occupied West Africa and to pave the way for an eventual unification of Africa. “We are concerned in the pursuit of an African nationality which tends to focus world opinion upon African interests,” he wrote.5 Hayford’s main intellectual preoccupation was the reconstruction of an intrinsic cultural nationalism which would strive to retain African cultural forms in the face of European racist sneers and denigration. The educated African, Hayford observed, was made to turn his back on his culture. His prescription was to reverse the state of affairs resulting from this situation. What irritated Casely Hayford most was the tendency on the part of the educated African to be an imitator. Let us turn to another great Gold-Coast nationalist whose ideas on the imitation syndrome were couched in precise and extensive scientific terms— Kobina Sekyi. Writing about his father, the late H. V. H. Sekyi wrote that Kobina Sekyi

insisted that society was an organism, living, growing, developing, evolving. It evolved healthily only if it reacted correctly to the stimuli from its changing environment […]. In that process, it never abruptly replaces whole limbs with borrowed ones, still less annihilates its whole self, but evolves in its various parts, without ever doing damage or violence to its organic structure, the right adaptations to its changing context— particularly the great changes caused by the ‘juxtaposition of the two civilizations’ […]. Merely to substitute the tail of a lizard for that of a fish is a false reaction—not a natural adaptation to any change in the environment but an absurd and monstrous innovation, resulting not in some healthier new creature, but in a mere abortion, unlikely to survive in the struggle for existence.6

Our thoroughgoing imitation of European manners and European society, Sekyi concluded, was an analogue of that physical monstrosity. Kobina Sekyi remains one of the major intellectuals whose contribution to the various debates concerning our path as a nation and a people, acute and well-focussed, remains almost wholly ignored in our academies. His thoughts on what should constitute our political and social evolution took a leaf from

5 Casely Hayford, presidential address to the National Congress of British West Africa (4th session, December 1929), in Casely Hayford, West African Leadership: Public Speeches, ed. Magnus J. Sampson (1949; London: Frank Cass, 1969): 12. 6 H. V. H. Sekyi, “Foreword” to Kobina Sekyi, The Blinkards, a Comedy [1974], and The Anglo- Fanti [1918]—A Short Story (Oxford & Ibadan: Heinemann Educational & Accra: Readwide, 1997): viii. The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience 37

Casely Hayford’s book, and reflected a radical appreciation of the process of cultural development and social resilience imperative for the African to retain both his identity and his integrity as an autonomous member of the human family. Again, Sekyi’s son, underscoring his father’s ideas, states:

it was the traditional political and social institutions themselves, and not anything adventitious, which being the valid results of our society’s long evolution in its environment should, by further natural evolution, by unconstricted adaptation to the changing environment and the new stimuli, form the basis of the future polity.7

Sekyi was opposed to indirect rule because it perverted the institution of chieftaincy by co-opting this most democratic structure into serving as the col- laborating organ and part of the congregation of cheerleaders, with very few exceptions, for the entire imperial program. Not much has changed even today, when this institution, because of the perversions to which it has been sub- jected since colonial times, remains purely a peripheral nuisance and a source of unhealthy conflicts funded by upstarts and veritable mischief-makers. This institution, which we still claim to be the bedrock of our social and cultural being, is today relegated to the margins of our national polity, providing a cast of actors in a meaningless pantomime of colorful durbars for visiting foreign dignitaries. In his acerbic satire The Blinkards (1974), Kobina Sekyi employs the medium of the theatre to make serious social comments on the state of the life and conduct of his own Cape Coast, where, perhaps more than any other town on the Gold Coast of the time, the pathetic imitation of European manners and the pathology of cultural self-rejection became most manifest. Ironically, it was this very town that became the center of serious anti-colonial agitation, spearheaded by the very people colonialism fashioned out of an original socio- political order. It should be noted that Sekyi wore the cloth at all times, except when, by force of blatant imposition, he had to attend court in the wig and gown of England, remnants of a distant time in their very country of origin. Like Sekyi, Casely Hayford turned to fiction as the most effective tool with which to construct his arguments. In his novel Ethiopia Unbound (1911), we are presented with a compendium of debating points and prescriptions that sought to provide a layout for what Gold-Coast education should be. It would not be useful to imitate the Western form of education or impose the English marriage-system upon Africans, he argued. Western monogamy does not foster

7 H. V. H. Sekyi, “Foreword,” viii–ix. 38 Awoonor greater social cohesion, since it promotes individualism and is intrinsically tied into Western property and inheritance concepts which reduce marriage to a partnership arrangement. In Ethiopia Unbound, Hayford ridicules the African who believes everything English is good and worthy of being imitated. The novel’s central idea is constructed around the building of an African university in which the medium of instruction is an African language, the core discipline being history:

and the kind of history that I would teach would be universal history with particular reference to the part Ethiopia [= Africa] has played in the affairs of the world. […] that Africa was the cradle of the world’s systems and philosophies, and the nursing mother of its religions.8

His character Kwamankra continues:

In short, that Africa has nothing to be ashamed regarding its place among the nations of the earth. I would make it possible for this seat of learning to be the means of revising erroneous current ideas regarding the African; […]. I should like to see professorships for the study of the Fanti, Hausa, and Yoruba languages.9

Ethiopia Unbound is a polemical work, didactic and vehemently propagandis- tic in the cause of African self-respect; a superb treatise in humanist ideas embedded in the ideology of scholarship as a means of liberation for the African. It would be instructive to observe that Indian education derived very much from similar ideas propagated by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who insisted on the pupils of the various linguistic communities of India mastering their own language as a fundamental precondition for national development, which could only be built on a sense of identity and confidence. It may equally be instructive to take a close look at the India where the indigenous knowledge- systems in philosophy, literature (written and oral) in all the native languages and religion remain active ingredients in the life of the educated class, who are fully engaged as Indian scholars and serve as the intellectual mentors and pathfinders for the builders of India.

8 Casely Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (London: C. M. Phillips, 1911; London: Frank Cass, 1969): 194. 9 Casely Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound, 194–195. The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience 39

The African Crisis

The fundamental African crisis, I wish to insist, derives from the fact that we have turned our back on everything that was part of our aboriginal civilizations. Even our very languages have been allowed to suffer horrible neglect in our institutions of learning. We have bought into the long-standing proposition that it was Europe that came and redeemed our ancestors from a dark era of unmitigated savagery and satanic heathenism. Again, why have Indian theologians, philosophers, poets, artists, and other activists in the humanities, in the face of the same Euro-Christian assault, been able to articulate and stress the quintessential spirit of that subcontinent? How was it possible for China to retain Confucian philosophy, in spite of periodic violent interventions by revolutions, to reconstruct balance and moderation as preconditions for national development? In an extremely lucid paper entitled “Cause and effect between knowledge traditions,” Helen Lauer of the Philosophy Department, University of Ghana, Legon draws attention to a much-debated proposition that because African (Akan) traditions and social mores discourage scientific curiosity, they perpetuate a superstitious conformist preoccupation with moral blame and ir- rational fear of the supernatural. Lauer points out that this position, which originates in the work of Robin Horton, seems to predominate even in the discourse of political leaders today; she quotes J. H. Mensah in a 2004 issue of the Daily Graphic as saying that Ghana’s poverty is essentially due to “an in- nate deficiency or cultural antipathy to investigation of nature and to written scholarship.” This perspective, I will agree with Lauer, originates in European thinking, which invented the notion that the African is incapable of cognitive reasoning and unable to probe nature or explain phenomena in Newtonian terms of cause and effect. Lauer writes:

Ghanaians are popularly derided for lacking the basic assertive drive to systematically scrutinize, abstractly analyze, and technically manipulate nature, because at a very young age, they are discouraged from cultivating experimental drive and intellectual ambition.10

10 Helen Lauer, “Cause and effect between knowledge traditions: analysing statements that address the regression of science and technology in Ghana,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, New Series 8 (2004): 257. 40 Awoonor

In short, Lauer continues, it is proclaimed that “traditional [Akan, African] culture defeats the flourishing of science and technology without which the […] economy overall cannot advance.”11 She dismisses these notions as wholly false and untenable by drawing attention to various innovative activities, particularly in the cocoa industry, which established the most efficient cocoa economy on the African continent. The benefits of commerce which led to the rise of active African urban cultures were evident, she argues, long before the colonial era. We may refer to the scientific method of shallot cultivation in the Anlo area, where irrigation and the use of fertilizers had occurred long before colonialism took hold of that part of Africa. In a very sharply focused address delivered on 25 October 1963 on the occasion of the opening of the Institute of African Studies, Kwame Nkrumah laid out a broad band of ideas and proposals which were designed to provide a fundamental basis for discussing what exactly the humanities, specifically those dealing with Africa, bring to the continent’s search for advancement. Exhorting the Institute to liberate itself from the old-style ‘colonial studies’ in the universities of the West which still remain under the shadow of colonial ideologies and mentality, Nkrumah appealed to African scholars to work for

freedom from the propositions and pre-suppositions of the colonial epoch and from the distortions of those professors and lecturers who continue to make European studies of Africa the basis of this new assessment.12

The colonial enterprise itself, we should recall, included a colorful cast of European scholars who produced excitingly imaginative literature which passed for history, anthropology and ethnographic dissertations raised to the level of quintessential canonical texts on Africa. Nkrumah continued:

I would like to see this Institute […] planning to produce what I would describe as an extensive and diversified Library of African Classics […] which are of special value for the student of African history, philosophy, literature and law.13

11 Lauer, “Cause and effect between knowledge traditions,” 257. 12 Kwame Nkrumah, “The Flower of Learning” (speech given at the opening of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, 25 October 1963), in Nkrumah, Selected Speeches of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, first President of the Republic of Ghana, comp. Samuel Obeng (Accra: Afram, 1995), vol 5: 130. 13 Nkrumah, “The Flower of Learning,” 130. The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience 41

Convinced that there exists an African genius—positive in its conception of society, “the efficiency and validity of our traditional statecraft, our highly developed code of morals […] and our purposeful energy”—Nkrumah charged the Institute to make our arts instruments for enhancing our understanding of African institutions and values, illuminate historical problems, and provide data for the study of our ethical and philosophical ideas. A major component of his assignment was that the Institute should assist in the planning and production of new textbooks for use in our secondary schools, training colleges, workers’ colleges, and educational institutions. I do not wish to implicate the institute in any debate on whether these significant assignments have been dis- charged or not over the forty-four years since they were suggested by Nkrumah. The nature of the reception which the Institute of African Studies and its ancillary departments have enjoyed within the University of Ghana family since their inception provides us with more than an ample commentary on what value we place upon the issues raised by one of its founders. This situation, though said to be changing, has lingered for so long as to confirm the supposition that the African or Ghanaian scholar and the educated class continue to be uncomfortable, or seldom at ease, in the presence of the massive cultural evidence that surrounds them. They remain embarrassed spectators at any manifestations of this culture. David Balme was a brilliant Cambridge classical scholar who was charged with the task of building a university in the wilds of Africa. I can surmise a little the nature of his dilemma in the face of this task and how much compromise he was ready to make with the culture and civilization he came to find in the Gold Coast of 1948. In this light, reading again the brilliant paper entitled “Classical Civilization and National Development” delivered by Alexander A. Kwapong at the first Faculty of Arts Colloquium (University of Ghana) in 2003, our reaction is that if Balme, an English classicist who represented a segment of a Europe which claims Greece and Rome as the foundation of its civilization, was in difficulties as to his assignment, what could Kwapong, a Ghanaian of impeccable Akwapim extraction and one of the most gifted minds of our generation, have to tell us about his African civilization in the construction of an African classical era? After all, when the Romans arrived in Britain, they did not exactly find academies of learning, a condition in which science and technology were flourishing, nor a civilization in a state of manifest splendor. There is no reason why the African cannot read Cicero, Sophocles or Plato and become well-versed in the intellectual traditions of Greece and Rome; nor why we cannot grasp the dramatic energy in Shakespearean plays, or the intricacies of Mozart’s music or Picasso’s masterpieces. But we must also, ab initio, 42 Awoonor be familiar with the concepts that propel African art, or the full nature of our music or our concepts of the Divine. When we speak of Classical civilizations, let us take a look at the civilization of Egypt, which many scholars have concluded is the base civilization of Africa, spawning the various African civilizations which were overrun by both Arab and European invaders by the twelfth century AD. It is important to observe that this civilization was the fountain from which Hellenism drank, a civilization which nurtured Pythagoras, Thales, and others, providing the intellectual foundation that built Greece. Some of us were witnesses to how the best thinkers who gave full expression to their original African cultural systems in this university were treated. They were so treated on the grounds that they did not have university degrees which could qualify them to teach at Legon. But somehow they have left indelible marks as true Africans on this illustrious hill. Our national educational program is bereft of the humanist ideology which some of our scholars at Legon are espousing in brilliant scholarly documents. The University of Ghana, our so called ‘premier’ university in this nation, still has no museum, no art gallery, no location where the story of the African can be told. The very story of the slave trade remains unheard within these walls. That story is locked in terrifying silence. In summary, the humanities have not provided the much-needed base for building the self-confidence and self-valorization with which we can boldly confront the wider frames of knowledge and appropriate them for development. If we are persuaded by the dominant religious ideology that our sal- vation lies in the bosom of a blonde and blue-eyed son of God, or that the transatlantic slave trade actually brought us benefits, that the black sheep’s role is to provide wool for the master, it will not be enough to extend the years of schooling. It is a crying shame that this great University does not offer degrees or diplomas in our native languages. It is a crying shame that on entering this University the visitor cannot get any feel for the living energy of this culturally vibrant country. Even our great gatherings on ceremonial occasions do not pay full homage to the civilizations that have nurtured and kept us going these many centuries. Alas, not a single building on this campus reflects the genius of African architecture or the culture of keeping clean surroundings, for which our original villages are famous. The value factor has to do with that impulse that insists on decency in attire, in language, in gesture, in discourse, in respect for those older than we are, in the caring and sharing for which we have always been known. Let me end by quoting John Kenneth Galbraith: The Humanities and the Postcolonial Ghanaian Experience 43

These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted, when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability.14

I wish to submit to this great University and its allies across the country what I call a MODEST PROPOSAL: That the Humanities departments of Legon convene a meeting of a select number of the faculties of arts and the social sciences of our national universities for the main purpose of (a) taking a close look at the syllabi of our lower schools beginning with the Junior schools, through the Senior Schools up to the Teacher Training Colleges and make suggestions where necessary for revisions that are critical for these to reflect our African aspirations; and (b) incorporating into school textbooks at all levels the large volume of research findings and penetrating studies in African Music, Art, Dance, Law, History, Rhetoric, Literature (oral and written), African Languages, Religious Thought, Philosophy, and History in this and the other Uni- versities of Ghana and elsewhere on the continent. This will ensure that these findings are made the foundation of knowledge and the perception of the world for Ghanaian and African children at the most critical stages of their development. It is only when our students are equipped with these exciting products of African scholarship that they can develop self-confidence and the sense of adequacy with which to absorb the so-called global knowledge-system. Without a base in African knowledge systems, our students will not be capable of mar- shaling the will and the authority as autonomous and self-assured people to stare the world boldly in the face and announce their readiness to take part in the global game.

Works Cited

Blyden, Edward Wilmot. Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, intro. Christopher Fyfe (1888; Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1967). Blyden, Edward Wilmot. “A Lecture to the Young Men’s Literary Association of Sierra Leone, May 19th, 1893,” Sierra Leone Times (27 May 1893).

14 John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (New York: Macmillan, 1958): 4–5. 44 Awoonor

Casely Hayford [Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford]. Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (London: C. M. Phillips, 1911; London: Frank Cass, 1969). Casely Hayford, J. E. Gold Coast Native Institutions, with Thoughts upon a Healthy Imperial Policy for the Gold Coast and Ashanti (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1903). Casely Hayford, J. E. West African Leadership: Public Speeches, ed. Magnus J. Sampson (1949; London: Frank Cass, 1969). Ellis, A. B. [Alfred Burdon]. The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, Their Religion, Manners, Customs, Laws, Languages, &c. (London: Chapman & Hall, 1890; Chicago: Benin Press, 1965). Frenkel, M. Yu. “Edward Blyden and the Concept of African Personality,” African Affairs 73/292 (July 1974): 277–289. Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Affluent Society (New York: Macmillan, 1958). Kwapong, Alexander A. “Classical Civilization and National Development,” paper delivered by at the first Faculty of Arts Colloquium, University of Ghana (2003). Published in the Legon Journal of the Humanities (Special Edition, 2006): 45–52. Lauer, Helen. “Cause and effect between knowledge traditions: analysing statements that address the regression of science and technology in Ghana,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, New Series 8 (2004): 256–275. Nkrumah, Kwame. “The Flower of Learning” (speech given at the opening of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, 25 October 1963), in Nkrumah, Selected Speeches of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, first President of the Republic of Ghana, comp. Samuel Obeng (Accra: Afram, 1995), vol. 5: 130–138. Sekyi, H. V. H. “Foreword” to Kobina Sekyi, The Blinkards, a Comedy [1974], and The Anglo-Fanti [1918]—A Short Story (Oxford & Ibadan: Heinemann Educational & Accra: Readwide, 1997): vii–xii. CHAPTER 3 Beyond the Labor Market: Reinforcing the Epistemic Advantage of African Universities in the Global Knowledge Society

Helen Lauer

Abstract

So far in the twenty-first century, those African universities that have achieved world- class status have done so at great expense: the cost is their preparedness to produce graduates who are ill-equipped and unmotivated to consider the impact of their work upon the quality of human life, unable to assess universalized recipes for progress in- herited from an age when the benefits of scientific reasoning were presumed to be coextensive with the expansion of Anglo-European culture and interests. I explore the ambiguous role of the Internet, automated intelligence and digitalization of information in regimenting the process of knowledge production to serve a narrowly focused multinational elite business class. I demonstrate that research cartels and governmental-industrial-educational conglomerates perpetuate global ignorance about two thirds of the world’s populations. I explore how Africa-based intellectuals, located on the periphery of digital highways, are not cyber-entrapped and thereby enjoy an epistemic advantage for assessing the overall impact of science-for-profit upon the human family and the bio-sphere.

Nowadays, factors that have a critical impact on African tertiary education are no longer limited to expanding costs and shrinking revenues. The future effects of robotics and informatics are predicted to be far more pervasive upon knowledge production and dissemination, global economics1 and geopolitics, than the inventions of the printing press and the airplane ever were.2 There is

1 Seth G. Benzell, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Guillermo LaGarda & Jeffrey D. Sachs, Robots are us: Some economics of human replacement (NBER Working Paper Series no. 20941; Cambridge MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2015), http://www.nber.org/papers/ w20941 (accessed 1 November 2015). 2 As speculated by Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research Laboratory’s Managing Director in Redmond, Washington. He founded The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) based at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, which “aims to track the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on all aspects of life, from national security to public psychology

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_005 46 Lauer some speculation that the very ideas of personhood and individual productiv- ity are susceptible to profound transformation in light of the rapidly broaden- ing utility of artificial intelligence.3 At the very least, criteria for employability will change the general view of essential human traits, as plug compatibility and network speed supersede diligence and loyalty among our most desirable assets. Global advisory councils have urged the architects of higher education policy in African economies to help tackle their bloated rural and urban informal sectors by narrowing the application of scarce government revenues for the greatest possible short term success, with the expectation of long term gains.4 The strategy is to initiate synergy: use national resources to train future techni- cians who will then be immediately employable in projects funded by global research consortia; the benefits and emoluments will recycle back into the national economy through these individuals’ increased buying and investment power, and their enhanced capacity to continue competing in the promethean global knowledge economy, which will affect prosperity for future generations. Meanwhile, unemployment as a public health emergency has been tar- geted by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) in its 2020 Strategic Plan for Europe, where joblessness is no longer treated as an isolated economic issue in the global policy arena.5 Accordingly, African publics expect their

and privacy.” Posted in Science online by Jia You (9 January 2015), http://news.sciencemag. org/people-events/2015/01/100-year-study-artificial-intelligence-microsoft-research-s-eric- horvitz (accessed 1 November 2015). 3 Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1990); Brad Davies, “The role and relevance of universities in the digital economy” (February 2014), http://www.cisco.com/web/AP/docs/role_and_relevance_of_universi- ties_in_digital_age_f1_17feb2014.pdf (accessed 10 October 2015). 4 For example: J. F. AdeAjayi, Lameck K. H. Goma & G. Ampah Johnson, The African Experience With Higher Education (London: James Currey, 1996); Ruth Bridgstock, “The graduate attributes we’ve overlooked: enhancing graduate employability through career management skills,” Higher Education Research and Development 28.1 (March 2009): 31–44; Steven Brint, Mark Riddle, Lori Turk-Bicakci & Charles S. Levy, “From the Liberal to the practical arts in American colleges and universities: organization analysis and curricular change,” Journal of Higher Education 76.2 (March-April 2005): 151–180; Joel Samoff & Bidemi Carrol, From Manpower planning to the knowledge era: World Bank policies on higher education in Africa (UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, 15 July 2003); Joel Samoff & Bidemi Carrol, “The Promise of Partnership and Continuities of Dependence: External Support to Higher Education in Africa,” African Studies Review 47.1 (April 2004): 67–199; World Bank, Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education (Washington DC: IBRD / World Bank, 2002). 5 Dr Agnes Sorres of the WHO European Office and Prof. Michael Marmot, Chair of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health and WHO consultant on health inequalities, interviewed by Claudia Hammond on Health Check, BBC World Service (3 November 2013). Beyond the Labor Market 47 universities to prepare graduates for the current job market.6 In many postcolonial democratic republics and federations, constitutional statutes support the demand for socially relevant higher education by affirming that all qualified citizens are entitled to compete for the benefits of higher education.7 Thus, a clear mandate appears to be set for university planners to hone their objectives to match the most up-to-date specifications of the global market at any given time. So far, since the global credit crunch of 2008, some African public universities have been notably successful in acquiring an international presence by following this advice and adjusting to the mounting fiscal and digital pressures with a dual strategy based upon disjoining ethical concerns about social justice from efforts to achieve academic excellence. For instance, South Africa’s Universities of the Free State (UFS) and of Kwazulu Natal (UKZN) define equity and excellence as separate but equally important objectives. UFS pursues inclusive diversity in student enrolment and hiring policies as a top priority to promote the nation’s social “transformation.” Simultaneously, UFS stresses the importance of achieving international standards in research and scholarly excellence as a matter of good economics.8 On the side of maintaining high scholarly standards to serve public demands for job preparation, African public universities have resolutely followed the global trend of sidelining the humanities,9 while building upon classic areas

6 As reflected in MyWorldSurvey, an international poll conducted prior to publicizing the post- 2015 UN Sustainable Millennium Development Goals, and presented by the UNDP in the 2013 April Report to the Secretary General of the UN. The results were delivered in Ghana by Ms. Hurmandip Ruby Sandhu-Rojon, UNDP Ghana Resident Representative in her address, “MDGs, SDGs and the post-2015 Agenda,” to the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, 31 October 2013. 7 The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, Article 25.1(c): “higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular, by progressive introduction of free education.” 8 As articulated by Heidi Hudson, Director of UFS African Studies. Speaking as a plenary panel- ist on “Challenges in the teaching of African Studies” at the 50th Anniversary International Conference of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, 24 November 2013. The efficacy of inclusive hiring and admission policies remains hotly contested in South Africa, as discussed by Simphiwe Sesanti, professor of journalism and media studies at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, at the international conference African Philosophy: Past, Present and Future hosted by Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, 9–11 September 2015. 9 Eyal Press and Jennifer Washburn provide a popularized snapshot of the research literature on this theme—“The Kept University,” Atlantic Monthly 285.3 (March 2000): 39–54. For a renowned, comprehensive study of the genre see Andrew McGettigan, “The Great University Gamble: money markets and the future of Higher Education” (18 April 2013), http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/the-great-university-gamble-money 48 Lauer of foreign scientific interest in Africa, viz. pharmacological biodiversity, geo- logical resource extraction, export-crop science, population studies, and labor pool maintenance. As a case in point, the University of Ghana (UG) has enhanced its international image over the last decade by drastically narrowing its research focus to those fields whose earliest antecedents garnered the investment of British colonial administrations. By 2014 UG achieved the coveted recognition of the World Bank (WB) as an African Centre of Excellence, receiving several millions of dollars from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) investment consortium for its programs in genetically

-markets-and-the-future-of-higher-education-by-andrew-mcgettigan/2003183.article (accessed 5 October 2013). See also Ivan Addae-Mensah, “Education in Ghana: A tool for social mobility or social stratification?” The J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures (Ghana Academy of the Arts and Sciences; Accra: Institute for Scientific and Technological Information, April 2000), Ali Mazrui, “Towards Re-Africanizing African Universities: Who killed intellectualism in the post-colonial era?” Alternatives Turkish Journal of International Relations 2.3–4 (Fall–Winter 2003): 134–163, Ashis Nandy, “Recovery of indigenous knowledge and dissecting futures of the University,” in The University in Transformation: Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University, ed. Sohail Inayatulla & Jennifer Gidley (Westport CT: Greenwood, 2000): 115–123, R. Cranford Pratt, “African University and Western Tradition: Some East African Reflections,” Journal of Modern African Studies 3.3 (October 1965): 421–428, Stephen J. Rosow, “Global Knowledge, the University and Democratic Politics,” in The Transformation of the University: Politics, Economy, Democracy, ed. Stephen J. Rosow & Thomas Kriger (New York: Lexington, 2010): 236–245, Joel Samoff & Bidemi Carrol, From Manpower planning to the knowledge era and “The Promise of Partnership and Continuities of Dependence,” Akilagpa Sawyerr, “Challenges Facing African Universities: Selected Issues,” African Studies Review 47.1 (April 2004): 1–59, “Invitation to a discussion of the renewal of African Universities,” Internet com- muniqué from Secretary General of Association of African Universities listserv members, [email protected] (received 16 May 2006), and “The politics of knowledge production and its applications as a public good in the era of globalization,” in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub Saharan, 2012): 65–76, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, “Europhone or African Memory: the Challenge of the Pan-Africanist Intellectual in the Era of Globalization,” Wajibu: Journal of Religious and Social Concern 21 (nd), http://africa.peacelink.org/wajibu/articles/art_7516. html (accessed 24 December 2007), Asavia Wandira, “University and community: evolving perceptions of the African University,” Higher Education 10.3 (May 1981): 253–273, Hans N. Weiler, “Whose knowledge matters? Development and the politics of knowledge” (2009), http://www.stanford.edu/~weiler/Texts09/Weiler_Molt_09.pdf (accessed 4 November 2013), World Bank, Constructing Knowledge Societies, and Paul Zeleza, “African Universities and Globalisation,” Feminist Africa 1 (2002), http://agi.ac.za/feminist-africa-issue-1-2002-intel lectual-politics (accessed 22 September 2013), Rethinking Africa’s Globalization, vol. 1: The Intellectual Challenges (Trenton NJ: Africa World Press, 2003), and “African Studies and Universities since Independence,” Transition 101 (2009): 110–135. Beyond the Labor Market 49 engineered crop research, tropical disease medicine, forensic biochemistry, and birth-rate monitoring, combined with malaria prophylaxis.10 Despite these celebrated achievements, this dual agenda is not a particularly promising strategy for the long term.11 The key point normally overlooked is that equity and diversity are just as essential in the collaborative pursuit of quality research, in accord with modern methods of basic and applied science, as they are central to the pursuit of social justice. Free market enthusiasts suppose the advantage of a competitive market for global knowledge production is its utility as an impartial mechanism that rewards only the fittest research initiatives and best results, while weeding out inferior products and weak proposals sustained by populist appeal and the vested interests of power blocs. This chapter aims at demonstrating that this conviction is not substantiated in practice.12 It will be shown that the neo-liberal economists’ prescriptions for increasing the relevance of African public universities in their respective national agendas are unrealistic. Further, the evidence presented here offers little to vindicate the growing cargo-cult confidence that an accelerating informatics platform will lift a newly interconnected humanity triumphantly over the old inequities of capitalism. At the low end of the global wage earning hierarchy, the impact of cutting edge robotic informatics is likely to hit the migrant labor community hardest and soonest. As the European Union sorts out its legal and moral stance concerning the war refugees from Western Asia since 2015, the question of how to treat economic refugees from Africa is fading away without debate. Meanwhile, advances in automated artificial intelligence

10 As reported by the Ghana News Agency (2014) “World Bank to Finance 19 Centers of Excellence to Help Transform Science, Tech, and Higher Education In Africa.” The University of Ghana is listed in 2014 as receiving ACE awards “in Agriculture for training Plant Breeders, Seed Scientists and Technologists […] in Health for Biology of Infectious Pathogens, also for Neglected Tropical Diseases and Forensic Biotechnology […]. ‘I am excited to support these pioneering centers of excellence because they will be another step in building and nurturing specialized world-class higher education institutions on the continent’, said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice-President for Africa. Quoting Peter Materu, the World Bank Education Manager for West & Central Africa: ‘The African Centers of Excellence project is a win-win initiative it will help these young people achieve their aspirations without leaving Africa, and it will help firms to find advanced skills and knowledge domestically as well as enable them to compete more effectively on the international market’”; http://www.ghananewsagency.org/education/ace-project -steering-committee-holds-meeting-74993 (19 May 2014) (accessed 21 June 2014). 11 I am grateful to Ronald Dworkin for observing the polarization of economics and ethics into distinct environments as characteristic of modern liberal thought. See Dworkin, “Liberal Community,” California Law Review 77 (1989): 478–506. 12 Nor is it substantiated in principle; see Alvin L. Goldman & James C. Cox, “Speech, truth and the free market for ideas,” Legal Theory 2 (1996): 1–32. 50 Lauer are stealthily eliminating the last apolitical defense for accepting immigrant quotas to fill menial jobs that European nationals do not want to do. Those who can pay will be provided with the optimal efficiency of personable machinery to do their factory work and hospital duties, chauffeuring, household and office chores, diagnostic and surgical procedures, child and elder care, legal research assistance, and business accounting tasks. Computerized machinery is slated to become the one-step solvent for all the social problems of sustaining an ostracized, immigrated human labor force. Already at ports in the Ukraine, radiological automation in business registration, licensing, excise control and regulation purportedly corrects corruption and poor governance.13 Meanwhile, at the top end of the global division of intellectual labor, creative ingenuity has been monopolized and bankrolled annually in the billions of dollars. It is the research agendas featured in the highest profile scientific industries that suffer the most tightly orchestrated controls, which defeat the practice of good science and thwart effective applications in the Two-Thirds World.14 Perverting effects of research cartelism are by no means restricted to the industries designed for developing markets in poor countries. Disregarding standards of sufficient evidence, suppressing or discrediting counterevidence, crippling rival hypotheses and stigmatizing controversy continue unrestricted in astrophysics,15 as indeed in any field where a sufficiently lucrative research program requires protection.16 Consequently, science-for-profit has been indicted for the worst crises facing humanity in the twenty-first century. One of these crises is the general derail- ment of confidence in the rhetoric of human decency, enshrined in humanitar- ian covenants and the procedures of international justice designed to uphold

13 “Deregulations at Ukraine Sea Ports.” Posted by Scan-shipping October 19, 2015. http:// www.scan-shipping.com/Ukraine/news/771/Deregulations-at-Ukraine-Sea-Ports.html. Accessed November 5, 2015. 14 Henry H. Bauer, Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2012); Kojo Amanor, “Global Food Chains, African Smallholders and World Bank Governance,” Journal of Agrarian Change 9.2 (April 2009): 247–262; Peter Gøtzsche, Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare (London: Radcliffe, 2013); David Healy, Pharmageddon (Berkeley: U of California P, 2012). I adopt the tongue-in- cheek improvement ‘Two-Thirds World’ on the tired label ‘Third World’ used by David Bussau (2013), founder of Opportunity International, when interviewed on the BBC World Service by Peter Day, in Global Business, 2009. 15 Bauer (Dogmatism in Science and Medicine, 57) cites as one example the big bang theory of cosmogony and the associated positing of dark matter and energy. 16 Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber, Trust Us, We Are Experts!—How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future (New York: Putnam, 2001). Beyond the Labor Market 51 them. This deep cynicism is coupled with a misplaced confidence that cutting edge technology will deliver one-step solutions to longstanding distributive imbalances in the costs and benefits of social services and economic goods worldwide.17 Technocratic hubris and disregard for the biosphere’s fragility have resulted in a second global crisis, described as “the tragedy of the global commons” by the economist Robert Cox, influenced by Teilhard de Chardin.18 In what follows, I attempt to show why a global knowledge economy able to resolve these crises would be one that rewards cross cultural equity and inclusive diversity in its core principles of collaborative research and scholarship, particularly in any project or application whose objective is articulated in the post-2015 UN Sustainable Millennium Development Goals.19 I will first canvass some of the advantageous characteristics of students and academics located in contemporary postcolonial communities around the world who assume perspectives and experiences that are not replicated in academic communities based in G-8 countries. In their geopolitical “frontier or boundary position,”20 African universities are uniquely situated to train the future leaders of a parallel knowledge community which is digitally inclusive yet not cyber-entrapped, one which straddles real-time economies of radically different scale. Then I will present considerations which reveal the contrapositive situation that prevails today: i.e. one of cross-cultural epistemic injustices that mutually reinforce profit-driven science, thereby depreciating the efficacy and quality of globally assembled knowledge products. The label ‘epistemic injustice’21 is a

17 These imbalances are across the board. They include entitlements to trade protection- ism under regulations of World Trade Organization, patent protections initiated by World Intellectual Property Organisation, entitlements of war refugees seeking safety and asy- lum as enshrined in UN covenants and conventions, or entitlement to vote in the World Health Assembly. 18 Robert W. Cox, “Social forces, states and world orders: beyond international relations theory” (1981), in Neo-Realism and its Critics, ed. R. O. Keohane (New York: Columbia UP, 1986): 204–254; Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, tr. Bernard Wall (1955; New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959). 19 CIGI, Toward a Post-2015 Development Paradigm (Working paper 11; Bellagio: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies & Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation. 20–24 June 2011). 20 Alisdair MacIntyre, “Relativism, Power, and Philosophy” (1985) in After Philosophy: End or Transformation?, ed. Kenneth Baynes et al. (Cambridge MA & London: MIT Press, 1987): 385. 21 Miranda Fricker, “Epistemic Oppression and Epistemic Privilege,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplement 25 (1999): 191–210, and Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (London: Oxford UP, 2007); Elizabeth Anderson, “Epistemic justice as a virtue of social institutions,” Social Epistemology 26.2 (2012): 163–173. 52 Lauer well established fixture among social epistemologists22 who focus upon inde- fensible practices of dismissing testimony because its source is deemed incapable of mature, rational judgment or of authoritative, reliable opinion. I apply the notion cross culturally and more generally here to denote those protocols which systematically discourage foreign researchers, education consultants and their local collaborators in Africa from equitable and inclusive consul- tation with their locally based African informants, students, or professional peers as credible and authoritative consultants on grounds of their regional or national identity. International collaborations and advanced training programs which service development initiatives in Africa routinely delegitimize controversy or simply disregard corrective critiques originating from African specialists and from informed members of indigenous African communities. The result is a disregard or truncation of the standard procedures of scientific conjecture and refutation. Of course, the suppression of counter-evidence and protection of high- profile hypotheses is by no means restricted to scientific work in Africa. However, for the purpose of marketing products and experimenting with com- moditized innovations in Africa, the global knowledge community tolerates— indeed, requires—serious lapses in scientific rigor and deviations from the norms of quality research, statistical reports, projections, and regulatory standards—norms and standards which are taken for granted in G8 countries. To demonstrate such shortfalls in this very brief compass I will draw from publicized facts about the international ‘Ebola crisis response’ of 2014 in West Africa.

1 Epistemic Advantages of Knowledge Production in the Global South

Suppose the value of a knowledge product were measured in degrees of capacity to serve the global community as suggested here, by addressing the twenty-first century’s crises of moral autism and overconfidence in new technologies. Then a university that is meeting standards of global excellence would encourage its faculties and train its students not only to fill niches with technical specialization that fulfil lucrative foreign agendas but also to engage in critical reflective analysis of those agendas within and across disciplines. African systems of academic reward and recognition would encourage

22 Steve Fuller, “Social Epistemology: A Quarter Century Itinerary,” Social Epistemology 26.3– 4 (2012): 267–283. Beyond the Labor Market 53 scholars and researchers to ask awkward questions about how global agendas are determined, how expertise is accredited, and what justifies the assumption of authority in a given domain. They would privilege scrupulous attention to the way standards for quality assurance and accountability are set and enforced, and they would encourage analyzing the historical circumstances and political conditions under which such standards are disregarded, by whom, and for what purposes. Policy analysts and theoretical adjudicators straddling discourses sustained both online and offline would be adept at widening the portals of data collection to include the complexity of analogue experiences and range of perspectives that are filtered out by automated management of information transmitted today through the Internet. Perhaps future generations of individual scholars remaining unaffiliated with knowledge monopolies or research cartels, by choice or by digital default, will traverse informal networks of traditional academic discourse. They may augment the mainstream online industries, ‘logging on’ to ‘pirate’ data produced by high-speed automated processors, translating it into natural seman- tics and sharing it in accord with bygone ideals of public rights to information. Or they may subject tacitly approved online publications to real-time critical analysis, testing them against raw data alongside alternative models and evidence-based rival theories in accordance with classic principles of eliminative induction and autonomous critical thinking. Perhaps in these digital gutters hand-held books and periodicals or their future facsimiles will still be published as physical objects. Thus a parallel non-digitalized knowledge economy may develop, reminiscent of the informal economic sectors that mushroomed in the post-industrial age throughout the Two-Thirds World. It is by training individual scholars and researchers to build corrective and innovative bridges between online information processors, and the traditional modes of knowledge production in its informal sector, that African universities are well suited to help in solving the global crises just described. This is where liberal arts training drawn from a cross-cultural base renders itself irreplaceable for building a more equitable and ecologically sustainable world order.23 Graduates from the most prestigious universities of Africa should take away with them experience in conducting sustained independent inquiry, critical analysis,

23 Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Edu- cation (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1997), “Liberal Education & Global Community,” Liberal Education 90.1 (Winter 2004), https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/ periodicals/liberal-education-global-community (accessed 1 November 2015), and “Cul- tivating Humanity and World Citizenship,” Forum Futures (Cambridge MA: Forum for the Future of Higher Education, 2007): 37–40, https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ ff0709s.pdf (accessed 1 November 2015). 54 Lauer philosophical reflection, evidence-based as well as speculative theorizing, and moral reasoning. Advanced digital technology cannot insure delivery of these discursive skills, nor can it replace the need for them. Such conceptual tools are needed by free-thinking job seekers to explore the future directions and broader ramifications of the digital knowledge economy they aim to join. In the long term, these are the same skills that graduates need to formulate considered opinions that may deepen understanding of the human condition to cultivate informed personal preferences rather than unwittingly adaptive ones.24 These are the tools needed for participat- ing in social transformation without resorting to destructive retaliation, and for protecting agitated individuals against the domination of warlords and ideological despots. More circumspectly, by failing to cultivate hermeneutic, creative thinking and critical reasoning in their graduates, the institutions recently anointed with World Bank recognition as African Centres of Excellence have acquired their prestige at the expense of their populations’ deepening dependency upon foreigners to interpret what Africans need in order to improve their economies, health care delivery, life expectancy, and quality of life. In this respect, African higher education planners and administrators may be complicit in what critical theorists have dubbed ‘hermeneutical hegemony’25 and what Miranda Fricker labels “hermeneutical injustice.”26

2 False Promises of the New Information Economy

Some have argued that although cross cultural epistemic injustices and profit- oriented command and control hierarchies do impede the quality of international knowledge production, an immanent revolutionary transformation through digitalized information systems will eliminate all of that.27 Digital

24 Ann E. Cudd, “Adaptations to Oppression: Preference, Autonomy, and Resistance,” in Autonomy and Social Oppression: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Marina Oshana (New York: Routledge, 2016): 142–160. 25 Tsenay Serequeberhan, “African philosophy as the practice of resistance,” Journal of Philosophy: A Cross Disciplinary Inquiry 4.9 (Spring 2009), https://www.questia.com/ library/journal/1G1-218028476/african-philosophy-as-the-practice-of-resistance (accessed 1 November 2015). 26 Fricker, “Powerlessness and Social Interpretation,” Episteme 3.1–2 (2006): 96. See also Fricker, “Hermeneutical Injustice,” in Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (London: Oxford UP, 2007): 147–175. 27 Alan Liu, “Where is cultural criticism in the digital humanities?” in Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Matthew K. Gold (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2012): 490–509; The SAGE Handbook of Digital Technology Research, ed. Sara Price, Carey Jewitt & Barry Brown Beyond the Labor Market 55

employment agents boast of a borderless future that will ensure jobs for college graduates independent of their geographic location. Perhaps a tiny frac- tion of job seekers in Harare and Accra will have the consistent infrastructural capacity to compete online for stay-at-home commissions issued from cyber hubs in California, Tokyo, Berlin, and London.28 However, the overall and immediate advantage of generating high volumes of minimally digital-savvy graduates goes to the buyers on the computational labor market, since swelling the competitive applicant pool will decrease their costs of filling low-end, fast-turnover vacancies. From the standpoint of democratizing the opportunity for gainful employment and narrowing the divide between the rich and the destitute, there will be no way to measure whether greater penetration of Internet connectivity in Africa is having the promised effect if there is no real- istic unemployment index to monitor the penetrated populations. For instance, Ghana is statistically highest among African countries on the global Internet user index.29 But Ghana’s unemployment indicator is estimated from abroad, based on projection models of the International Labor Organization,30 using data extrapolated from the national census survey records. The input of local raw employment data is organized in ways that obfuscate the glaring realities of Ghana’s ‘informal sector’ for upwards of eighty percent of the nation’s workforce, including those with tertiary level certificates and diplomas, according to the most recent estimates of Ghana’s national Trade Union Congress.31 Ghana’s latest census survey in 2011 diffuses a range of unviable pay terms and working conditions by refracting the prized status of being ‘employed’ in any way at all through a prism of seven occupation categories. Apart from salaried wage earning, these categories consist of self-employment with employed subordinates, self-employment without employees, working as a casual laborer, contributing directly to one’s family,

(Thousand Oaks CA & London: Sage, 2013); Colin Ripley, “Digital Distinction: Towards a technological criticism,” Volume 36 (Amsterdam: Archis, 2013), https://www.academia .edu/10818546/Digital_Distraction_Towards_a_Technological_Criticism (accessed 2 October 2015). 28 As portrayed by Cynthia Breazeal, CEO of Jibo Robotics, “Artificial Intelligence,” The Revolutionaries series, BBC World Service (10 October 2015). 29 “World Internet Usage and Population Statistics 2015,” mid-year update (30 June 2015), http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Penetration rate is lowest in Africa, at 27.5% of the continent’s population. 30 World Bank, “2015 Unemployment, total (% of total labor force)” (2015), data.worldbank .org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS (accessed 19 October 2015). 31 Clara Osei-Boateng & Edward Ampratwum, “The informal sector in Ghana,” Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Ghana Office (October 2011 Research Report): 12–14, library.fes.de/pdf-files/ bueros/Ghana/10496.pdf (accessed 19 October 2015). 56 Lauer domestic work, and apprenticeship.32 Apart from the inability to enforce the mechanisms of withdrawing taxable revenue from employment catalogued in such ways, some of these postings arguably should not be considered gainful work at all, because the terms and conditions entailed could not be bind- ing by contract in the legal sense of an agreement established between fully informed, voluntarily consenting rational adults. The terms and conditions of ‘stay at home’ digital graphic design and data processing contracts are unlikely to address either of these problems of the bloated informal economic sectors of Africa’s cosmopolitan cities. On balance, the net effect of digitalizing labor in Africa is likely to increase pressure on municipalities already unable to supply residents with adequate—or, indeed, any—electricity, potable water, housing, sanitation, and unequipped to manage the next generation of urban jolts due to rising sea levels and global warming: i.e. mass migrations of flood and drought refugees seeking employment in tropical coastal cities.33 Despite the assurances that high-speed computing and the Internet are drawing us all closer together, the considerations assembled here suggest that advances in computer industries are deepening the digital divide and moving the continents further apart economically. Expanding Internet access in Africa beyond the mere ten percent of the world’s online activity will not bridge this growing divide. Nor should this be surprising; it is a platitude of development economics that technical solutions applied in vacuo generally fail to yield their intended results.34 Kentaro Toyama attributes Africa’s numerous disappointing ICT upsets to an inherent incapacity or torpid unwillingness on the part of recipient governments and citizenry to engage wholeheartedly with the new technology tar- geted at them by business marketing developers working full time in earnest to expand their coverage into developing economies.35 On the contrary: the hierarchical structure in the division of intellectual labor worldwide is reflected in ICT itself, reinforcing rather than overcoming legacies of polarizing enmity between knowledge traditions identified as folkloric, reticent, derivative and associated with the global South’s impoverishment, versus the inviolable presumption of superior scientific authority attributed tacitly to knowledge

32 Ghana Statistical Service, 2010 Population and Housing Census Survey Report (Accra: Ghana Statistical Service, May 2012): xiii. 33 David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: the coming of age of the urban guerilla (London: C. Hurst, 2013). 34 Patricia Stamp, Gender, Power, and Technology (Ottawa: International Development and Research Centre, 1989). 35 Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology (New York: Public Affairs, 2015). Beyond the Labor Market 57 produced in wealthy technocracies. Two prominent hypotheses supporting massive research bankrolls which retain their ascendancy through suppression and censorship of counterevidence sourced from academics in developing economies, yet which nonetheless define the international blueprint to relieve the global health burden and alleviate poverty, are, respectively: (i) the conviction that procreative sex is the chief cause of immunity dysfunction and premature death in Africa,36 and (ii) the replacement of smallholder farming by mono-agriculture and supermarket chain consolidation as the most efficient means of ensuring food security in agrarian based economies.37

3 Knowledge Producers as Global Crisis Solvers

Expanding the agendas of universities based in Africa is critical not just for Africans, but for the entire human family. The majority of populations worldwide need audible spokespersons to talk back to dominant agents controlling global markets, because international aid in pursuit of development goals continues to prioritize the interests of multinational capital accumulators and consolidators. In the highest profile academic discourse of global justice and human rights, the business interests of corporate shareholders compete on a par with the survival needs of African nationals in the negotiation of international health policies.38 For instance, consider the recent media spotlight featuring a grievous public health crisis in West Africa.39 It is common knowledge throughout the region that minimizing premature mortality, immune

36 Bauer, Dogmatism in Science and Medicine. 37 Kojo Amanor, “Global Food Chains, African Smallholders and World Bank Governance.” 38 Thomas Pogge, “Human Rights and Global Health: A research programme,” Meta philosophy 36.1–2 (January 2005): 182–209, and The Health Impact Fund: More justice and efficiency in global health (Development Policy Center Discussion Paper 7; Canberra: Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, 2011); Udo Schüklenk & Richard Ashcroft, “Affordable access to essential medicines in developing countries: conflicts between ethical and economic imperatives,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 27.2 (2002): 179–195; UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO, UN system task team on the Post-2015 UN Development Health Agenda (Geneva, April 2013), http://www.post2015hlp.org/wp -content/uploads/2013/04/health-in-the-post-2015-agenda_LR.pdf (accessed 15 October 2014); Margaret Whitehead, The Concepts and Principles of Equity and Health (Europe health for all series 1, EUR/ICP/RPD4147734r; Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2000). The rights to health and food security are declared in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Article 25.1, and in its International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (1976) Article 12.1. 39 World Bank Group, The Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic (Washington DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2014). 58 Lauer deficiency, and chronic contagions requires multisectoral solutions to ensure safe drinking water, well-ventilated housing, non-polluting stoves, sanitation and sewage infrastructure, food security by means of smallholders retaining land access, capacity, and choice,40 road networks linking farms to markets, post-harvest storage and food processing facilities, protected fishing waters, wetlands and biodiversity,41 primary care and maternity services, and affordable antidotes to drug-resistant bacteria and parasites. The failure of global beneficiaries to direct their billions of dollars to promising and cost-effective, low-tech, locally informed programs is due in part to complicit suppression of African voices of relevant authority. The resulting legacy of global ignorance about Africans’ actual epidemiology pre-empts progressive initiatives generated by locally based African experts regardless of the international recognition these specialists may command.42 Such complicity conveniently serves purposes of authorities controlling the international community’s resources committed to post 2015-Millennium Development Goals.43 Thus, the hermeneutic hegemony that discounts African judgement and direction contributes crucially to a very lucrative practical arrangement: drugs are repurposed and declared ‘essential’ for Africa at the discretion of manufac- turing innovators themselves.44 These innovations are endorsed by collaborat- ing research institutes, editorial boards of scholarly and scientific publishing

40 Kojo Amanor, “African Engagements: On Whose Terms?” ECAS 4th European Conference on African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, 15–18 June 2011 (Panel 103: Pathways of social- economic integration. Inclusion and exclusion of migrants in Africa). 41 Samuel Sackey, “Going Back in Time: The Science Behind Cultural Practices that Preserved Ghanaian Lagoon Ecologies until the Advent of Western Religion and ‘Civilisation’,” paper presented at the Fiftieth International Anniversary Conference of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, 24 November 2013. 42 Badu A. Akosa, “Thinking forward, moving forward: planning the future of Ghana’s health care delivery.” Ethical Issues in HIV and AIDS Management, HIVMasters Programme Course Reader, ed. Helen Lauer (University of Ghana Institute of Continuing and Distance Education, 2013): 365–407. 43 CIGI, Toward a Post-2015 Development Paradigm; A. Claire Cutler, “Locating ‘Authority’ in the Global Political Economy,” International Studies Quarterly 43.1 (1999): 59–81, and Private Power and Global Authority: Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003). In the application of medical research money: 90% of global funding is employed by non-African research institutes and focussed on 10% of global pathogens; while roughly 90% of the global burden of disease is borne in Africa. See A. B. Akosa, former President of the Commonwealth Medical Association and former Director General of the Ghana Health Services (“Thinking forward, moving forward”). 44 The excessive focus on essential drugs and technical innovations in pursuit relieving the global disease burden from the global South has been addressed by, for example, Anup Shah, Pharmaceutical corporations and medical research (12 May 2000), http://www. Beyond the Labor Market 59 houses, public interest organizations and oversight agencies including the UN World Health Organisation (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), all partners in research and information whose persistence depends upon funding by the very manufacturers whose activities they are designed to monitor and advertise.45 In consequence, theorizing about how to alleviate the public health threats borne by Africans continues largely unimpeded by feedback revealing first hand experiences and facts on the ground. For example, over eighteen months through 2014 and 2015, hyperbolic claims were made about a sudden and singular cause of the abysmally poor longevity prospects of three war-torn nations in West Africa, purportedly overwhelmed by a viral epidemic of world-threatening proportion. 11,300 people were declared dead over the period because of an outbreak of ebola. The CDC and WHO are unable to offer a breakdown of how many of these deaths were male, or how many were children under twelve, or how many patients in the same locations died of malaria or TB or diabetic shock, pneumonia or gastro entiritis or malnutrition related diseases over the same period—fatal diseases indiscernible from early symptoms of ebola.46 Subsequently, the global media repetitively showered copious praise upon the pharmaceutical consortium which first statistically created an apparently urgent need, thereby fulfilling the WHO requirement to begin human experimental trials for vaccine research in the region, to avert the horrific crisis from recurring in future.

globalissues.org/article/52/pharmaceutical-corporations-and-medical-research (accessed 15 October 2014). 45 For example, in March 2014 Glaxo Smith Kline received a rejection by the World Health Organization of its application to begin human experimental trials of a vaccine in West Africa to combat ebola. Through subsequent management of media attention to wildly escalating figures the WHO launched a mass media mea culpa campaign, reiterating its retraction of the refusal to begin human trials. The “dangerous epidemic […] required by WHO Ethics Committee for human experimentation trials to be approved” having been established and the veto authority of the WHO wholly subjugated, GSK, Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson moved forward in 2015 with their planned mass immunization trials. Peter Piot, HardTalk, BBC World Service (6 October 2014). In Ghana, where no ebola sufferers have been detected, vaccine trials were publicly resisted. By 12 June 2015, the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences initiated a formal inquiry and warning to the Ghana Government concerning safety and efficacy of the trials, commensurate with the public outcry. http://citifmonline.com/2015/06/12/govt-was-warned-against-ebola-vaccine-trial -academy-of-arts-and-sciences (accessed 18 October 2015). 46 John S. Schieffelin, Jeffrey G. Shaffer, Augustine Goba et al., “Clinical Illness and Outcomes in Patients with Ebola in Sierra Leone,” New England Journal of Medicine 371.22 (29 October 2014): 2092–2100. 60 Lauer

Yet the Global Burden of Disease Study at Harvard consistently concludes that the cause of death can be determined reliably for only 1.1 percent of all mortalities in Africa.47 A BBC World Service Global Health correspondent divulged that during the eighteen months of declaring cases of ebola in West Africa, all diagnoses depended upon the use of fourteen different tests throughout the region, none of which are considered reliable; substantial evidence was available in 2010 of the inefficacy of some of these tests.48 Even on the day the WHO declared the outbreak in Sierra Leone officially over, research was still in progress to find a reliable test for ebola.49 More recently, a purported ebola case of a nurse returned to Scotland from Sierra Leone relapsed, only for the Royal Free Hospital to reveal a week later its error in diagnosing what was really meningitis.50 Without a comprehensive picture there is really no way to assess the main causes of death in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone over 2014, nor the extent to which ebola posed the global threat that populations in G-8 countries were (literally) made to fear (through strategic use of projections based on dubious statistics generated from faulty diagnostic instruments and ad-hoc data collection). This is just one Instagram of how the management of global ignorance about the causes and effects of entrenched poverty ensures that the real but hidden costs and values of human flourishing—not just on the African continent but around the world—remain beyond the measurement of current market indi- cators. In the interest of marketing pharmaceutical and public health innovations on a mass scale, obfuscating the causes of egregiously high mortality rates is ethically dubious. To observers, at best it counts as junk science.51 Yet in principle and practice, research findings and investigative results continue to be collated, sifted, and analyzed in light of theories and models immune to revision or replacement if doing so might threaten a lucrative research and product development agenda.

47 This lack of reliable diagnosis has been the norm since the early 1980s with the renaming of several different known contagious killers under the obscuring umbrella labeling of ‘opportunistic infections’ caused by ‘HIV’. 48 Pierre Becquart, Nadia Wauquier, Dieudonné Nkoghe et al., “High Prevalence of Both Humoral and Cellular Immunity to Zaire ebolavirus Among Rural Populations in Gabon,” PLoS One 5.2 (9 February 2010): e9126. 49 Tulip Mazuma, reporting from Connaught Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone. BBC Worldservice News broadcast the end of the outbreak on 5 November 2015 and pointed out the reliable test was still being sought. 50 BBC World Service News broadcast, 21 October 2015. 51 Bauer, Dogmatism in Science and Medicine; Gøtzsche, Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime. Beyond the Labor Market 61

Therefore, to solve global crises and to attain long term international development goals that have been set and reset under the aegis of the United Nations, the digital gateways for transmitting information need to be multi di- rectional, and the nature of the information transmitted requires value-added input from all directions. Filtering, synthesizing, analyzing, and assessing the significance of data cannot be effectively managed by software programs that self-correct independently of the full analogue range of varied conditions and circumstances that prevail worldwide. To pick one more example of the obstacles to quality knowledge circulation and utilization due to the epistemic imbalance inherent in the technology of the digital information economy: recall the development economist’s old adage that it is better to teach a starving man to fish than to give him fish. But contemporary Ghanaians already know how to fish. Dubbed the ‘Norwegians of Africa’ for generations, they do not need to be taught their livelihood anymore than they need handouts. Rather, Ghanaians and their counterparts in Senegal need a platform for sharing their knowledge of marine ecology with multinational steel fishing trawlers to stop bulldozing sea floors which renders vast hectares of ocean bottom into desert wastelands52 West African fishermen along the Gulf of Guinea need to instruct offshore oil rigs whose week-long flares, constant operational noise, and lighting are destroying marine life patterns and disrupting anglers’ and net casters’ access to shoals.53 African institutions of advanced study are well placed to do more in the future global academic environment than continue as glamorized field stations for data collection that is assembled and analyzed in distant cyber hubs where transnational business elites’ traditional beliefs and fantasies of universal public good direct the course of theory and application.54 There is a place in the future knowledge society for articulators and brokers of the real needs

52 Richard Black, “Deep-sea trawling’s great harm,” BBC Worldservice Science in Action (2004), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3719590.stm (accessed 10 October 2015); Dan Vergano, “Deep-sea trawling may have devasting consequences,” National Geographic (posted 19 May 2014), http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140519-bottom -trawling-seafloor-ocean-damage-science (accessed 15 October 2015). 53 Nii Otu-Laryea, Ga fisherman crew head, in conversation August 2003, Accra. 54 This point, and indeed the disaffection of policy-setting African universities as servicing current job market demands, was anticipated over a decade ago by the former Secretary General of the Association of African Universities, Akilagpa Sawyerr (“Challenges Facing African Universities: Selected Issues”) and reiterated more recently in his presidential address to the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) 17 November 2015 on the occasion of Founder’s Week lecture series, Accra, Ghana. I am grateful to the GAAS for commissioning an ancestor of this paper “Higher Education Beyond the Labour Market” for Founder’s Week seminar series (18 November 2014). 62 Lauer of the global community, needs which are yet to be interpreted and fulfilled because their subjects lack bargaining power in the global markets. And these facilitators of global justice are likely to be intellectuals of the global South. The varied standpoints of knowledge producers in the global South are not just different in kind from their counterparts based in G-8 countries; the views of the African intelligentsia may also be more advantageous, based on criteria used conventionally for evaluating the quality of a scientific theory: viz. comprehensiveness, impartiality, and heuristic power. Academics based in postcolonial societies have a greater chance of being more impartial than their counterparts in G-8 countries because their location in the Two-Thirds World avails them of first-hand experience with conditions that are demographi- cally more representative of the circumstances of the majority of the world’s population.55 Those academics working offline in subordinate positions in the global economic hierarchy may draw conclusions that are optimally comprehensive and exhaustive in coverage of the relevant data. This is because their awareness of ongoing events and the effects of globalization upon “remote peoples in distant countries”56 is not remote to them, nor is their awareness wholly mediated by digitalized imagery. The views of cosmopolitan academics based in postcolonial societies, particularly those who collaborate with indigenous local experts, are likely to be heuristically valuable worldwide because they assess current events from a wider, more varied repertoire of political experience than is accessible through the Internet. Their discourse is based on access to data which has not been retrieved, filtered, packaged, and delivered as a cybernetic commodity. Finally, it is worth considering that trouble shooting and whistle-blowing are not the only jobs that require critical hermeneutics. The heuristic value of African academic standpoints was anticipated by the prescient Otto Neurath, who observed the loss of insight due to his peers’ traditional European delin- eation of knowledge that isolates theories into “political economics, history, sociology […] religion, science law and so on,” whereby, without “delimiting” differently, they will never be able to penetrate “the total process of life.”57 Contrast, for example, the effective practices of healing specialists in the Dagara-speaking communities in northern Ghana, illuminated by the Dagara

55 Here I am extending to the global knowledge economy Alison Jaggar’s insight about the epistemic asymmetry built into the economic stratification within a capitalist society; Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Totowa NJ: Rowman & Allanhead, 1983): 371. 56 Marilyn Friedman, “Educating for World Citizenship,” Ethics 110.3 (April 2000): 591. 57 Otto Neurath, “Empirical Sociology” (1931), in Empiricism and Sociology, ed. Marie Neurath & Robert S. Cohen (Dordrecht: Riedel, 1973): 345, 352. Beyond the Labor Market 63 anthropologist Alexis Tengan.58 These specialists also serve as itinerant medical practitioners all around Ghana’s second-largest city, Kumasi. Despite the Dagara medicine expert’s success in treating a major subset of his communities’ ailments and injuries with virtually no material resources whatsoever, his practice gets dismissed summarily as dangerous quackery and superstition, devoid of intellectual rigor or epistemic content. His arduous and lengthy period of training in the bagr sεbla tradition59 yields expertise in cosmology, spirituality, physics, art, anatomy, and medicine. This epistemic framework does not involve compartmentalizing knowledge into mutually exclusive domains. Consequently, there is no international legal recognition of Dagara medicine specialists or their materials. Their counterparts in the rainforests of Cameroon and Madagascar contribute to visiting foreign research teams’ crucial germplasm and indigenous knowledge of the medicinal qualities of local biodiversity, again without protection or remuneration of their intellectual or material property. Yet, as a result, synthesized derivatives and patented nutritional supplements, food processing additives, treatments for diabetes, glaucoma, childhood leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, and the severe pain associated with terminal states of cancer60 are yielding profits for shareholders of multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers. Meanwhile, the communities where these ‘discoveries’ originated never benefit from these products, if they even know of their existence. The point is clear: indigenous experts need hermeneutic partners in academia to interpolate their contributions to the international public. For another example, a pioneer biochemist Samuel Sackey has illuminated the importance of foregrounding axioms of indigenous Ga religion, metaphysics, earth science, and environmental protection which have governed artisanal uses of wetlands over past centuries.61 Through Sackey’s facilitation, central state technocrats of Ghana’s national Environmental Protection Agency now work with elder conservationists, artisanal salt producers, and local fishermen to merge their customary religious observances with formal regulations,

58 Alexis B. Tengan, “Language use in the study of African medicine, religion and art,” paper delivered at the 50th Anniversary Celebratory International Conference on African Studies, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, 24–26 October 2013. 59 Alexis B. Tengan, Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara Black Bagr (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006). 60 Ivan Addae-Mensah, “The Protection of African intellectual property and plant biodiversity,” reprinted in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2012): 152–163. 61 Sackey, “Going Back in Time.” 64 Lauer to modernize district-level policy. Without such hermeneutic brokering, this advance in contemporary environmental legislation would not be feasible.

4 Conclusion

I have been painting an optimistic future containing a transformative knowledge economy, an informal sector that will augment the mainstream digital data mining monolith of tomorrow. I have tried to demonstrate the fitness of African universities to train knowledge workers who can bridge the digital divide and occupy this parallel academic universe, traversing knowledge production between platforms operating in different ways and at different speeds. In future generations, computerized data processing and knowledge production can be expected to transform the very nature of cognition, through increasingly integrated cyber networks extending and merging the neo-cortical activity of ‘logged on’ individuals’ as nodes within an encompassing computational platform.62 But a supplementary knowledge network will most likely persist globally through non-digital communication that comprises the peripheral byroads and side lanes of traffic between offline neighborhoods and those individuals with only partial or occasional access to the high-profile serv- ers signaling in cyberspace. I suggested that today’s mainstream profit-driven knowledge society, rapidly restructuring through informatics, has already established new norms of automated data management, through suppression of data, censorship of controversy, and reward of dogmatic obedience typical of authoritarian epistemic regimes that prevailed in medieval Europe before the Enlightenment. For the moment, the screening and filtering is still affected fiscally and slowly rather than digitally and instantaneously: in today’s global knowledge society, the wealthiest bidders determine the production agenda. Allocation of resources, evaluation of proposals, vetting of results, assessing significance and relevance—all this is organized in cartels. In these cartels, hermeneutic skills of contestation and critical theory are disregarded as producing only extraneous noise. Correlatively, the professionals who staff Africa’s leading research and academic institutions are recognized as reliable international partners in development because they comply with market demands. They are thus engaged in cross-cultural collaboration. To sustain this status, those who are successful

62 Suggested by extension of work done on marketing strategies in the Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, e.g. Kemp et al. (2003). Beyond the Labor Market 65 and attract substantial funding wisely avoid any openly critical, non-complicit stance which does not square with rationalizing the top-down centralized management of multi-billion-dollar aid partnerships directed from overseas. However, I argued that abrogating responsibility for questioning the impact of mega-capital on the procedures of research and its distribution across cultural borders exacerbates historical patterns of resource extraction, through systematic leaching of African intellectual property, talent, and resources. African universities also risk contributing to the severity of today’s global crises and to the more elusive surrender of modern scientific values which presup- pose reasoned controversy, open confrontation, and autonomous reflection, ceding agency to unimpeded empirical testing as the final arbiter of epistemic credibility. I have suggested that those African universities which have secured a financial footing through compliance with the current demands of global research markets are in danger of surrendering control over the management and use of their knowledge products. In achieving a higher education ranking in the charts,63 they also risk squandering their graduates’ potential to critique and correct the destructive effects of profit-driven scientific and informatic trium- phalism. Keeping epistemic and ethical concerns as separate but equal projects is both a misleading and a self-defeating practice. Instead, I advocated treating equity as an epistemic and economic virtue, not just an ethical and social priority. If the goal is to enhance the greater public worth of knowledge products, then hermeneutic studies and critical theory are the core business of higher education, because these skills are crucial in building resistance to co-optation by either fiscal or digital economics. At the very least, an African university in today’s global environment has an obligation to train graduates who can monitor and influence the terms of contractual engagement in international labor markets, just as it is responsible for training graduates to take up those contracts.

63 Of the universities mentioned at the outset, UKZN ranked in 2014–2015 in the 500–600 bracket worldwide and fifth or sixth among African universities, as well as in the independent Shanghai Ranking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). UG ranks twelfth among African universities according to the 2015 Thomson Reuters’ World University Ranking, and in the Times Higher Education Index projection for 2016; https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2016/world- ranking#!/page/0/length/25 (accessed 18 October 2015). 66 Lauer

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Francis Nii-Yartey

Abstract

In this chapter I look at dance as a basis for the scholarly study of the human condition and as a main focus in African humanities research. I do so based on my experiences as a Ghanaian choreographer whose dance productions have catered to large audiences on national occasions and in the global arena. Dance productions make use of the core values, themes and concerns of contemporary society in order to express the underlying shared dimension of spiritual and moral values, to build upon cultural memory and identity. My choreographed performances draw on traditional forces of indigenous harmony and on forms of artistic expression in Ghanaian dance. They also integrate and juxtapose the varied ethnic traditions of our postcolonial context. As I explore how I strive in my work to portray the struggles of inner postcolonial cities, I also examine the payoffs of using dance theatre as a medium for public education, behavioral transformation, and nation building.

1 Introduction

Dance serves as a receptacle for traditional knowledge in many cultures around the world. In African communities it permeates almost all aspects of the life-cycle. For instance, core Ghanaian values, metaphysical themes, and social concerns are used in dance productions, ensuring that various segments of the audience are comforted, irritated, and educated. In its many forms, therefore, dance is a potential source for scholarly study of the current challenges facing humanity. So it is that I regard dance as a central member of the humanities family and a key focus of study in African humanities research. The creation and performance of select dance productions seeking to address some of our social conditions constitute a clearly compelling focus for scholarly exploration. In this chapter I will discuss the challenges involved in these artistic productions that constitute a fruitful ground for studying the human condition.

As Curtis Carter posits, “One of the things that the humanities provide is a vocabulary and a set of concepts for speaking about dance.”1 This notwithstanding, a derogatory attitude is openly displayed by an intellectual sector of Ghanaian society, mainly due to the colonial legacy of placing emphasis and value on things of the human mind at the expense of the body, which is seen as the medium for dance. Throughout these reminiscences, I will review some of the reasons I suspect lie behind the negative attitude toward dance that prevails among an influential portion of the African academic elite, and to some degree throughout the wider community in contemporary Ghana.

2 African Dance as an Expression of Feeling the Human Condition

When we immerse the self in dance at a customary event like our annual festivals, or in a modern dance-theatre experience, these encounters often send us home with painful or happy gifts of remembrance in moments of emotional need or luxury. Respected philosophers and literary figures treated dance as a matter of course. According to Plato,

as far as education is concerned, goodness is in singing and dancing; we have also a sound criterion for distinguishing the educated from the uneducated. If we fail to grasp this […], we’ll never be able to make up our minds whether a safeguard for education exists or where we ought to look for it.2

Until recently, the history and the scope of interpretation of dance as a humanities discipline lacked any African perspective. The definition and value of African dance were determined from a Western viewpoint as well as from the obscured vision of some Western-educated African academics. Nonetheless, one should take comfort in the fact that in the African tradition, dance has always been recognized tacitly as an important vehicle for the definition of life itself. In African communities the arts are not separable from one another in their creation and practice, and dance has always been the center of all African living, performing arts. Dance as a creative product is unique in its ability to stimulate our senses,

1 Curtis L. Carter, “The Humanities and Dance: The Contemporary Choreographers’ Response in the Arts to Aesthetic and Moral Values,” Dance Dimensions 3.5 (1979): 12–13. 2 Plato, “Laws,” in Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis IN: Hackett, 1997): 1346 (II, 654e1). 74 Nii-Yartey

because only in the dance […] is there a direct appeal to our emotions through the live kinesthetic nonverbal portrayal of other individuals involved directly in our shared human condition.3

Dance should not be viewed and evaluated separately as distinct or outside the human body. It is illusive and almost mystical in its manifestation in one sense. In another sense, it is material and ubiquitous and at the disposal of humanity, because dance exists and resides only in and through the movement of human bodies. One cannot, therefore, separate the intentional and psychological from the bodily and the physical. In the commission and analysis of dance one cannot untie the rational from the non-rational, and, by extension, theory from practice. Rudolf von Laban wrote about the idea of “movement- thinking, as opposed to thinking in words”: “Movement-thinking could be considered as a gathering of impressions of happenings in one’s own mind, for which nomenclature is lacking […]. This thinking does not serve orientation in the external world, but rather it perfects”4 the human being’s orientation in the inner world where impulses continually surge and seek their outlet. This classic observation is pertinent to our definition of the African humanities in- sofar as it expresses the imperative to recognize dance as being at the heart of any theoretical focus upon the human condition. Thus, dance belongs within academia as a centerpiece of the values expressed in African humanities scholarship and research. One very practical challenge, however, is that dance as an ephemeral occurrence usually does not leave behind clear, identifiable physical imprints. Any meaningful academic discourse on the subject, therefore, becomes cum- bersome. The data of dance, images created as live performance, are always elusive and intangible. Unless these images are videoed, scored, or scripted to capture performance outside the collective memory of the community, they cannot be referred to again and again as are literary texts, fine art, or fabric crafts.

3 Memoirs of a Contemporary Ghanaian Choreographer

As a creative artist, I seek to extend and manipulate the vocabulary of dance and push spatial, stylistic, creative, and technical resources beyond their

3 J. Dennis Sporre, Reality through the Arts (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991): 93. 4 Rudolf von Laban, The Mastery of Movement, rev. Lisa Ullmann (1950; London: MacDonald & Evans, 4th ed. 1980): 15. Contemporary Ghanaian Dance 75 present limitations, as most choreographers do. Of course, creative paths come with challenges and frustrations. Dance addresses fundamental issues of human experience and existence. To enable me to give meaning and context to my hopes, frustrations, fears or sor- rows, I need to cultivate and prepare within myself a sense of wholeness. This occurrence of wholeness signals that creativity and technique have conspired to produce the creative awareness I need for engaging in a meaningful dance experience. My creative vision and challenge, therefore, are to ensure a good marriage between my personal experiences and my culture. My artistic life grew out of an environment full of social life’s activities, color, and excitement.

3.1 The Struggle of Slavery as a Topic of Creative Collaboration The making of the historical dance-theatre production Musu—Saga of the Slaves, which I wrote, co-choreographed, and directed, serves as an example. It was a major collaborative effort to bring the production into fruition. First of all, it involved three countries—Ghana, Denmark, and the US Virgin Islands; two major dance companies, the National Dance Company of Ghana and the Caribbean Dance Company; and at least six university researchers from three countries: the Universities of Ghana, Copenhagen, and the West Indies. The production spanned almost the whole artistic spectrum of dance, music, poetry, set design, and décor, and the technical theatre as a whole. It involved a complex amalgamation of artistic forms and approaches as well as varied visions, experiences, artistic capabilities and maturity, trust and teamwork, and, of course, the generosity and commitment of the funders, the Danish Development Agency (DANIDA), that characterized the making of Musu—Saga of the Slaves. How each stakeholder dealt with the process of bringing this production into existence can provide a few lessons for the United Nations to follow. Before embarking on the production, we asked ourselves several questions. For instance, how do we treat a subject like slavery from three different perspectives in countries where slavery is hardly ever discussed for fear of ven- turing into highly sensitive issues? How do we avoid resurrecting through an artform the evasiveness and delicacy that pervade discussions of the topic which would thereby risk contradicting ourselves and our histories? More importantly, how do we faithfully treat such a serious historical subject in a dance-theatre where there is little or no dialogue to help advance and maintain the accurate clarity of the story? How do we stage facts of history that do not lend themselves easily to artistic treatment and can hardly be regarded as aesthetic in the remotest sense? How do we reconcile the artistic sensibility, ego, and cultural background of all the different creative partners in a way that 76 Nii-Yartey positively enhances the production of a cohesive, attractive, and life-affirming performance? To answer these questions, we brainstormed with a generous dose of tact, tears, emotional outbursts, stressful self-restraint, and, above all, mutual respect. We discussed the main events and characters and the roles they played in the various incidents, particularly during the period of Danish involvement in slavery in Ghana, Denmark, and the US Virgin Islands. We agreed upon, and sometimes barely tolerated, our diverse research findings to determine the direction in which to go—in spite of our personal interpretations of various events and how they related to our contemporary perceptions and diverse preferred normative attitudes about slavery. We took a host of artistic liber- ties in the process. For example, we brought the characters in the production together regardless of the period each one actually inhabited, in order to help tell our story. These co-productions involved artists from many cultures. The collaborative effort that characterizes the creative process requires a personal and collective paradigm shift. Self-centeredness and fixated, dogmatic, ideologically entrenched perceptions hardly work in the artistic process if any positive creative product is to materialize. Initial difficulties exist when one considers the views, preferences, and perspectives of so varied a collection of stakeholders. However, when collaborators discover common ground on which to deal with such deep issues, confidence and trust develop. Thereafter, one progressively learns to accept the qualities the others are bringing to the process. In the end, all come through the collaboration richer than when they entered it. Following my many years of involvement in co-productions of dance, living and sharing with people of different cultures is the most educative and rewarding. Because dance serves as a vehicle for emotional expression and helps define our social interactions, spiritual fulfillment, and expression of ideas in storytelling, perhaps the more exposed one is to other cultures through this artform, the easier it is for one to deal with many of the challenges associated with such complex collaborations in other walks of life.

3.2 The Struggle to Express Gender and Community Experiences on Stage In my 1978 dance-theatre production, The Kings’ Dilemma, I tried to position the African woman as sober, reflective, proactive, and ultimately unyielding when the situation calls for it. The production reflected the situation in many parts of Africa whereby women, by virtue of their special social circumstances, Contemporary Ghanaian Dance 77 continue to quietly influence domestic as well as national and international decisions. As well as treating the uniqueness of women’s experiences, this production required the depiction of common values recognized as a ‘community’s experience’: i.e. those bonds that determine behavior and outlook felt as strong kinship—as well as political, religious, and other community affiliations. Each community develops its own peculiar movements, gestures, bodily attitudes, and characteristics which may be understood only by members of that particular group of people. Dance expresses this communal experience through bodily attitudes and movements. These physical attitudes constitute a common vocabulary depicting, symbolizing, and signifying the community’s routine activities and relationships, and encapsulating their worldview. For example, there is a traditional belief among the Ga people of Accra and other ethnic groups in Ghana that when a person dies the spirit of the deceased is transported across a spiritual river to a realm representing the next world. The spirit of the deceased is received by departed ancestors who await the newcomer on the opposite bank. Appropriate rituals are accordingly performed by these ethnic groups at pre-burial ceremonies to ensure a safe and peaceful transition to the next world. In the story of The Kings’ Dilemma, Nyindongopio, the king of Nyindongo— an imaginary kingdom somewhere in northern Ghana—is caught in a serious dilemma. The king’s chief bodyguard and a humble young stranger claim the honor due to one of them for the killing of a wild beast that has for some time been terrorizing the people in the peaceful kingdom. To establish their claim, a confrontation is arranged between the chief guard and the stranger. The latter is the true slayer of the beast, and the townsfolk accept him as a full citizen of high standing. This infuriates the disgraced bodyguard. Seeking vengeance for his defeat, he skillfully lifts away the king’s crown, symbol of power and authority. He later conceals it in the stranger’s clothing in such a cunning and decep- tive manner that almost everybody present is convinced that the stranger is indeed the culprit. However, one of the kingdom’s progressive female leaders has cause to suspect the chief bodyguard. She convinces the other women of the stranger’s innocence. The king, in his confusion, banishes the stranger from the kingdom. To see that justice is done, the women stage a political coup and remove the king from power. In our 1996 dance production, Solma, we utilized this cultural memory by creating a scene in which the body of a character who had just been shot by security operatives of the state is transported in a spiritual boat 78 Nii-Yartey formed by a group of dancers across that spiritual river to the opposite bank. We added a caveat: a few more dancers collapse and die during the journey. This signified that death is always in attendance to embrace the living whenever they need to take that spiritual journey.

3.3 Struggles of the Inner City Solma is a choreographic offering on contemporary African urban social conditions. The production is an attempt to display the colors and sounds of the vibrant markets, loves, lusts, jealousies, gang life, political ambitions, and soli- darities in the face of oppression—and ultimately the embrace of traditional African spirituality exhibited through cultural resilience. In short, this production sought to portray some of the key aspirations of the people. Another example of this theme, Bukom, tries to capture some essence of what life is like in a deprived area of Accra. The piece explores the plight of a typical broken family home caused by inauspicious social conditions. The story depicts how a determined boy, Amatey, is raised by his mother while his irresponsible father leads a carefree life. Amatey has to endure the pain and trauma of the ensuing quarreling between his parents. As a result of this situation, the character Amatey falls under the hypnotic influence of a criminal gang in the area. One day, while he is involved in one of the antisocial activities of the gang, his mother, who is on her way to look for him, is accidentally shot and killed by a police officer pursuing the crimi- nals. The officer adopts Amatey and trains him to become one of the most respected and feared policemen in the community. Ultimately, Amatey decides to help the other members of the gang to change the course of their lives as well. However, the notorious and charismatic leader of the gang resists. Armed with the discipline and training of a policeman, Amatey overpowers the leader and wins the trust of the other gang members. The production employed some of the regimental movements and characteristic aspects of the behavior associated with the people of the Bukom locality and the Ghanaian police force, to construct the story as an iconic emblem and testament to the struggles of this uniquely proud and idiosyncratic urban Accra people. The dance stands, in a sense, as an intangible sociological textbook of the Bukom community during a particular period of its contemporary history. Dance movements fulfill the same function as sociological description. In many African societies, verbal communication is considered necessary for the establishment of facts and ideas, but the knowledge and use of symbols, gestures, and bodily action go beyond words and are deemed crucial to the at- tainment of a proper level of communication. For example, in many Ghanaian communities, the use of the left hand in gesticulating or emphasizing a point Contemporary Ghanaian Dance 79 while speaking to other people, particularly the elderly and social superiors, is considered uncivilized, disrespectful, and unbecoming—therefore, like verbal cursing, it is regarded as wholly unacceptable and frowned upon. In the story of Bukom, during one of the scenes, to show how a traumatized society destroys the moral values of its youth, Amatey performs a dance in which he uses his left hand to point at an elderly man in an argument in public. In response, instead of rebuking Amatey, the whole community of elders and the young join in castigating the old man by using common gestures of insult.

3.4 The Challenges of Theatre-Dance as a Medium for Behavioral Transformation Earlier on as part of the dance, I had depicted a man defecating on stage, to provide, as it were, a mirror for the community whose members continually used the beaches in Accra and its environs for such unsavory activities. I produced this scene at a time when the Ghana Health Service was at one of its cyclic peaks in campaigning to draw attention to this shameful public practice, and, through posters, radio adverts, lectures, and news items, relied upon consciousness-raising to improve public hygiene and sanitary habits. While some members of the audience were openly embarrassed, others were out- right offended. A follow-up survey after a production in the Bukom community in Accra revealed that at least some of the local opinion leaders had managed to reduce the incidence of open defecation to a tolerable level after their encounter with the dance performance. The response by the public to the above performance and to other dance- theatre productions has, on the one hand, been optimistic and inspiring, while, on the other, people have walked up to me after various performances demand- ing an apology for portraying their community, or ethnic identity, and indeed their persons, in a negative light. Such public responses to creative works are highly significant and to be expected, since the arts serve as catalysts, irritants, and stimulants to awaken and enliven the sensibilities of society.

3.5 Dance Critique as an Indigenous Aesthetic Capacity Traditionally, dance troupes in Ghanaian towns and villages have always had the role of inculcating the values and norms of the community in the youth and of reviving the general public’s awareness of its priorities and lifeworld ideals—much like the values and norms that Sunday school sessions and the weekly sermons of an institutionalized religious body have always endeavored to instill in the youth and to revive in the adults of a Western industrial community. Although the responsibility of dance creation falls upon a few creative and active individuals, the outcome and ownership of such creative activity 80 Nii-Yartey are not usually attributed to the individual creator but are, rather, regarded as communal or folk ownership—just as the original orations of the preacher or Sunday school teacher or the hymns of choristers are not regarded as their personal creative property so much as expressions of their denomination’s shared beliefs and values. Aesthetic, moral, spiritual, epistemic, and social principles guiding the creation and performance of dance sit within the context and structures of the collective cultural memory of many ethnic groups in Ghana. We may cite as examples the principle regulating the community’s dance vocabulary, such as repetition of movements, the shape of the body while dancing, the interrelat- edness of music and dance, as well as the context of performance. Community members who avail themselves of these and other principles are able to evaluate a traditional dance performance to an appreciable degree. Africans learn the intricacies of dance creation and performance in their community through social experiences and formal training. This enables them to give expression to emotions, feelings, and ideas through gestures, movements, forms, and structures that inform the social and creative process in their culture. From my perspective as a choreographer living in Ghana, I draw on a variety of creative impulses based on my experiences and perceptions of the world. I try to create an outline of composite images of body postures, props, costumes, and lighting. I follow this with the application of elements of space, style, dynamics, levels, and other details of dance creation. I advance the process with the collaborative efforts of dancers, musicians, and lighting and scenic designers to give form to the final dance I create.

3.6 The Challenges of Creating Unity through Diversity in Dance Additionally, as Artistic Director of the Ghana Dance Ensemble (Univer- sity of Ghana), the National Dance Company of Ghana (at the National Theatre), as well as the Noyam Dance Institute, my involvement in one-on- one, choreographer-to-choreographer co-productions has afforded me the privilege of working with some of the most creative, crazy, and generous artists from other cultures. I discovered that such collaborations always require a paradigm shift. Fragile egos and uninformed opinions can obstruct the creative process, which is always difficult, initially, when one is dealing with another person’s predilections, viewpoints, and cultural values. However, when artists discover common ground and everybody begins to feel at ease, each person slowly learns to accept the qualities that others bring to the process. Both finish the collaboration richer than when they began. What I have learned during my many years of involvement in co-productions—living and sharing with people Contemporary Ghanaian Dance 81 of different cultures—is that the more exposed one is to such interactions, the more easily one can deal with the predicaments associated with other complex and unscripted, creative situations. Unfortunately, however, due to accidents of colonial history, many Ghanaians today have not developed the ability to understand, appreciate, and properly evaluate the arts in relation to the role they play in society.

3.7 Dance Productions as a Crucible for Nation-Building African dance is integrative—it combines dance with music, drama, poetry, costumes, and, in some cases, masks. This is especially evident during traditional festivals, which bring people together for the renewal of community experience. On such occasions, the body is the vehicle through which the dancer communicates through movement the ideas, symbolic meanings, and aesthetic values and ideals of the community. In the year 2000, I was invited by the Ghanaian Ministry of Youth and Sports to create the Opening Ceremony for the Confederation of African Nations Football Tournament, CAN 2000, co- hosted by Ghana and Nigeria. Ghana presented the Opening Ceremony while Nigeria did the closing ceremony. At a meeting to present my creative ideas to the National Planning Committee, I had suggested the use of an African approach, and as part of the details of my presentations, I would use fifty traditional state umbrellas in a mass formation, not only to create a spectacle during the opening ceremony but also to symbolically bring the various ethnic cultures together. However, this was at a time when the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was in power, and at a time when that power was highly resented in some regions of the country. On the committee were members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). The immediate reaction by the opposition party members was an emphatic no. “No party symbols will be allowed in this opening ceremony,” they declared. I was completely confounded and deflated at this reaction. This situation occurred not only because the emblem of the ruling political party at the time was an umbrella—while that of the opposition was an elephant—which symbolism is highly potent in a nation where most people do not read; it was also the case that the individuals from the opposition on the committee did not realize at the time that almost all the ethnic groups in the country use the umbrella as part of the cultural insignia and paraphernalia of their own traditional areas. Traditional leadership, or chieftaincy in foreign vernacular, has only a few iconic artifacts, and perhaps the one uniformity among all royal houses is the universal use of the palanquin, or ceremonial umbrella, whenever a Nana or Na or Matse appears in public, to shield the royal personage from the sun 82 Nii-Yartey and to represent the community’s care and protection of their leader, who is the living vessel of their ancestors and the conduit for the welfare of their yet- to-be descendants. At this point, I was getting frustrated and needed to do something. So I dra- matically dropped my file containing the various ideas I had for the opening ceremony on the table and threatened to leave if anybody read any political partisan sabotage into a program that sought to unite the country. I quickly asked round the table whether there was anybody whose traditional area did not use a state umbrella. After this dramatic moment, the committee agreed that I should be given the freedom to explore my creative ideas, including other ideas that the committee had earlier on rejected. The umbrellas were held aloft as the performers executed locomotor movements derived from selected traditional dances from across the country, to help create the spectacle and symbolism needed to inspire the people. The impressive and evocative presentation that characterized the opening ceremony, the pride and patriotism that the event generated among both spectators and committee members, prompted a personal invitation I received to a post-event meeting where I received a formal apology and special commendation from the committee for the cultural and artistic innovations my team and I brought to the opening ceremony. For me, the lesson from such situations clearly demonstrates the importance of dance and other artforms in nation building, and the importance of dance performance in creating the context for the enhance- ment of collective cultural memory and experience, in the conscious and potent encouragement of stronger national unity, greater inter-ethnic political cohesion, and stronger central democratic state structures.

4 Some Historical Background

The challenges that characterized our study of dance performance in the past are typically attributed to the unavailability of score or script to capture the artform’s fleeting ephemeral images. But in the postcolonial social context, there are greater and more idiosyncratic barriers to knowing the significance of dance in our distant precolonial past. During the time of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, existing moral codes in the West considered the human body as a sensual and sexual object, as something that should engender fear and disgust in the civilized individual. These schiz- oid degrading sentiments about the body, particularly the procreative joy of sexual energy, are foreign to African indigenous religion, science, and society. Contemporary Ghanaian Dance 83

Even though in the West sporadic theoretical study of dance had long existed—especially in the courts of Tudor England and during the European Renaissance—this moral proscription denigrated the powerful African indigenous practices, spiritual and medicinal, cultural and political, that con- fronted the colonial intruders. From the outset of their pillage of the African continent, colonials and their complicitous missionaries effectively and often violently discouraged dance, the conduit of indigenous African cultural life, as well as medical practices and spiritual rituals, none of which could be sepa- rated from the others. The perception of African culture by the colonialists and their agents as ‘barbaric’ and ‘heathen’ established the view that African indigenous arts were voluptuous and sinful activities. In the Gold Coast this wholesale effort at suppression of social practices and cultural annihilation by colonials ultimately failed. But it succeeded in stalling the development of a solid theoretical basis and literature for African dance. It was not until the third decade of the twentieth century that dance was accepted as an academic subject in the West, due to publications on dance by such critics as John Martin (The Modern Dance, 1933, Introduction to the Dance, 1939, The Dance, 1945, and the World Book of Modern Ballet, 1952). Lincoln Kirstein published Ballet Alphabet (1939) and Dance: A Short History of Classic Theatrical Dancing (1970). Curt Sachs also published his masterpiece, World History of the Dance, in 1952. Of course, with the preceding publications of Dance Magazine in 1927, in the USA, the sensitization process began in 1936. The impact of works by pioneers such as J. H. Kwabena Nketia and other luminaries such as Ephraim Amu, Albert Mawere Opoku, and Efua Sutherland remains the substance of what formal dance education in Ghana has become today. The efforts of these pioneers, including reviews by writers, journalists, and advocates of the arts, serve as an impetus for the growth and visibility of dance as a professional and scholastic artform in Ghana. Additionally, the advent of technology, especially the cinema and, later, video, enhanced the quality, quantity, and accessibility of dance as a serious theatrical artform and leisure activity. These historical antecedents had far-reaching ramifications for the colonial possessions of the British Empire. In Ghana, prior to Independence, not much attention was paid to dance as a profession, much less as a subject of academic study. After this colony of Great Britain was dismantled politically, Ghanaians retained the unconscious inheritance of the moral mindset promulgated by Victorian Britain directly and by proxy through many of the local elites who trained overseas in British higher educational institutions—chiefly Oxbridge. Many of those Ghanaians became surrogates for almost everything British. 84 Nii-Yartey

Consequently, even today, many African humanities scholars tend to pay merely lip service to the serious study of dance at university level: indeed, at any level. The early 1960s were particularly difficult times for African performers of music, dance, and drama, despite the establishment of the new Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. The IAS fostered the Ghana Dance Ensemble and the School of Music, Dance and Drama (now the School of Performing Arts). Yet many of the faculty at the University of Ghana were vehemently and vociferously opposed to the setting up of the Institute of African Studies. They regarded its very existence as out of place in the se- rene and scholarly environment of the University, which had been established initially in 1948 as a College of the University of London. Although the first president insisted that every graduate of the University of Ghana must take an indigenous cultural practice as a core subject for introductory study—either an indigenous language, an indigenous musical skill, or dance training—the regulation has remained the focus of lively controversy and widespread objection among the faculties of the University, even to this day.

5 Dance as a Central Discipline in Academic Humanities

Presently in Africa, the most economically viable universities are generally dominated by neoliberal economic theorists and science-minded researchers. Evaluation of academic requirements and achievements of both students and faculty are viewed chiefly through the narrow lens of what these university communities consider scholarly enough to earn membership of the academy. The danger this situation poses is that most of the students who enter the dance programs in our universities, either by accident or by design, come in with obvious deficiencies in the discipline and with attendant shortfalls in other academic disciplines. The general public is sent the message that little or no value should be placed on dance as a serious academic discipline and profession. Some African universities have been maintaining professional resident dance companies and ensembles for years. Sadly, many of these groups are treated as decorations for yearly academic gatherings to entertain guests. Often such groups are inadequately resourced, parading in appalling costumes and with inferior equipment, their performers seriously underpaid and de- moralized. While some of these universities invest heavily in infrastructure for the sciences, they neglect the needs of their dance ensembles entirely. But the irony is that dance is a foreign-exchange earner whenever it is available in an international educational setting. Moreover, in recent times, dance Contemporary Ghanaian Dance 85 has generated substantial revenue from visiting foreign students of varying academic backgrounds. They rush to register for courses in our dance department. It is, however, painfully clear that university administrators otherwise maintain the classic negative, prejudiced mindset about dance. As far back as the late 1970s, the National Dance Company of the Republic of Guinea, through the serious harnessing of cultural, artistic, and national business resources, made itself the face and spirit of Guinean people around the world. The company is also a money-making machine. At one time it was the second-largest foreign-exchange earner for Guinea, second only to earnings from bauxite. Today, the Guinean National Dance Company, also known as Les Ballets Africains, continues to travel around the world making money and projecting the cultural and artistic image of that country. The relevance of the role this famous company plays in the socio-economic efforts of Guinean society is worthy of study by humanities scholars. In the performing arts, theory is necessarily backed by practice. In my judgment, it is cruel to apply to them the same criteria for evaluation as in other academic disciplines. This will short-change the prerequisites and core values of the arts for effectively meeting the challenges facing humanity. We thus need to portray the experiences of history and purpose in relation to what we seek to achieve. This process should include the depth, range of meaning, and relevance of the current social, spiritual, and material condition of our communities.

6 Conclusion

Dance does not directly bring about transformation. But it instigates and provokes change. It stings us into promoting the advancement and general wellbeing of humanity. In the humanities, when an artform so critical to the lifeblood of humanity as dance continues to suffer from the ignorance and arrogance of sections of the academic and the wider community, then one begins to question the future of the humanities as the study of humanity. For one thing, the existing structures in the educational system in many African countries, including Ghana, are such that although dance has featured in tertiary education for almost fifty years, there has been no effort by successive governments and other authorities to ensure that prospective dance students entering our universities are given the necessary prerequisite training in dance and the related arts from the high-school level onward, as is required in subject areas such as English, French, mathematics, and other fields regarded as examinable subjects. 86 Nii-Yartey

Works Cited and Further Reading

Bruni, Bruno, & Monika Vidi. The Dance Note Book: An Illustrated Journal with Quotes (Philadelphia PA: Running Press, 1984). Carter, Curtis L. “The Humanities and Dance: The Contemporary Choreographers’ Response in the Arts to Aesthetic and Moral Values,” Dance Dimensions 3.5 (1979): 14–17. Hanna, Lynne J. Dancing For Health: Conquering and Prevention Stress (Totowa NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Hawkins, Alma M. Creating Through Dance (Hightstown NJ: Princeton Book Company, 1988). Idaho Humanities Council. Humanities Definitions—the University of Idaho (1965), http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/humanities/definitions.htm (accessed 18 Sep- tember 2015). Laban, Rudolf von. The Mastery of Movement, rev. Lisa Ullmann (1950; London: MacDonald & Evans, 4th ed. 1980). Lauer, David A., & Stephen Pentak. Design Basics (Boston MA: Thompson Learning, 2007). Manu, Takyiwaa, & Esi Sutherland-Addy. Africa in Contemporary Perspective: A Textbook for Undergraduate Students (Accra: Sub Saharan, 2013). Müller, Klaus E., & Ute Ritz-Müller. Soul of Africa: Magical Rites and Traditions, pho- tos by Henning Christoph (Soul of Africa: Magie eines Kontinents, 1999; Cologne: Könemann, 1999). National Foundation of the Arts and Humanities (1965) (P.L. 89–209) [As Amended Through P.L. 111–340, Enacted December 22, 2010] SEC. 3. p. 2 (9 October 2012). Nii-Yartey, Francis. “Dance Symbolism in Africa,” in Africa in Contemporary Perspective: A Textbook for Undergraduate Students, ed. Takyiwaa Manu & Esi Sutherland-Addy: Sub Saharan, 2013): 412–428. Nii-Yartey, Francis. “Globalization and African Culture: The Role of the Arts,” Legon Journal of the Humanities (Special Edition, 2006): 13–27. Nii-Yartey, Francis. The Hockey Story, AfHF Hockey Africa Cup for Nations: Opening and Closing Ceremonies—Conceptualization and Performances, July 10 and 18, Local Organizing Committee, Accra, Ghana, 2009. Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. Drumming in Akan Communities of Ghana (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons/University of Ghana, 1963). Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. Ghana Music, Dance and Drama: A Review of the Performing Arts of Ghana (Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1965). Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. Music of Africa (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974). Contemporary Ghanaian Dance 87

Nkrumah, Kwame. “The African Genius” (1963), in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2012), vol. 2: 909–917. Ofosu, Terry Bright. “Choreographed National Ceremonial Dances: Transcending Ethnicity, Chieftaincy and Politics,” in The One in Many: National Building Through Cultural Diversity, ed. Helen Lauer, Nana Aba Amfo & Joanna Boampong (Accra: Sub Saharan, 2013): 31–53. Opoku, Albert Mawere. “Ashanti Dance Art and the Court,” in The Golden Stool: Studies of the Ashanti Center and Periphery, ed. Enid Schildkrout (Anthropological Papers 65; New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1987): 194–206. Opoku, Albert Mawere. A Written Statement: brochure on the formal inauguration of the Ghana Dance Ensemble (Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, 1967). Plato. Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis IN: Hackett, 1997). Sporre, J. Dennis. Reality through the Arts (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991). Thompson, Robert Farris. African Art in Motion: Icon and Art in the Collection of Katherine Coryton White (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington DC & Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California at Los Angeles; Los Angeles & London: U of California P, 1974). Van Camp, Julie. “The Humanities and Dance Criticism,” Federation Review 9.1 (January–February 1986): 4–17. Welsh, Kariamu Asante, ed. African Dance: An Artistic, Historical and Philosophical Inquiry (Totowa NJ: Africa World Press, 1998). CHAPTER 5 The Formulation of Research in the Humanities: Perspectives from the Creative Arts

J. H. Kwabena Nketia

Abstract

Many Africans who became aware of their own musical traditions in the colonial period and in the post-independence period of the cultural awakening did not undertake serious systematic research. They chose to recollect what they already knew (e.g., about compositional models of music) or used such African materials as they could find to illustrate some theoretical issues or procedures in the Western tradition that they believed to have universal validity. Others turned to the pedagogical approach, developing courses of study by relying on secondary sources rather than their own original research. Knowledge shared through these approaches may have helped to combat prejudices held against African arts by some of their own colleagues and the Western world. It may also have provided a dimension of the arts that could be missing from the work of the scholar who treats music, for example, as a social or cultural fact, or as an object of formal analysis, and not as an art. However, a better approach is one based on a creative vision, anchored in consciousness of identity, and engaged in systematic documentation, classification and critical evaluation of cultural heritage in a manner that facilitates easy access to the materials and their dissemination.

1 Organizing Research in the Creative Arts

The study of the creative arts can be approached from three complementary perspectives: the practical perspective of (a) the artist desirous of acquiring competence in the use of materials and techniques, (b) the pedagogue interested in transferring such competence to the classroom, and (c) the scholar interested in the creative arts as fields of knowledge. Since the goal of the first two approaches is cognitive development, the study may be based on original research that aims at finding the required information; or it may be based on the results of previous research where readily available. Such research is pragmatic and often requires no formulation beyond the applied goals that the artist or the pedagogue sets for himself.

It was this approach that inspired the work of Ephraim Amu of Ghana in the late 1920s when he started to collect traditional songs and later learned to play and make bamboo flutes (atetenben) in order to write new African art music.1 He had to do this, first, because the Christian educational policy of his time denied him access to his own cultural background and so he had to recapture it, and second, because African creative traditions are oral traditions that are best studied in face-to-face interaction with particular custodians of the arts or in the context of social and cultural events, such as recreational activities, rituals, ceremonies and festivals. Although there is now a growing body of archival and library materials, this approach has continued to be valid because recordings and written accounts often capture only selected aspects of particular events observed in specific locations at particular points in time and may not embody the oral traditions that govern their performance practices. In other words, they are secondary rather than primary sources of data and can best be handled by someone who has some background in the arts of traditional Africa. Other African creative artists who became conscious of their own cultural heritage in the colonial period had to follow the same trail as Amu, though with different intensity and research goals. For example, Michael Etherton reports that when Herbert Ogunde of Nigeria began his musical drama in 1945, he gave up his job as a policeman and “established The African Music Research Party as a fully professional company.” Like Amu, he searched for traditional materials, because his aim was “to revive Yoruba music which had been down-graded by the colonialists and to awaken interest in indigenous culture.” Accordingly,

he took the old stories, enlivened them with songs which he himself composed, and transformed Yorùbá musical forms by mixing indigenous instruments with others from elsewhere in the country.2

What is interesting is that Ogunde and others like him described this activity which involved them in a conscious search for aspects of the traditional music, dance and drama of their own societies which they could use creatively as research, a process that apparently did not seem to them to require previous scholarly preparation. What seemed important was not training in research

1 J. H. Kwabena Nketia, “Perspectives on African Musicology,” in Africa and the West: The Legacy of Empires, ed. Isaac James Mowoe & Richard Bjornson (Westport CT: Greenwood, 1986): 215–254; Fred Agyeman, Amu the African: A Study in Vision and Courage (Accra: Asempa, 1988). 2 Michael Etherton, The Development of African Drama (London: Hutchinson, 1982): 44–45. 90 Nketia methods but a creative vision anchored in consciousness of identity, something which a few contemporary African musicians and artists in academia and elsewhere who are firmly grounded on the island of the colonial culture on which they were nurtured seem to lack. This lack of sensitivity to their own cultural values places them at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to research in African humanities, for there is nothing more boring than doing research in an area in which one is not interested. Consequently, they either avoid doing serious research in this field or use such African materials as they can find to illustrate some theoretical issues or procedures in the Western tradition they believe to have universal validity. They may also turn to the pedagogical approach, relying on secondary sources rather than their own original research. In an [economically] developing situation such as one finds in Africa today, there is, of course, plenty of room for applied research and every encouragement should be given to those who choose to follow the trail of scholars who concentrate on basic research. Where there is interest in African arts in their own right, academic research takes off from where creative vision leads the artist, from the cognitive awareness that emerges from the use of ‘discovered’ techniques and materials and their creative challenges to the systemization of the knowledge gained in the process. The important difference between Amu and Ogunde, and indeed many popular African musicians and artists who went back to tradition in the period of cultural awakening, is that as a teacher and composer, Amu had to do more than just collect songs and expand his cognitive skills. He had to discover the principles behind what he learnt or collected in order to apply them in a rational manner in the creative process or use them to develop a course of study in African rhythm which he incorporated into the music curriculum of the Presbyterian Training College. It is this confrontation with theory, an approach to research as a means of gaining knowledge which may be shared, that sets Amu’s work apart from the intuitive approach of composer-performers whose interest in traditional music, dance and drama has lain only in the compositional models and resources they could find. Apart from a few musicians such as George Ballanta of Sierra Leone, who was awarded two Guggenheim research grants in the 1920s to do research in West Africa, many Africans who became aware of their own musical traditions in the colonial period and in the period of the cultural awakening did not undertake serious systematic research. They chose to recollect what they already knew3—how to analyze their experience in order to share their knowledge and insights with others, or to combat prejudices held against African arts by

3 See Nketia, “Perspectives on African Musicology.” The Formulation of Research in the Humanities 91 some of their own colleagues and the Western world that could find no better designation for these arts than to label them ‘primitive’. What has been shared in this manner is, of course, also valuable and provides a dimension of the arts that could be missing from the work of the scholar who treats music, for example, as a social or cultural fact, or as an object of formal analysis, and not as an art. It is in this light that the organization of research in the creative arts had to be approached differently when the University of Ghana established a Research Fellowship in African Studies in the Department of Sociology in 1952. It became necessary to work out not only a program that allowed for specific topics to be tackled from time to time, but also to consider the pressures and challenges of the particular social and political environment wherein research would be organized. Above all, even though the program was based in a department of sociology, this kind of research was in the arts and not in the social sciences. Therefore attention had to be paid to the nature of humanistic scholarship and to the interdisciplinary challenges raised by the traditional contexts in which the arts are practices. This was a problem I had to grapple with in my study Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (1955). It became clear to me that humanistic goals not only influence modes of inquiry and interpretation, but can also extend the scope of inquiry to historical and pragmatic considerations such as those spelled out by Richard Schlatter. In reply to the rhetorical question, “what is the purpose of humanist scholarship? What, in fact, does the humanist scholar do?” Schlatter observes:

The job of the humanist scholar is to organize our huge inheritance of culture, to make the past available to the present, to make the whole of civilization available to men who necessarily live in one small corner for one little stretch of time […] to clear away obstacles to our understanding of the past, to make our whole cultural heritage […] accessible to us. He must sift the whole of man’s culture again and again, reassessing, rein- terpreting, rediscovering, translating into modern idiom, making available the materials and the blueprints with which his contemporaries can build their own culture, bringing to the center of the stage that which a past generation has judged irrelevant but which is now again usable, sending into storage that which has become for the moment too familiar and too habitual to stir our imagination, preserving it for posterity to which it will once more seem fresh.4

4 Richard Schlatter, “Foreword,” in Musicology, ed. Frank Harrison, Mantle Hood & Claude Palisca (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963): viii. 92 Nketia

Schlatter goes on to point out that “the humanist does all this by the exercise of exact scholarship.” In other words, the formulation of goals, choice of topics, location or sites of research, communities or other units of reference, methods of collection and analysis of data, systemization of findings, as well as writing up all of these, are inevitably part of the scholar’s task. In the creative arts the scholar must deal not only with such problems but also with systematic documentation, classification, and critical evaluation of cultural heritage in a manner that facilitates easy access to the materials and their dissemination.

2 Research as a Learning Experience

One of the thoughts that came to me as I organized specific topics in the arts research program in the Department of Sociology in the 1950s was the experiential nature of research, a fact which influenced the ordering of my priorities. Whether research is problem oriented or pragmatic, in the creative arts it becomes a personal learning experience; it becomes part of the individual’s cognitive development. It may influence one’s general outlook or the extent to which insights gained from one’s research lead to a critique of one’s own culture. This applies not only to cultural ‘insiders’ but also to ‘outsiders’ who develop empathy for the arts of the societies they study. In light of this experience, John Blacking, a distinguished ethnomusicologist, testifies in his preface to How Musical Is Man?:

the Venda taught me that music can never be a thing in itself and that all music is folk music, in the sense that music cannot be transmitted or have meaning without association between people.5

Blacking’s study of the Venda, he claims, introduced him to “a new world of musical experience and to a deeper understanding” of his own music. Moreover, living with the Venda enabled him to begin “to understand how music can become an intricate part of the development of mind, body and harmonious social relationships.”6 The outcome of this experience as well as his contact with other African societies seems to be the overriding importance he attached to the cultural and humanistic perspectives in musicology, a position which allowed him to reconcile his African experience with the experience of his own

5 John Blacking, “Preface” to Blacking, How Musical Is Man? (Seattle: U of Washington P, 1973): x. 6 Blacking, “Preface,” xi. The Formulation of Research in the Humanities 93 musical background; a position which allowed him to look, among others, at the Venda, the Nsenga, the Tonga, the Nande and the Chopi, as well as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bartók, Berg, Mahler, and Britten on the same humanistic canvas in his discussion of human musicality. Thus, when research is approached as a learning process to discover and appropriate facts, ideas, and experiences in one’s community or elsewhere, it may stimulate reflection leading to theories that deepen our knowledge and understanding of the arts as products of creativity and aspects of human behavior.

3 Integrating Objectivity and Experience

Arising from the personal relationship that emerges between the researcher and his research is the influence that this exerts not only on his choice of topic but also on his field methods and data gathering. The African scholar quite often has to rely on his research to make up for what he lacks in his own background or what he needs to know in order to understand and appreciate the arts in other cultural contexts. So his approach to participant observation may be quite different in certain respects from that of his Western colleagues, for he may use it not only to find data and enhance his understanding and insight but also to broaden his own cognitive awareness. I also find that this personal relationship with research in the creative arts can act as a sustaining force, something that keeps one going all the time as a scholar, something that influences when and how one moves from one topic to another. One never runs out of topics for further exploration because research becomes an aspect of one’s own way of life. But this merging is purposeful only when one’s research objectives are clearly formulated; otherwise one might find oneself wandering aimlessly from event to event. Or one may end up with a mass of data that proves difficult to sort out or to digest if one forms the habit of accumulating material without constant reflection and some particular application.

4 Defining the Research Field

A researcher in the creative arts is enveloped by manifestations of his research interest most of the time. In my career as a Research Fellow in African Studies, I never drew sharp distinctions between my everyday life and my professional fields of observation. Any context of music-making in which I found myself with or without a tape recorder was a context of observation. I would be 94 Nketia reminded of musical phenomena or aspects of musical behavior heard before, while I made a mental note of something in the new situation that I might follow up on. On this basis analysis of experience becomes as much a part of one’s ethnographic approach as analysis of data abstracted from recordings or elic- ited from ‘informants’, an approach elaborated in my 1985 paper “Integrating Objectivity and Experience in Ethnomusicological Studies.” When funds are not available, students of the arts can always work on materials in their immediate environment, observing migrant musicians, or different combinations of sound, movement, and spectacle in traditional and contemporary situations. They can follow up the artistic events advertised in local newspapers. I elaborated on this strategy at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, both as a way of getting around the financial constraints of ‘long-distance field research’ faced by our graduate students and as a way of planning and implementation, I conceived of this as a departmental research project to be focussed on musical life in Pittsburgh, a topic broad enough to allow for several sub-topics in the different branches of musicological studies, to be tackled on one and the same research ‘site’. The project was to be long-term. There was no particular need to exhaust all the topics in one year. Staggering the research instead allows each generation of students to build on the findings of previous researchers, to refine their methods and reframe their analysis. The project was to provide a basis for graduate training in field research in a location in which students could have constant access to their advisors as they carried out their research. The implications of the research for the Pittsburgh community were also considered. As a result, a Pittsburgh Society for Music Research was formed for the presentation and discussion of field reports. To facilitate the planning and promotion of this project, I spent a whole year making newspaper clippings of events, venues and musicians so that I could present a plan for systematic research that would allow for different but related areas of investigation to be tackled. Preparation of graduate students for this and for other projects was provided in seminars on field methods and theories, music and society, which encouraged them to examine different research paradigms employed by scholars in ethnomusicology and cognate fields. Research in the arts and humanities becomes disciplined and systematic when it is inspired by new or established research paradigms based on one’s experience. As stated by Marcus and Fischer, a research paradigm is simply “the established set of questions intended to be answered by a research programme.”7 A number of such paradigms distinguish

7 George E. Marcus & Micheal M. J. Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986): 179. The Formulation of Research in the Humanities 95 studying the creative arts as fields of knowledge from treating them solely within technical frameworks. Thus musicology—the discipline concerned with the discovery, analysis, systemization and interpretation of musical data—has its own established research paradigms for the study of music in written or partly written traditions and other paradigms for music in oral tradition. For convenience of reference and specialization, when the focus of study is largely about musical systems and their theoretical, acoustical and aesthetic foundations, the modes of inquiry are said to belong to systematic musicology. When the study uses tools of historical investigation and interpretation, it is said to follow the established paradigms of historical musicology. When research extends from such systematic or historical standpoints to broader and more complex processes concerning human activity, such as narratives of music makers and music making, or the cultural ethnography of music, then the working principles fall within musicology as a social science: ethnology, anthropology. A new interdisciplinary field designated since the 1950s as ethnomusicology deals with a broad spectrum of theoretical issues in music, each of which can be investigated in the context of a specific culture. As stated elsewhere,8 these ethnographic studies include investigations into formal theories of music, including the study of musical sounds and systems of sounds, structure, textures and densities, compositional processes and procedures, and elements of performance practice. This area of study is critical for understanding the communicative potential of music as a creative and aesthetic experience. Ethnomusicology is also concerned with the discovery and formulation of social theories of music—with the role and function of music and music making in the context of social relations, with particular reference to the variability of forms and structures in music arising from the bonds that link music, music makers and music users, and the social perceptions that govern the performative and presentational choices that are made by individual performers and participants. This area of study is critical for understanding the communicative potential of music as social experience. Another area of inquiry is the semantic implications of the formal and the social aspects of music, the expression and communication of sensibility or emotion and meaning in music and their exponents in sound, structure, and behavior or situational contexts, symbolism or referential and associative meanings, the process of encoding and decoding messages, particularly in cultures that use techniques of surrogation. This area of inquiry is critical for understanding the communicative potential of music as cultural experience.

8 J. H. Kwabena Nketia, “Contextual Strategies of Inquiry and Systemization,” Ethnomusicology 34.1 (1990): 75–98. 96 Nketia

This interdisciplinary approach to the study of music is also characteristic of current scholarship in other creative arts. Thus in dance one distinguishes technical studies of performance and choreography from dance history and dance ethnology. The latter are research disciplines that draw from the methods of aesthetics, analysis of art, and literary criticism as well as the perspectives of philosophy (applied epistemology and metaphysics), biology, anthropology, and the cognate arts of musical performance and drama. Scholars in drama and theatre are developing performance theories that encompass theatre and ritual behavior in collaboration with anthropologists and others who utilize social drama as a heuristic concept.9 Similarly, students of art make a distinction between the technical study of art and art history, research disciplines which combine criticism, history, anthropological and ethnological techniques of inquiry, as well as of archaeology, as Robert Farris Thompson shows.10 Needless to say, all these excursions into other disciplines influence research at various stages of formulation, implementation, and analysis.

5 Africa and the Wider World

Because of the great diversity of creative art traditions in the world, regional and area studies develop their own characteristics and emphases. Hence in academic research into the arts, one must deal with the particular as well as the general, with the characteristics of local arts as well as the perspectives that come from looking at them cross-culturally. One must look at the implications of one’s work for general theory. It is in this light that I have suggested in my review of scholarships in African music (1986) that the task of African musicology should include: – critical analytic studies that focus on musicological issues in light of field data; – studies that take into account the history, archaeology and ethnology of the geo-cultural region of Africa or specific areas in which field work is undertaken;

9 See Ritual, Play, and Performance: Readings in the Social Sciences/Theatre, ed. Richard Schechner & Mady Schuman (New York: Seabury, 1976). 10 Robert Farris Thompson, African Art in Motion: Icon and Art in the Collection of Katherine Coryton White (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington DC & Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California at Los Angeles; Los Angeles & London: U of California P, 1974). The Formulation of Research in the Humanities 97

– development studies that respond to the intellectual, socio-cultural or political environment in which music is cultivated and practiced in a particular historical tradition; and – the dissemination of information and materials on African music both within and outside Africa—that is, wherever there is a readership and a public for live performances or recorded African music. I believe that a similar program can be developed in other creative arts and studies in cognate fields in African humanities; for in addition to the contribution that research makes to our knowledge of local arts, the wider cross- cultural significance and social implications for universalizing these local conclusions into general theories also need to be considered.

6 Commitment and Continuity

It will be evident from the foregoing that research in the creative arts is ideally an ongoing activity, sustained by both the dynamics of the arts themselves as well as their social contexts, including the practical and theoretical considerations that guide theory formulation and periodic review. To these sustaining factors one must add researchers’ own commitment as a central aspect of their way of life. It is this commitment to the personal pursuit of knowledge that I always admire when I see retired professors in libraries in Europe buried in piles and piles of books in their reserved cubicles which they treat quite literally as their habitat. To them and indeed for many academics, research has become a way of life. Happily for scholars in the creative arts, this commitment can be generated quite naturally and fluently in their everyday agendas. There is nothing more exciting than working in an aesthetic field. The researcher’s theoretical knowledge of his field and his own creative impulse or aesthetic sensibility can keep him turned on indefinitely. Sometimes he may value research simply as a vehicle for keeping in continual touch with both the artistic world and the thinking, discoveries and preoccupations of colleagues. Or his scholarship may be a response to some theoretical or humanistic goal, rendering research activities as sustained rather than sporadic or occasional episodes of one’s personal life. There is so much to be explored in one’s own cultural environment that one is never at a loss for a manageable research topic even when funds are scarce. For there are no sites without human associations and related issues; there is no dynamic environment in which the creative imagination remains completely dormant. With the development of recording technologies and the ever growing documentation of the arts of Africa, there are now materials in audio-visual 98 Nketia archives and libraries, including holdings here in Legon and in various institutions in Ghana such as the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation—on which one can profitably work. In spite of their unsuitability as the sole source of data for the study of individual cultures, as secondary sources of data archives can provide ready materials for preliminary stylistic and repertory studies useful to the scholar who already has a background in African arts. In music, the tran- scription, analysis. and annotation of a corpus of recorded songs with appropriate commentary can be a valuable contribution if approached in a scholarly manner. One can only hope, therefore, that the formulation of research in the humanities, and more specifically the creative arts, will respond to the realities of our contemporary African world as well as to our basic human need for knowledge and the renewal of experience.

Works Cited

Agyeman, Fred. Amu the African: A Study in Vision and Courage (Accra: Asempa, 1988). Blacking, John. “Preface” to Blacking, How Musical Is Man? (Seattle: U of Washington P, 1973): vii–xii. Etherton, Michael. The Development of African Drama (London: Hutchinson, 1982). Marcus, George E., & Micheal M. J. Fischer. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Ex- perimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986). Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. “Contextual Strategies of Inquiry and Systemization,” Ethnomu- sicology 34.1 (1990): 75–98. Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (Legon: U of Ghana P, 1955). Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. “Integrating Objectivity and Experience in Ethnomusicological Studies,” The World of Music 27.3 (1985): 3–22. Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. “The Juncture of the Social and the Musical,” The World of Music 23.2 (1981): 22–39. Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. “Perspectives on African Musicology,” in Africa and the West: The Legacy of Empires, ed. Isaac James Mowoe & Richard Bjornson (Westport CT: Greenwood, 1986): 215–254. Nketia, J. H. Kwabena, & Jacqueline C. DjeDje. “Trends in African Musicology,” in Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, vol. 5: Studies in African Music, ed. Nketia & DjeDje (Los Angeles: U of California P, 1984): ix–xx. Schechner, Richard, & Mady Schuman, ed. Ritual, Play, and Performance: Readings in the Social Sciences/Theatre (New York: Seabury, 1976). Schlatter, Richard. “Foreword” in Musicology, ed. Frank Harrison, Mantle Hood & Claude Palisca (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963): vii–viii. The Formulation of Research in the Humanities 99

Thompson, Robert Farris. African Art in Motion: Icon and Art in the Collection of Katherine Coryton White (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington DC & Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California at Los Angeles; Los Angeles & London: U of California P, 1974). Wachsmann, Klaus P. “The Trend of Musicology in Africa,” Selected Reports in Ethno- musicology 1.1 (1966): 61–65.

Part 2 The Humanities and National Identity

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CHAPTER 6 The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity

Kwasi Wiredu

Abstract

Five decades since Independence, the investigation and analysis of African identity is no longer the dominion of foreign educators. In consequence identity endures as a properly galvanizing focus for all humanities disciplines across the African continent. A comparison of Ghanaian and Nigerian seminal scholarly works reveals glaring dis- crepancies between the realities of African religious identity and images promulgated by British colonial experts which are sustained to this day. African classicists and theologians are obliged to correct erroneous contrasts between ancient Greek doctrine, Christianity, and traditional Akan beliefs about divinity and personhood. Likewise, in sociology and anthropology the foreign gaze perpetuates misimpressions of African community. Wiredu concludes with a valuable digest of his seminal insights into the contrast between political consensus as normative agreement, and political consensus as a collective decision to produce policy that embraces conflicting ideals. Thus he highlights important contrasts between indigenous African systems of democratic governance, and modern pretensions of civic participation through multiparty elec- toral politics.

1 Introduction

The idea of identity usually comes into the focus of earnest discussion when there is a crisis of self-identity. In Africa the crisis has been the after-effect of our previous subjection to colonization. One by-product of colonialism was that our identity—cultural, religious, political—tended to be defined by others. Colonialism subjugated our people both culturally and politically. The results were not always as accurate as they could have been. Now, a half-century after independence, Ghanaian scholars in the humanities are, as befits their disciplines, still keen on the right understanding of their identity. It is true that independence brought us some gains. But still our achievements in the decolonization of various aspects of our life leave much to be desired. We need to examine or re-examine those aspects to find out which bespeak undue influences of the colonial past. In the discussion below, I take up epistemic identity,

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_008 104 Wiredu on the hypothesis that if you first seek clarity about fundamentals, insights about many other things, including political identity, might be added. To rectify the impact of colonialism cannot consist in merely jettisoning everything of a colonial origin, for some of it happens to be good. And this is the reason why the program of post-Independence decolonization must involve no less than the pooling together of our resources of abstract reflection and creative imagination. The reference here is quite obviously to the humanities, for it is here, principally, that you have the study of human culture from a cognitive, normative, and aesthetic standpoint. More concretely, the humanities are a wide-ranging collection of frequently interconnected disciplines. Traditionally, they comprise Language, Literature, Linguistics, Performing and Visual Arts, History, Archaeology, Philosophy, and Religion. But parts of the social sciences, such as Anthropology, Economics, Sociology, and Political Science, are, to say the least, akin to the humanities in terms of both content and method. If this looks like an embarrassing lack of determinate boundaries, it is an embarrassment of riches, for the decolonizing project mentioned above needs all the hands it can get. In my philosophy teaching I have used the term ‘conceptual decolonization’ for the kind of decolonization needed.1 This is because philosophy has much to do with concepts. Consider, for example, the concept of religion. Understanding this concept and its role in the thought of a given culture may reveal a great deal about their practical life. In some cases, such as in our own, conceptual impositions from a foreign culture may lead to confusions of thought with serious practical consequences. We have here, incidentally, an illustration of the fact that philosophy’s theoretical preoccupations may be for the sake of practical ends. When I say ‘our’, I allude to our identity as Ghanaian nationals. This is, of course, an extremely important object of inquiry. But a large component of it is our identity as Africans—a people still struggling to discover their true selves half a century after the end of colonial subjection. Two factors of identity in our lives are obvious, namely, our religion and our politics. I will start with the question of religion and end with politics. Conceptions of what it is to be a person, for example, may involve matters of empirical fact about our capacities as well as normative facts about fundamental social desiderata. Thus a metaphysical system may contain propositions of different logical types (analytic, synthetic, or normative) and of different

1 For further discussion, see Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996), ch. 10, “The Need for Conceptual Decolonisation in African Philosophy.” The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 105 epistemological types (a priori or empirical).2 All this is without prejudice to what we may call, risking a barbarism, the constitutive empiricalness of the propositions concerned. To illustrate: the conception of a person entertained by many African peoples, certainly by the Akans, has two aspects: one descriptive, the other normative. Descriptively, a person is held to consist of a bodily frame (Nipadua) and a life-giving principle deriving directly from the Supreme Being. This constituent of human personhood is called the ôkra. Together with it there is also postulated a constituent called sunsum which is thought to give rise to the degree of personal presence that is unique to each person. In their rich philosophy of personhood the traditional Yorùbá have a similar analysis of the descriptive aspects of a person. On both views the two elements, which may be called quasi-physical, unite in a psycho-physiological system to form a human individual. (By calling a supposed entity quasi-physical, I mean that it is physical in terms of imagery but does not seem to be governed totally by the ordinary laws of physics.) Normatively, however, such an individual is not yet a person in any context of social commentary. This status awaits the development of certain basic levels of competence in the discharge of moral, familial and communal duties. Here, in a metaphysical context, is an assembly of conceptions of various logical and epistemological kinds. By the way, in her own philosophy a contemporary Akan philosopher need not construe the ôkra and the sunsum as any sorts of entities. In their traditional conception these notions are quasi-physical; but in contemporary analysis they can be construed as aspects, not components, of personhood.

2 Religion and Identity

With regard to religion in our country, I find some confusing statistics. It used to be said that our population was a little over thirty percent Christian, about thirty percent Muslim, and well over thirty percent traditionalist. But some are saying that Christianity alone now accounts for seventy percent. A more restrained investigator reports that Christianity has forty-one percent, Islam twenty percent, and the traditional twenty-four percent, leaving fifteen percent for the nondescript ‘Other’. Whatever the correct numbers are, one might

2 The position changes if what we are talking about is a metaphysical proposition rather than a metaphysical system. A metaphysical proposition has to be non-empirical, and its subject matter has to be some fundamental aspect of a worldview. 106 Wiredu be led to infer that traditional religion is rapidly losing its influence on the population. But what does this mean? What is traditional religion in Ghana? The orthodox view of this matter will cite belief in God together with belief in, and worship of, a whole host of lesser ‘gods’ and ancestor spirits. Additionally, the chances are that the foundations of morality will be said to be ascribed to the will of God or, sometimes, to the instructions of a select group of ‘minor deities’ together with the ancestors. An immediate question arises about who is supposed to be worshipped in the set-up just described. If one is going to persist in using the concept of worship in this context, then one would have to say that it is the lesser deities that are worshipped, rather than God. This is because there seems to be no custom of God-worship in Ghana. Accordingly, something like the following paradox emerges: to take the example of the Akans, it seems that they believe in the Supreme Deity but only worship the minor ones! The early Christian missionaries defined their religion in the Akan language as Onyamesom, i.e., the worship of God and traditional religion as Abosonsom: i.e. the worship of stones. To them, therefore, no paradox arose, because, as far as they were concerned, the traditional Ghanaians did not know of God. It remains a mystery, of course, why it did not strike them that they got the word Nyame, in the first place, from the language of the Akans. (Nyame means ‘God’ and som means ‘serve’, while Onyamesom or Anyamesom is an evangelically motivated combination of both.) It begins to look as though the concept of worship may not be an appropriate element in the definition of traditional religion. I propose to explain how from this hypothesis we may work out a more accurate conception of traditional religion. That conception will also have advantages when it comes to the clarification of the traditional understanding of moral conduct. Any such insight into our traditional life and thought should open to us prospects of a contribution to the reconstruction of our identity. Since the humanities are qualitatively concerned with all aspects of human culture, any progress here should be an achievement for the humanities. An even more obvious task for the humanities is, or should be, the study of the causes of the political disasters that have befallen our continent since independence. No one cause is likely to explain everything. But sometimes one cause may explain a great deal. Such, I think, is our failure in Africa to pursue a system of governance based on consensus. But for now let us return to religion. It is undeniable that our traditional religions here in Ghana are not institutional religions. There is not an organization that you have to join, or in any other way belong to, before you can be said to be of a certain traditional African religion. Again, for the same purpose, The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 107 you do not need to subscribe to a set of dogmas. On the other hand, to be a Christian or a Moslem you need to subscribe to certain specific doctrines. For example, to be a Christian, you need to believe in God conceived as a transcen- dent being, who created the world out of nothing. You need also to believe that this being has an only begotten Son Jesus Christ who came to the world to die for the sins of its inhabitants. In practice, church authorities may not be able to rigorously enforce all aspects of this requirement, but it is a requirement nonetheless. In general, the doctrines are in the areas of metaphysical cosmology and ethics. The objective of this institutionalized propagation of doctrine is to ensure virtue and enlightenment for the flock. This objective tends to, though it need not, lead church authorities to require uncritical acceptance of doctrine. A common manoeuvre is to present at least some of the doctrines as revealed and therefore absolutely certain. Here dogma becomes dogmatic.3 In the promotion of virtue this same movement of thought is apt to lead to the definition of moral rightness in terms of the will of God. To say that something is right is then taken to mean that it is approved by God. Such a standpoint can hardly abide the habit of critical thinking, because it would be likely to raise fundamental questions not easily handled by church authorities. A non-institutional religion, by contrast, is personal. It is an individual’s sense of her relationship with God or some ultimate principle. If you take, say the Akans, it is clear that the generality, though not the totality,4 of Akans believe in a Supreme Being who is responsible for the cosmos. They have trust in him and unconditional reverence for Him. But they do not worship him, because, I suspect, they do not think that it is appropriate to do so.5 What is clear is that the absence of things like dogma and worship facilitates a rationally

3 A dogma is a belief held with excessive confidence. When a belief is held to be infallible because it is not open to rational evaluation, it is a dogma in a technical sense. The dogmas of a religion are usually dogmatic in this sense. 4 Generally, traditional Akans have believed in God. But among their philosophers in the technical sense there certainly were skeptics. In Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective Chapter 9, Section 3, I have called attention to some Akan traditional sayings that I consider skeptical. 5 The Uchi people of Bendel State, Nigeria, would seem, traditionally, to be of this opinion, according to the following passage: “Do not praise God […] If God was waiting for you to praise him, he would never have created you. For example, I do not expect my son to heap praises on me, instead of referring to me simply as ‘father’. It is bad manners for you to praise God just as it is bad manners for my son to praise me. God is the creator.” Quoted in C. S. Momoh, “Uche Doctrines on Creation, God and Man,” in Nigerian Studies in Religious Tolerance, vol. 1: Religions and Their Doctrines, ed. C. S. Momoh, M. S. Zahradeen & S. O. Abogunrin (Ibadan: Shaneson, 1989): 87. 108 Wiredu relaxed attitude that forestalls any desire to persecute non-conformity, or even to proselytize other people. So, while the Akans, for instance, say that nobody teaches God to a child, they have no tendency to want to rise up in arms against anybody who does not believe that such a being exists. It can be said of a non-institutional religion, furthermore, that it is apt to promote a humanistic approach to ethics. People come to perceive that the teaching of morality belongs principally to the home, not to any outside organization. Morality itself is conceived as the harmonization of the interests of the individual with the interests of society where this is understood to be synonymous with the converse. This means that when we talk of adjusting the interests of the individual to those of society what we have in mind is the same as adjusting the interests of society to those of the individual. The synonymy is due to the fact that in both formulations only one principle of adjustment is envisaged: namely, what Christians call the Golden Rule. Using a formulation indebted to the American logician and philosopher Harry J. Gensler, we might state it as ‘Do not act to do A to X without consenting to the idea of X doing A to you in an exactly similar situation.’6 This rule is universally applicable in the evaluation of human conduct and can be regarded as the fundamental basis of ethics. But human beings shall not live by the Golden Rule alone, but also by the rules of custom. And it is in the sphere of custom that we meet the great diversity of human values. If a custom violates the Golden Rule, it is, of course, bad wherever it may be. But if it coheres with the Golden Rule, it may be a legitimate rule of conduct with one people or group without so much as ever being heard of in another. The custom in some parts of the world that permits one woman to be in marriage with more than one man at the same time is not inconsistent with the Golden Rule. But some like it; others don’t. It is custom that differentiates cultures. And we might say that communalism comes close to being a differentiating feature of African culture. Communalism is a social system in which kinship relationships are made

6 See Harry J. Gensler, Formal Ethics (London & New York: Routledge, 1996): 93 and ch 5 generally. For a rigorous symbolic proof of the Golden Rule as just stated, see the last chapter of Gensler, Symbolic Logic: Classical and Advanced Systems (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990). By a very natural generalization, the Golden Rule becomes “Don’t act to do A without also consenting to the idea that any exactly similar act may be done.” See ch. 6 of Gensler, Formal Ethics, 123 et passim. Students of Kant’s ethics will note the similarity between the principle which Gensler calls a formula of universal law and Kant’s “Categorical Imperative.” We will not pursue here the question whether the two formulations are equivalent, except to note that when Kant denied the equivalence he was thinking of older formulations of the Golden Rule. The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 109 the basis for interconnecting the well-being of the individual with that of the group. Again, there should be the proviso that the converse of this formulation is to be understood as being synonymous; otherwise it could become a formula for downgrading individuality. Gyekye has insisted most forcefully on this point in his theory of what he calls moderate communitarianism.7 In fact, what we are thinking of here is a system of reciprocities. Individuals are taught very early in life to see their well-being as being linked up with the well-being of a large group of kith and kin. This linking takes the form of recognizing an individual’s obligations to a great number of people. By the same token, a great number of people come to have obligations to him, which become rights. What is described here is analogous to the workings of the Golden Rule, although the sphere of the Golden Rule lies deeper than that of custom. Communalism easily spills over from its kinship dimensions to the wider community. It is apparent from what has been said above that for a member of a communalistic society, morality is a matter of human well-being as defined by the Golden Rule and Communal Custom. If so, then there is no necessary connection between morality and religion. And we can, without any appearance of paradox, say that traditional religion consisted of a personal belief and trust in God not associated with any organization for the promotion of virtue. We see further that the foundation of morality was not thought to lie in the belief in God, as is suggested in some Western religions in which moral rightness is defined as what is approved by God. One unfortunate consequence of such a definition is that we can’t even say that God disapproves of evil. This is because of the definition whereby ‘evil’ means what is disapproved by God; so the remark in question becomes the tautology that God disapproves of what he disapproves. This will not bring enlightenment to anybody. Let me emphasize that what I have said does not imply that the belief in God does not have any role in human conduct. For those who know what is wrong but are yet tempted to do it, the fear of God may exercise a restraint that might slow them down or stop them altogether. But this does not make the fear of God the foundation of morals. Fear of the police is known sometimes to give pause to a prospective criminal, yet that fear has nothing to do with the foundation of morals. A wise traditional person does not need the fear of God for knowledge of the good or avoidance of the bad. If the foregoing depiction of traditional religion is in the right direction, then perhaps conversion to other religions does not manifest an understanding of the virtues of religious belief. One does not need to be a believer in any

7 See Kwame Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience (New York: Oxford UP, 1997): ch. 2. 110 Wiredu

God to appreciate this. In a world in which dogmatic religions constantly ex- acerbate international conflicts to the peril of life and limb, it is refreshing to find a religion that has no use for dogmas and is devoid of the distinctive type of rigidity that flows from them. There is, however, an obvious and important objection that needs to be dealt with. It might be objected that the conception of traditional religion given above is a seriously truncated one. It omits mention of the ancestors and of the lesser deities. It also omits the procedures of worship and sacrifice through which people seek the help of the spirits and deities. Yet these beings and procedures are very important in the study of traditional peoples. In answering this objection, let us begin with some relevant comments from some famous philosophical expositors of traditional religion, in this case, that of the Akans. In the introduction to the second edition of Danquah’s The Akan Doctrine of God, Kwesi Dickson—may he rest in peace—remarks disapprov- ingly that Danquah conceives of the Supreme Being as the beginning and end of Akan religion. He had earlier on quoted from Danquah to the effect that, actually, “Akan religious doctrine knows only one God. Everything else found in the land in the form of religion is nothing else than superstition.”8 In a later essay, Danquah observes that the people do not have much reverence for the deities: “the general tendency is to sneer and ridicule the fetish and its priest.”9 Dickson, in his characteristically urbane manner, suggests that Danquah may not have appreciated the importance of the lesser gods. I will come back to the question of the importance of the minor gods. But we note that K. A. Busia makes a similar comment on these same gods:

the gods are treated with respect if they deliver the goods, and with contempt if they fail […]. Attitudes to the gods depend on their success, and vary from healthy respect to sneering contempt.10

Lastly, William E. Abraham gives us his view of the gods as follows:

8 Kwesi A. Dickson, “Introduction” to John Boakye Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics (1944; London: Frank Cass, 2nd ed. 1968): 39. 9 John Boakye Danquah, Obligation in Akan Society (West African Affairs 8; London: Bureau of Current Affairs/Department of Extra-Mural Affairs, University College of the Gold Coast, 1952): 6. 10 K. A. Busia, “The Ashanti,” in African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples, ed. Daryll Ford (London: Oxford UP, 1954): 205. Kwesi Dickson also notes this remark by Busia, though from a different perspective; see his “Introduction” to Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God, x. The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 111

The proliferation of gods that one finds among the Akans is in fact among the Akans themselves superstitious. Minor gods are artificial means to the bounty of Onyame.11

So, are the gods important or not? The answer, in fact, is yes they are; but not for any role in Akan religion. They are important in Akan culture because belief in the existence of such supposed beings is widespread in Akan society; and people believe that the spirits in question can do all kinds of desirable things for them. But they are certainly not objects of worship. The general attitude to the supposed gods is too utilitarian. People will drum and sing the praises of the gods because they believe that those beings enjoy flattery, which induces them to work hard for them in their own way. But, there is nothing here that can be called worship. As Busia noted, if the gods don’t deliver, they can attract contempt. It can be worse. In some cases a minor god may be destroyed by his clients for ineffectiveness. In yet other cases a god can run out of vitality (nano atro), by the reckoning of his clients and degenerate into disuse. Then there is the question of character. Some lesser gods or spirits are judged to be good, some bad, and others indifferent. But, in relationship with even the ones that are judged good there always remains a felt need for continual prudence. This is, of course, on the assumption that the examiners can themselves pass the moral test. Perhaps many can, but certainly not all; for some people are believed to use evil spirits to harm other people. On this showing, it is difficult to see how the spirits, including even the good ones, could be elevated to the level of objects of religious devotion. Even less can we attribute to the people a religious attitude towards the ‘gods’, for such an attitude, if it is to be really religious, must involve unconditional reverence, which is the one thing that is lacking here. Comparisons with ancient Greek religion would not help much either. Someone might try to exploit the example of ancient Greek religion as a coun- terexample to my general claim that you don’t have a religion unless there is an unconditional veneration for the object of attention. The argument might be that the ancient Greeks had no unconditional veneration for their gods and goddesses; and yet, for them, these beings were fitting objects of religious worship. To be of this mind is to have no pretenses of an inkling of a monotheistic conception of God. Such, of course, was the cognitive plight of polytheists like the ancient Greeks. It was not until around the fifth century BC when the early Greek philosophers began to criticize the polytheism of their tradition that monotheism became an option. On the other hand, Akan traditional religion

11 William E. Abraham, The Mind of Africa (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1962): 56. 112 Wiredu is explicitly monotheistic, and the traditional Akans are not known ever to have had a like period of innocence. One of the best known words for God in Akan is Onyankopon, and this literally means “He who is alone great.” To affirm such a being is to postulate universal incomparability. The claim implied is this: consider any possible being; it is false that it is as great as, or greater than, the Akan God. It is true that, as an alternative characterization of ancient Greek religion, one might say, following Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, that there was, after all, quite a bit of monotheism in the fact that all the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece regarded Zeus as the greatest.12 Yes, but not as the greatest possible, which is what the Akan Onyankopon is understood to be,13 as pointed out above. That also is what God was seen to be by the lights of somebody like St. Anselm. By comparison with such conceptions any Zeus-inspired impression of an ancient Greek monotheism is best forgotten. By the same comparison, any talk of minor deities in the presence of Onyankopon, the Being than whom a Greater cannot be conceived, must be of little ontological worth. Onyankopon is, if we might repeat, responsible for the cosmic order. Within that framework a supposed minor god is as creaturely as the most modest fly. But the question remains: is it legitimate to talk of ancient Greek religion in the absence of the kind of Supreme Being who can evoke unconditional reverence? There are, indeed, conceptual and structural analogies with religion in ancient Greek life. But, at best, they would legitimize only a broad use of the concept of religion. A still broader concept of religion would be all that one can have if one insists on construing the Akan ‘lesser gods’ as objects of religious devotion. But such a manipulation of concepts could do nothing but harm our own self-understanding. In any case, it must be clear at this stage that if you have Onyankopon, then you don’t need any further gods in order to have a religion. And this is of a piece with our earlier suggestion that traditional religion was of a non-institutional kind. Before leaving this part of our discussion, let us try to strengthen our sense of the dispensable status of the minor gods with a thought experiment. Suppose you and some friends travel to some kind of planet and come across some very strange living beings, who seem to speak English or American or, actually, any language that you can call up. They say to you, ‘We know that on

12 Hugh Lloyd-Jones, “Ancient Greek Religion,” American Philosophical Society 145.4 (December 2001): 456–464. 13 Benjamin Ewuku Oguah, “African and Western Philosophy: A Comparative Study,” in African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. Richard A. Wright (Lanham MD: UP of America, 3rd ed. 1984): 216. The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 113 your planet you are currently having a crisis in your economy. Well, we can solve the problem for you. In fact, we can teach you to solve any problem that you may have. For example, your spacecraft is too awkwardly constructed. We can improve it so that your journey back may be much, much, smoother than before. For all that, we ask for nothing but an occasional supply of whisky and a few recordings of Charlie Parker’s music. You know of Parker, don’t you? And, please bring a group of say five musicians consisting of a saxophonist, guitarist, pianist, double bassist and a drummer—what you call a quintet—to play us some live Parker-style bop, if you can’t do it yourselves’. Suppose that your return to earth in your reconstructed craft is as smooth as, or smoother than, a bus-ride on an American inter-state. And you are planning a second visit. Would you be willing to send your new friends in space the whisky and Charlie Parker? And, if you did, would that be worship? For my part, I would not say that there is anything religious in the situation. Certainly, there would not have been any act of worship, even though the mysterious communicators would appear to be much more talented than our own lesser ‘gods’. If our relationship with the space ‘people’ grew and extended to various spheres of our lives, it is easy to see that attention to the minor deities, where there was any, would dry up, and that would be an end of their story or the beginning of their mythology. Such a state of affairs need not necessarily affect the belief in Onyankopon. Therefore, it need not be adverse to traditional religion. This brings us back to the beginning of this discussion when we mentioned some (fluid) statistics about the religious composition of the population of Ghana. Traditional religion seemed, on those figures, to be rapidly losing adherents. Does it mean that a rising number of Ghanaians now don’t any longer believe in their minor gods? That may be so. But if they think that this means that they must see themselves as no longer subscribing to traditional religion, then they are confusing a supposed part with a supposed whole. I speak of a supposed part, because, as I have explained, the belief in minor gods is not a real part of traditional religion. Or, grant for the purposes of argument, that it is a part, then it is an inessential part. It may be, of course, that a contemporary Ghanaian becomes a convert to, say, Christianity because, although she retains the belief in Onyankopon, she feels that the lack of any tidings about Jesus Christ the Savior in traditional religion disqualifies it from being a viable religion. Here arises an extremely important issue. Does she shift to the belief in Christ because she thinks that she has good reasons to do so or does she just believe ‘by faith’, as some say? One problem with this notion is that believing ‘by faith’ seems to amount to believing just because you want to believe. And such a method of thinking might be difficult to distinguish from the celebration of unreason. 114 Wiredu

But there is an even more specific reason for some misgivings about this kind of ‘faith’ in matters such as cross-cultural shifting of religion. Christianity came to us along-side the colonial intervention in our lives. Many things in our lives now are owing to that intervention. Some of them are good, and evidently so, such as modern science and technology—although they would have served us better had we been left alone to appropriate these things by ourselves, of our own accord, as in the case of Japan.14 Still these are things that we believe we need to domesticate for our own good. In general, we need to examine things that came to us in the colonial process and determine whether they are to be retained or renounced. In this way we avoid the colonial mentality, which is a mark of a loss of identity. It cannot be emphasized enough that the suggestion here is not that an African being a Christian is a sign that he has a colonial mentality. What betrays a colonial mentality is the unreasoning aban- donment of a traditional religion in favor of some foreign religion, in this case, Christianity. A Ghanaian who accepts Christianity on due reflection and another who rejects it also on due reflection both have their cultural self-identity as Ghanaians intact. Due reflection is the criterion; and one of its opposites is belief by ‘faith’,15 which means belief for no reason. Forsake due reflection, and you forsake your identity.

3 Politics and Identity

This principle operates in politics with a special poignancy. The suggestion was made above that much of our post-independence difficulties may be due to our inability to devise a system of governance truly suited to us. Perhaps due to neocolonial distractions we have not been maximally attentive to the intima- tions of our own culture in this matter. So much the worse for our self-identity! At the present time, the form of polity predominant in Africa is multi-party democracy. This kind of democracy may be great for some people, though it is not so easy to see who those people are. Is it the people of the USA? Have you noticed how much hatred among themselves is generated by their multi-party competition for power during and after elections? Cannot the human mind

14 See further Kwasi Wiredu, “Problems in Africa’s Self-Definition in the Contemporary World,” in Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies I, ed. Kwame Gyekye & Kwasi Wiredu (Washington DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP), 1992): 60–61, http://www.crvp.org/book/Series02/II-1/contents.htmp (accessed 21 June 2005). 15 This is only one use of the word ‘faith’. There are other uses of ‘faith’ that do not imply unreason. The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 115 think out a more morally attractive way of arranging the political relationships of human beings? We know, of course, that the multi-party system is at least one thousand times better than the one-party variety. But this does not mean that it is fit for all times and places. The non-party system is an alternative that at least deserves to be considered. A non-party system is not necessarily one in which political parties are pro- scribed. That would be a denial of a fundamental human right, namely, the right of free association. One only needs to avoid putting into a constitution a clause, or establishing a convention, that invests the power to rule in the group that wins the significant majorities at elections. This one act of constitutional forbearance can be expected to do wonders. For example, most likely it will curb the winner-take-all mentality that permeates multi-party politics. It will also motivate people to pursue cooperation in running the affairs of a nation. We do not need to wait until human beings have become angels before we think of cooperating with others rather than ‘opposing’ them,16 in the making of decisions that affect us all. More specifically, let us consider the question whether we can develop in Africa a cooperative system of politics, as distinct from the adversarial type in which we find ourselves through the constraints of history. I see this question as an aspect of the more general problem of postcolonial intellectual decolonization. I see it also as a matter of restoring our political self-identity. In this matter, it cannot be a source of discouragement for us to recall that in some parts of our continent consensus was the preferred decision procedure in politics. One can cite various places in South Africa, Uganda, and Ghana, among other places,17 in illustration of this claim. To learn from our past, with all necessary modifications, is an exercise in the recovery of self-identity. Suppose all these impressions of Africa’s historical practice of consensus politics were illusory. Even so, a plea for the contemporary practice of consensus

16 We can hardly take pride in the fact that the corresponding concept of opposition is a neocolonial accretion to our political vocabulary. 17 For South Africa, see Joe Teffo, “Democracy, Kingship and Consensus: A South African Perspective,” in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004): 443–449. For Uganda, see Edward Wamala, “Government by Consensus: An Analysis of a Traditional Form of Democracy” (1996), repr. in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004): 435–442. For the Akans, see Kwasi Wiredu, “Democracy and Consensus: A Plea for a Non-Party Polity,” in Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (African Systems of Thought; Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996): 191–210. Kwame Gyekye offers a more general discussion in “Traditional Political Ideas, Values and Practices: Their Status in the Modern Setting,” in Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience (New York: Oxford UP, 1997): 115–143. 116 Wiredu can have independent grounds. To pursue the idea of consensus politics on an ahistorical basis would then be an exercise not in the recovery of self-identity but rather in its construction. Either way it might be of some use to have some conceptual clarity about ‘consensus’. We begin with cooperation. This is an action-oriented concept; it envisages the achievement of common objectives among individuals through discussion. Consensus is closely connected with cooperation. It is its dialogical phase. Consensus can be, and I think ought to be, investigated from every observatory in the fields of the humanities. Permit me to mount the philosophy observatory: I see, at least, three kinds of consensus. There can be consensus about matters of truth. When somebody says that there is a consensus among scientific cosmologies that the universe started with a big bang, she is talking of something cognitive. We might therefore call this cognitive consensus. Note that what we have here is not necessarily the same thing as unanimity of belief. It is rather a matter of general agreement. Of course, if you have unanimity then you have cognitive consensus. But, if you have cognitive consensus, it does not follow that you have unanimity. Distinct from cognitive consensus is what we might call ethical, or more generally, normative consensus. Consider the sentence: ‘It is a consensus among my friends that the death penalty ought to be stopped everywhere in the world’. This relates to an agreement about what ought to be the case, not what is the case. It is therefore a normative matter, and so we may call the consensus a normative one. That what we have here is a consensus suggests that agreement was only reached after a significant amount of discussion. This is even more noticeable in the example of the first sense of consensus introduced earlier involving the big bang theory. The role of discussion is still more important in our third species of consensus. This is the kind of agreement among people that concerns what is to be done or what will be done as distinct from what ought to be done. Let us call this decisional consensus. Take, for example, the question of abortion. Those who believe that abortion is morally wrong can still agree, after a thorough parliamentary discussion of the issue in which their standpoint is treated respectfully, that abortion is to be allowed. Notice that they do not share the opinion of the group that, by hypothesis, is in the majority. That opinion is that abortion is morally alright. They disagree morally and visibly, but do not oppose. This enables the parliament or council to proceed with unanimity as to what is to be done. Such unanimity is what I call decisional consensus. Since we have mentioned a majority, let us quickly note that there are reasons to expect that if majorities are not born of power-seeking dogmatism, they will not always be composed of much the same people. But we cannot The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 117 go into this matter here. One thing we can do here quite briefly, however, is to note the importance of compromise. The parliamentarian or councillor who believes that abortion is morally wrong but concedes that it still may be allowed, is compromising. But he is not compromising on his principles. He is making concessions lest his principles become an impediment to the broader interests of his society. One reason why it is so necessary to be clear about the three different types of consensus is that otherwise consensus seeking can take on the appearance of a quixotic quest for the impossible. Consensus, as noted above, often works through compromise. But there can be no such thing as cognitive or normative compromise. Either two plus two is equal to four or it is not. Or to return to our earlier example, the proposition that the universe started with a big bang is true or false or, if you insist, meaningless. You cannot, without forsaking intelligibility, say that you believe that the big bang claim is true, but in the interests of good social relations you will now believe that it is false. Nor, on the normative front, can you say that you believe that abortion is morally wrong, but you are prepared to believe that it is not morally wrong in pursuit of social harmony. What you can do, as we have suggested above, is to say that although you believe abortion is morally wrong, you are prepared as a gesture of cooperation to let it be done. This, to be sure, does not mean undertaking to stay forever silent about the morality or immorality of abortion. Dialogue is the watchword of any consensual polity. New cognitive and normative discussions can change the patterns of decisional predispositions in and outside of council. One can discern here the interplay of all three kinds of consensus. But in the most in- tractable cases of conflict it is decisional consensus that often saves the day. Let us note, however, that consensus has its limits, like (almost) all good things. Imagine that a bill in council, introduced by an impressive number of bribed politicians, demands that all males taller than six feet six inches should be executed because they are taller than the president, and he does not like it. With the best of intentions, no one can negotiate any sort of consensus in favor of such madness. And if this is a problem for consensus politics, it is even more so for party politics, whose inclemencies have already given a bad name to politics. A paradox: many practitioners of party politics freely declare themselves lovers of consensus. The USA, for example, practices a severely adversarial system of multi-party politics. Yet leading figures on all sides vie with one another to claim the title of ‘consensus builder’. If the actual consensus buildings on the ground were anything commensurate with the eloquence of their protes- tations, American politics would have a different face from what it currently has. At best, the politicians are trying to reap the fruits of consensus without 118 Wiredu sowing the seeds of consensus. A system in which the dynamics are controlled by political parties, as we know them, is not a good choice, if what you are trying to do is to build a house of consensus. Africans might like to ponder these considerations as they review the role that political parties have played in sustaining their own political difficulties since independence. This is a mere preliminary to a prolegomena for the study of consensus as a foundation of politics. It may be that if we of the humanities can begin to learn to see what some of our ancestors saw in consensus, we might have the clarity and the ability to bend the resources of the modern world to the construction of a befitting African political identity. Such an identity cannot be the reproduction of a traditional model. But it can be reminiscent of it. Philosophical thinking being what it is, one should anticipate the opposite of unanimity on such matters among contemporary Akan philosophers. Fortunately, I notice that the lack of unanimity in the interpretation of language has not silenced the philosophers of other cultures. It is important perhaps to emphasize, even more than I have done in the above disclaimer that I do not appeal to language as an arbiter of philosophical wisdom. Language can sometimes facilitate the perception of a philosophical truth or falsity, but it can never be its sole criterion. If what one language suggests is valid, then in principle it should be arguable in any other language. It is because of this that dialogue is at all possible among the different cultures of the world. Two virtues, then, are sought after here: one, to be particularistic enough to be capable of knowing ourselves; and two, to be universalistic enough to be capable of knowing others. Or perhaps these are two sides of the same virtue.

Works Cited

Abraham, William E. The Mind of Africa (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1962). Busia, K. A. “The Ashanti,” in African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples, ed. Daryll Ford (London: Oxford UP, 1954): 205–215. Danquah, John Boakye. The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics, intro. Kwesi A. Dickson (1944; London: Frank Cass, 2nd ed. 1968). Danquah, John Boakye. Obligation in Akan Society (West African Affairs 8; London: Bureau of Current Affairs/Department of Extra-Mural Affairs, University College of the Gold Coast, 1952). Dickson, Kwesi A. “Introduction” to Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God (2nd ed. 1968): vii–xxv. Gensler, Harry J. Formal Ethics (London & New York: Routledge, 1996). The Humanities and the Idea of National Identity 119

Gensler, Harry J. Symbolic Logic: Classical and Advanced Systems (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990). Gyekye, Kwame. Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience (New York: Oxford UP, 1997). Lloyd-Jones, Hugh. “Ancient Greek Religion,” American Philosophical Society 145.4 (December 2001): 456–464. Momoh, C. S. “Uche Doctrines on Creation, God and Man,” in Nigerian Studies in Religious Tolerance, vol. 1: Religions and Their Doctrines, ed. C. S. Momoh, M. S. Zahradeen & S. O. Abogunrin (Ibadan: Shaneson, 1989). Oguah, Benjamin Ewuku. “African and Western Philosophy: A Comparative Study,” in African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. Richard A. Wright (Lanham MD: UP of America, 3rd ed. 1984): 213–226. Teffo, Joe. “Democracy, Kingship and Consensus: A South African Perspective,” in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004): 443–449. Wamala, Edward. “Government by Consensus: An Analysis of a Traditional Form of Democracy” (1996), repr. in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004): 435–442. Wiredu, Kwasi. Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996). Wiredu, Kwasi. “Problems in Africa’s Self-Definition in the Contemporary World,” in Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies I, ed. Kwame Gyekye & Kwasi Wiredu (Washington DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy [CRVP], 1992), http://www.crvp.org/book/Series02/II-1/contents.htmp (accessed 21 June 2005). Wiredu, Kwasi, ed. A Companion to African Philosophy (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004). CHAPTER 7 Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’: Multiple Interfaces between Rural and Urban, Traditional and Modern

E. John Collins

Abstract

The chapter examines four twentieth-century Ghanaian neo-traditional music genres (Ga, Akan, Dagomba, and Ewe) that are rural/communal performance traditions but have integrated elements of urban popular music. As a result, they reflect and articulate both ethnic identity and socio-political processes related to contemporary city life. It is thus inappropriate to apply to these neo-traditional genres older eurocentric ‘modernization’ models that advocate just one form of developmental change: westernization. Rather, the four music styles demonstrate ‘multiple modernities’ that reflect the unique character of their particular ethnic communities; they emerged in the context of urban-rural feedback, in line with more recent developmental theories; and their performers are not passive recipients of change emanating from the ‘centre’, but ‘cultural brokers’ who actively select elements of commercial popular performance suitable for their communal music-making. These genres thus provide a test case for the newer ‘liberation’ and ‘glocalization’ developmental theories that focus on how people on the ‘periphery’ adapt imported Western norms and technologies to their own indigenous folkways and national culture.

1 Introduction1

This essay displays examples of the inappropriateness and inaccuracies of standard linear models of change and development when dealing with contemporary Ghanaian neo-traditional music and dance during the twentieth century. These new forms of traditional performance have emerged through circular feedback and multifaceted processes going on between traditional

1 This chapter is based on a lecture delivered by the author for the University of Ghana PhD required course ARTS 701: Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities, 13 March 2014.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_009 Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 121 drum dances and urban popular music. Although drawing on tradition and expressing ethnic identity, the four neo-traditional performance styles examined reflect and articulate processes of modern social change such as urbanization, culture contact, generational conflict, and nationalism. This ethnomusicological data therefore throws light on the complex relations between the rural and urban, the modern and traditional in other areas of life related to various developmental strategies.

2 Early Evolutionary Sociological and Musicological Theories

Developmental theory itself initially sprang from the nineteenth century evolutionary theories of Auguste Comte, Émile Durkheim, Ferdinand Tönnies, Max Weber and others who suggested that societies moved in stages from simple primitive rural ones to complex industrial urban societies—in short, from savagery to civilization. These eurocentric evolutionary theories were taken up by the comparative musicologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth. centuries including Carl Strumpf and Erich von Hornbostel, both of whom studied the so called ‘simple’ and ‘primitive’ music of Africa, Asia, and South America. They were followed in the mid twentieth century by comparative musicologists like Hugh Tracey and A. M. Jones who studied and wanted to preserve the ‘authentic’ African music that exists in a static ‘ethnographic present’, and who treated emerging urban forms of African popular music as ‘adulterated’ and ‘hybrid’. These romanticized views of timeless traditional African music were convenient for the cultural imperialism and civilizing mission of the colonialists of the time, who depicted Africa as having no history—when in fact, of course, the continent does have a history: such as the great West African Sudannic and forest empires of ancient Mali, Songhai, Ashanti, and Benin. Moreover, African music was never static, as even before the colonial period it was continually evolving and adapting though trade, migration, war and generation change.2

2 See, for example, J. H. Kwabena Nketia, “History and the Organisation of Music in West Africa,” in Essays on Music and History in Africa, ed. Klaus P. Wachsmann (Evanston IL: Northwestern UP, 1971): 3–25. 122 Collins

3 Post-world War Developmental Theories: ‘Modernizaton’ Theories of Liberation and ‘Multiplicity’ Models

Modern (or, rather, ‘modernization’) developmental theory first began to emerge after the Second World War, during the period of rapid post-war European reconstruction and de-colonization. However, the modernization theory of W. W. Rostow and others replaced the linear trajectory movement model (from primitive to modern) with the comparably linear framework in which the center draws in the periphery. In the latter framework the sign of progress for undeveloped ‘peripheral’ nations was their moving toward a Western ‘central’ model based on capitalistic free-market goals, a manufactur- ing economy, and a consumer society. Indeed, certain aspects of the economies and cultures of emerging nation-states, such as the predominance of agrarian rural life, communal property, and extended family systems, were seen by center-periphery theorists as a break with modernization. Such aspects, thought center-periphery theorists, should be replaced with private property, socially mobile nuclear families, individualism and the Protestant work ethic. In short, tradition had to go. Since the 1960s, newer forms of developmental ‘liberation’ or ‘dependista/ dependency’ theories have emerged through studies of Latin American and other Marxist-influenced writers including Paul Baran, Immanuel Wallerstein, André Gunder Frank, and the Guyanese historian Walter Rodney. These ‘liberation’ theorists saw ‘modernization’ theory as pushing the ex-colonies and emerging nations towards a single capitalistic world system that actually wid- ens the gap between the rich and the poor.3 The Western free-market modernization model set as a standard and the structural adjustment policies advised for its achievement were meant to result in plenty for all. This expected outcome has not materialized. So the ‘liberation’ theorists emphasized developing the ‘periphery’ via appropriate technology and through the agency of national liberation movements. Yet another related new developmental theory that sprang up was the ‘multiplicity model’ which posits no single line of development; rather, it treats each emerging nation-state as unique. In this view, the identity of a new nation

3 In the 1970s it was estimated that eighty percent of global wealth was owned by twenty percent of the world’s population. Today it is ninety percent of the wealth that is owned by just ten percent. [The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) head of Structure Policy Analysis Division, Giuseppe Nicoletti, recounted this trend and his concerns about the dangerous extremes of spiralling growth in modern market economies, when he was interviewed by Manuela Saragosa on Business Daily, BBC World Service /6 August 2014), http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/bizdaily/bizdaily_20140806-1108b.mp3. Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 123 emerges from its actively selecting imported Western norms and technologies and blending these into its own indigenous folkways, national culture, and popular culture. There are three points from the new ‘liberation’ and ‘multiplicity’ developmental models that are pertinent to this chapter’s discussion: 1) Multiple modernities: There is no single form of modernity based on a single world system; rather, there are multiple or plural modernities and appropriate technologies related to the unique character and history of each emerging nation. 2) Active rather than passive agents: The emerging nations of the so- called ‘periphery’ are not passive or compliant recipients of change initiated by the industrial nations of the ‘center’. Rather, the local actors in nations involved in modernization selectively borrow, reinterpret, and recontextualize features from the ‘center’, what Theodore Newcomb calls ‘co-orientation’.4 3) ‘Rural and urban’ signifies a two-way process rather than a ‘divide’: The older modernization theories emphasize progress as a one way movement away from ‘backward’ rural traditional communities toward urban hi-tech ones. However, the newer developmental strategies de- emphasize the rural/urban divide and suggest instead that tradition does not necessarily thwart development. These theorists, rather, stress the need to develop a new nation’s rural areas and to draw on traditional local resources. A good example would be the integration of traditional medicine into the national health system of some African countries such as Ghana.5

4 African Popular Music and Developmental Ideas

Before turning to neo-traditional music, let me first mention briefly a few relevant points about African popular music that researchers have always associated with acculturation, hybridity, and other topics familiar to theorists who analyze social change as involving urbanization, commercialization and new technologies. The three parameters of the newer developmental theories listed

4 Theodore Newcomb, “An Approach to the Study of Communicative Acts,” Psychological Review 60 (1953): 393–404. 5 Patrick A. Twumasi, Medical Systems in Ghana: A Study of Medical Sociology (Tema: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1975); Rose Mary Amenga-Etego, “Interplay of Traditional and Modern Concepts of Health,” in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2012), vol. 2: 321–330. 124 Collins above (1–3) are also reflected in studies of African and in particular Ghanaian popular music.

4.1 Multiple Modernities (‘Transculturation’ and ‘Glocalization’) Globalization studies of music emerging in Africa’s nations suggest that musical acculturation does not necessarily result in cultural homogenization and ‘grey-out’: i.e. the emergence of a single musical world system. For instance, in their 1984 book Big Sounds from Small Peoples, Wallis and Malm demonstrate that Western music and music technology can lead to proliferation of local music styles. This process of trans-cultural enrichment or ‘transculturation’— sometimes called ‘glocalization’ (i.e. global + local)—can lead to a multitude of musical modernities that combine imported music and technology with local resources.

4.2 Active Rather Than Passive Agents (‘Cultural Triangulation’ and ‘Cultural Brokers’) Writers on African popular music have noted that artists are active selectors rather than just passive recipients of foreign culture and technology. For the study of his own country’s popular music, the Nigerian Luke Uche calls this creative process “cultural triangulation,”6 while Barbara Hampton (1983), who studied Ghanaian Ga music, talks of the “multiple manipulative responses” of African musicians undergoing acculturation.7 Likewise, Karin Barber (1987), David Coplan (1979, 1982, 1985) and Chris Waterman (1990) see African popular artists as innovative ‘cultural brokers’.

4.3 ‘Rural and Urban’ Signifies a Two-Way Process Rather Than a ‘Divide’ (‘Progressive Indigenization’ and ‘Reverse Urbanization’) Old developmental theories require a drift from countryside to city; they posit that traditional customs and rural beliefs actually frustrate modern progress. African popular music research, however, like the newer developmental theories, emphasizes the importance of the rural sector and suggests a two way relationship between the rural and the urban, the traditional and the Western. Research into African popular music suggests that whilst some forms are a product of increasing musical westernization, other genres have become

6 Luke Uche, “Imperialism Revisited,” Media Education Journal 6 (1987): 30–33. He draws on the earlier psychological ‘co-orientation’ theories of Horace Newcomb discussed earlier. 7 Barbara Hampton, “Towards a Theory of Transformation in African Music,” in Transformations and Resiliencies in Africa, ed. Pearl T. Robinson & Elliott P. Skinner (Washington DC: Howard UP, 1983): 211–229. Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 125 increasingly africanized as urban music moved out of the cities into the rural areas. Both the historian Terence Ranger and the sociologist Clyde Mitchell8 have written about the ‘tribalization’ of East African mbeni brass band music in the early to mid-1900s as it filtered from the coastal urban centers into the rural and provincial areas. As will be discussed presently, a similar ‘tribalization’ occurred with Ghanaian brass-band music. From my own work in Ghana, I have observed the ‘progressive indigenization’ of the concert-party popular theatre and highlife ‘palmwine’ guitar music, both of which moved from the urban coastal to inland rural areas during the 1930s.9 Other writers have noted a similar process. Chris Waterman talks of the ‘urban rural feedback’ of Nigerian palmwine guitar music in the 1930s,10 Paul Kayvu calls this ‘reverse urbanization‘ in his study of Kenyan urban pop music,11 while Gerhard Kubik refers to the reintegration of traditional music into East African popular music after the Second World War.12 It was also Kubik who coined the word ‘neo-traditional’ music for the product of this reverse urbanization, and he noted that it takes place not only in the rural areas but also in the towns where there are large numbers of new rural migrants. As will be discussed next, the topic of ‘neo-traditional’ music provides an opportunity to examine current music forms in Ghana that provide data that demands substantive changes to general theories of social and developmental change.13

8 Terence O. Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa 1890–1970 (London: Heinemann, 1975); J. Clyde Mitchell, The Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships Among Urban African in Northern Rhodesia (Manchester: Rhodes–Livingstone Papers 27, 1956). Mitchell and other British scholars including Max Gluckman belonged to the Rhodes–Livingstone scholars group of the 1950s who were examining African urbanization. Mitchell was one of the first to include music as part of his urban studies research. 9 John Collins, “Comic Opera in Ghana,” African Arts 9.2 (January 1976): 50–57. See also Karin Barber, E. John Collins & Alain Ricard, West African Popular Theatre (Bloomington: Indiana UP & London: James Currey, 1997). 10 Christopher Waterman, “Juju: The Historical Development, Socio-economic Organization and Communicative Functions of West Africa Popular Music” (doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Champaign–Urbana: University of Illinois, 1986). 11 Paul N. Kayvu, “The Development of Guitar Music in Kenya,” Jazz Forschung/Research 10 (1978): 111–119. 12 Gerhard Kubik, “Neo-Traditional Popular Music in East Africa since 1945,” Popular Music 1 (1981): 83–104. 13 J. H. K. Nketia calls these new forms of traditional music new ‘popular’ types that are created through the “remodelling” of a traditional genre; Nketia, Folksongs of Ghana (Accra: Ghana UP, 1963). 126 Collins

5 Ghanaian Neo-traditional Music and Developmental Trends

Since the late-nineteenth century when Ghanaian popular music first appeared in the coastal towns, it has spread inland and in consequence both popular and traditional music have coexisted starkly side by side. As a result, both have influenced one another, with popular music drawing on traditional resources,THE14 and TW traditionalO-WAY RELA musicTIONSHIP absorbing influences from local popular music suchBE asTWEEN highlife TRAD. This & circular POPULAR relationship is depicted below: AFRICAN MUSIC

WESTERNIZATION

ACCULTURATION URBANIZATION

TRAD MUSIC POPULAR MUSIC ETHNIC TRANS-CULTURAL MAINLY RURAL MAINLY URBAN NEO-TRADITIONAL

PROGRESSIVE INDIGENIZATION

REVERSE URBANIZATION TRIBALIZATION DE-ACCULTURATION URBAN-RURAL FEEDBACK figure 7.1 Diagram of the two-way relation between popular & traditional African music

As mentioned earlier, some forms of Ghanaian popular music (and theatre) went on to become ‘progressively indigenized’. However, there is a point and location at which the result can no longer be correctly analyzed as simply a re-africanized or ‘tribalized’ form of popular music; rather, it results in a ‘neo- traditional’ music. This occurs when local popular music is integrated into traditional music-making within its communal, ethnic and usually rural context. Let me construct a definition of neo-traditional music here, before moving on to specific examples.

14 The type of traditional music particularly influenced by popular music is the informal recreational music of the youth—well known to be relatively faster-moving than institutionalized ritual, ceremonial, and courtly forms of traditional music. Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 127

Definition of neo-traditional music styles: these are modern forms of traditional recreational music and drum-dances that have been influenced by indigenous African and other forms of popular music and dance, which draw strongly upon traditional resources and utilize primarily local instruments. Moreover, neo-traditional music has evolved within the social context of ethnic music and music-making—although sometimes it features at regional and national festivals as well as on the commercial stage of hotels and clubs. Four examples of Ghanaian neo-traditional performance are konkoma, simpa, borborbor, and kpanlogo; each is functionally integrated into traditional society, yet each is also involved socially and even politically in the process of modern social change.

5.1 The Akan Konkoma of the 1930s and 1940s Konkoma (or konkomba) was a marching music that combined Western and African features and was associated with the Akan youth age-set of the 1930s. It is a ‘poor man’s’ or rather ‘poor boy’s’ version of the local adaha brass band music, an early form of highlife that developed in coastal towns including Cape Coast, El Mina, and Winneba from the late nineteenth century.15 Konkoma was an Akan recreational music that employed marching rhythms of both the Western synchronized and African syncopated types. It was developed by the youth of the small towns and villages of southern Ghana where imported instruments were difficult to acquire. Like adaha, the konkoma groups were highly competitive and marched in military-like uniform—but they did away with expensive imported brass instruments of adaha, using instead voices backed by local bells and shakers and homemade konkoma frame-drums. Konkoma groups also used the ‘pati” drum, a copy of the Western military side drum— and occasionally a bugle. The rhythms of konkoma included Western-type 2/4 march time and also syncopated highlife rhythms. Because of this characteristic konkoma is sometimes referred to as ‘konkoma highlife’. Konkoma was associated with rowdy youthful knock-out dance competi- tions that followed the street marches. As a result this neo-traditional music was seen by the elders as music for ‘school drop outs’ and ‘ruffian boys’.16 Des pite objections from elders and school teachers, konkoma spread throughout Ghana. Observing the youthful orientation of konkoma, the British colonial

15 John Collins, “The Decolonisation of Ghanaian Popular Entertainment,” in Urbanization and African Cultures, ed. Toyin Falola & Steven Salm (Durham NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005): 119–137. 16 Personal communications with Professor A. M. Opoku of the University of Ghana Dance Department between 1973 and 1992. 128 Collins administration cleverly utilized this local marching music to recruit young men into the British army to fight in the Second World War; so even today the Ghanaian army sometimes uses konkoma songs for parade and ceremonial route marches. It should be noted that in the 1940s konkoma spread eastwards from its Akan heartland to eastern Ewe-speaking Ghana, and also to western Nigeria. According to Senyoh Adzei,17 there is still a konkoma group composed of elderly performers who mainly sing in Ewe in the town of Tsito Awudome (in Ghana’s Volta Region), where the form was introduced by the local man Dzikum Kwesi in 1947, after he returned from work as a fisherman in Cape Coast for seven years. As will be mentioned below, the Ewe variant of konkoma influenced the emergence of Ewe borborbor music around 1950. When konkoma spread to western Nigeria, it was introduced by Ghanaian migrant workers and it influenced the highlife and Yorùbá juju guitar music of Lagos.18 Moreover, the ‘odide’ neo-traditional music of the Esan people of Edo State in midwestern Nigeria is a variant of konkoma that utilizes local drums and is performed in the local Esan (a Bini) language.19

5.2 The Simpa Music of the Dagbon Traditional Area Simpa music was created by the youth of Yendi, the capital of the Dagbon traditional area of Ghana’s Northern Region, in the 1930s. It was a combination of traditional Dagbani recreational music with influences from the highlife and frame-drum music of southern Ghana, brought by traders—thus the name ‘simpa’, which is the local name for the southern Akan port-town of Winneba, one of the birthplaces of highlife. From its inception, simpa recreational music was frowned upon by the elders—and over the years simpa has continued to be used as an expression of youthful discontent and commentary. During the 1950s and 1960s, simpa songs were composed in honor of Nkrumah and the independence movement.20 Later, during the Yendi chieftaincy dispute of the late 1960s, simpa groups took sides with either of the two competing royal families; as a result, in 1969, when

17 One of my graduate music students in the University of Ghana Music Department, who is from Tsito and did some research into konkoma there around 2010. 18 Christopher Waterman, “Juju: The Historical Development, Socio-economic Organization and Communicative Functions of West Africa Popular Music,” and Waterman, Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990); Ajayi Thomas, History of Juju Music (New York: Thomas Organisation, 1992). 19 Charles O. Aluede & Esther O. Oluede, “The Ujie Music and Dance of the Esan: A Nigerian Genre on the Wheels,” Journal of Performing Arts 4.4 (2013–2014): 103–114. 20 For instance, the praise song ‘Yelmayli Paan Kwame Nkrumah’, a reel-to-reel tape field- recording made in 1958 by the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana at Legon. Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 129 the Yendi conflict boiled over into protracted violence, there was a temporary ban placed by national security authorities upon conflicting simpa groups.21 This dispute over who should become the traditional king or Ya Na of Dagbon is an example of a modern political problem reaching back to colonial interference in, or ‘freezing’ of the customary rotation of kingship between the two royal families of the locality: the Abudus and Andanis. The clan denied kingship under colonialism—the Abudu (or Abdallah) family—therefore became associated with Nkrumah‘s anticolonial Convention Peoples Party (or CPP); while the Andani family, who had been supported by the British colonialists, became associated with the anti-CPP ‘Danquah—Busia axis’. As a result, traditional Dagbani politics came to be transformed into what is too often misinterpreted by foreign experts as a modern problem for Africans incapable of managing the logic of democratization. As elsewhere, this legacy of regional politics in transformation is partially expressed through neo-traditional music.

5.3 The Ewe Borborbor The borborbor drum-dance was created in the Kpandu area of the mid-Volta Region of eastern Ghana around 1950. It is associated with John Nuatro and other youths who had been operating previously as a konkoma group. This music became ‘borborbor’ when Nuatro’s group combined traditional Ewe recreational music (such as akpese) with elements from konkoma such as the pati drum and the bugle. This group also employed the syncopated 2/4 and 4/4 highlife bell and clave rhythms of konkoma music. However, the Kpandu borborbor ensemble replaced the konkoma frame-drums with traditional Ewe peg drums and percussion. Moreover, the borborbor does not include Western march movements but, rather, a traditional African counter-clockwise circle dance performed by men and women. Indeed, the name ‘borborbor’ actually means to bend down—referring to a part of the dance movement. Borborbor music was played and patronized in the 1950s by the youth who were staunch supporters of Nkrumah’s fight for independence. As a result, this first borborbor group was known as ‘Nkrumah’s own borborbor’ and John Nuatro himself composed several nationalistic songs such as ‘Ghana Le Azoli Dzi’ or ‘Ghana is moving forward’.22

21 John Collins, Music Makers of West Africa (Washington DC: Three Continents & Boulder CO: Passeggiata, 1985), and “The Generational Factor in Ghanaian Music: Concert Parties, Highlife, Simpa, Kpanlogo and Gospel,” in Playing With Identities in the Contemporary Music of Africa, ed. M. Palmberg & A. Kirkegaard (Apo, Finland: Nordic African Institute, 2002): 60–74. 22 This has been preserved as a 78 rpm shellac record of the early 1950s, stored in the music archives of the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana at Legon. 130 Collins

Borborbor and other forms of Ewe traditional and neo-traditional music were also played by Ewe ethnic clubs set up by Ewe migrants in the cities. In this new urban context borborbor was performed at Ewe ceremonies and funerals. But these musical clubs also acted as credit and mutual aid associations with their own internal modern bureaucratic structure of secretaries, treasur- ers, and protocols. These clubs were like the urban volunteers among the new African rural migrants that Kenneth Little calls ‘fictional kinship groups’;23 they fostered ethnic identity and helped new migrants adjust to city life by establishing new urban networks. Daniel Avorgbedor has also commented on how the music of urban Ewe ethnic voluntary associations in Accra continues to help [Anlo] Ewe adapt to city life; for instance, he mentions that the times and dates of performances help establish a clock-time orientation for all par- ticipating in the audience and performers.24 While projecting ethnic identity in an urban context, borborbor was incorporated as well into the repertoire of trans-ethnic national cultural dance troupes and folkloric drum and dance groups.

5.4 The Ga Kpanlogo The kpanlogo drum-dance sprang up among the young Ga people of Accra during the early 1960s; in this respect this neo-traditional music is wholly a street rather than a village genre.25 Nevertheless, it drew on older forms of Ga recreational music (like gome and kolomashie) but incorporated highlife rhythms. Kpanlogo was invented by Otoo Lincoln and other ‘area boys’ of the Bukom fishing area of old Accra. As these youth also patronized rock ’n roll dance clubs in Accra, rock ’n roll and Chubby Checker’s ‘twist’ movements were also incorporated and are a staple feature of the kpanlogo dance. This music immediately became involved in an intergenerational struggle between the Ga youth and the Ga elders. The elders and some city officials tried to ban this new-fangled traditional dance and for a few years kpanlogo performers were caned or arrested by the police and their instruments seized.

23 Kenneth Little, West Africa Urbanisation: A Study of Voluntary Associations in Sierra Leone (London: Cambridge UP, 1970). 24 See, generally, Daniel Kodzo Avorgbedor, “Modes of Musical Continuity among the Anlo Ewe of Accra: A Study in Urban Ethnomusicology” (doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1986), and “The Impact of Rural-Urban Migration on a Village Music Culture: Some Implications for Applied Ethnomusicology,” Journal of the International Library of African Music 7.2 (1993): 45–57. 25 John Collins, West African Pop Roots (Philadelphia PA: Temple UP, 1992), and “The Generational Factor in Ghanaian Music: Concert Parties, Highlife, Simpa, Kpanlogo and Gospel”; Steve Salm, “The Bukom Boys: Subcultures and Identity Transformation in Accra, Ghana” (doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2003). Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 131

There are three possible reasons for this censorship. First, the ‘twist’ and some other movements of the male and female kpanlogo dancers were seen as indecent by the older Ga generation. Second, the dance jams that often accompanied kpanlogo sessions sometimes offended the sense of propriety of city officials. Third, kpanlogo became linked to the rebellious Ga youth subculture known as the ‘Tokyo Joes’ who sported the imported youth fashion of drain- pipe trousers, pointed ‘winkle picker’ shoes and the pompadour hairstyle. Some of these Tokyo Joes also supported Dr Busia’s United Party in opposition to the ruling party. Sometimes kpanlogo songs were employed to criticize the presiding President Nkrumah and his governing CPP. Despite this repression, youthful kpanlogo groups multiplied and the matter was only sorted in 1965 when fifty kpanlogo groups performed for government officials at Independence Square in Accra; at that event this neo-traditional drum-dance was given the green light by the government as a recognized genuine cultural expression. As a result, not only has kpanlogo continued up to this day as recreational music of Ga youth,26 but also it has become incorporated into performances of state-endorsed folkloric groups and university dance departments in which elements of various ethnic music styles are combined or choreographed together.

6 The Relevance of Studying Ghanaian Neo-traditional Music to Social-Change Models and Newer Developmental Theories

Here follows a listing of the basic features of four neo-traditional forms of music and dance found among the Akan, Dagbani, Ewe, and Ga ethnic groups of Ghana, which were just considered. The summary illuminates the fact that ethnic neo-traditional performance reflects and articulates the process of social change along with other popular music forms:

Migrant work and trade: The influence of traders from southern Ghana can be found in the simpa music of Dagbon—likewise, migrant labor was crucial in the spread of konkoma and borboror. Generational identity and conflict: This sociological dynamic was observed in the case of the simpa and konkoma of the 1930s, and it was particularly acute in the early kpanlogo performances in Accra. This situation was probably due

26 Some of kpanlogo’s moves have been incorporated into the new azonto dance that appeared in Ghana around 2010 as a local dance for contemporary Ghanaian electronic music such as hiplife and local hip-hop/rap. 132 Collins to the intensification of the generational conflict and widening of the age- gap during the 1960s, due to the expansion of education and introduction of Western rock ‘n’ roll with its accompanying ‘teenage’ norms and pop fashions. The Second World War: Konkoma marching songs were used during the 1939–1945 war against Nazism and fascism. 46,000 Ghanaians fought in Burma and Indo-China against the Japanese. A West African Theatre accompanied by konkoma music was set up by some Ghanaian soldiers to entertain the African troops there.27 The nationalist struggle: Both borborbor and simpa music was involved in the independence struggle, supporting the revolutionary Nkrumah and his CPP. Post-Independence political and chieftaincy disputes of the 1960s: The simpa music of northern Ghana became drawn into the modern political chieftaincy dispute in Dagbon, while some of the patrons of kpanlogo (the Tokyo Joes) aligned themselves with the anti-Nkrumah movement in the early 1960s. Urban socialization: Some forms of rural or provincial neo-traditional music (as we observed of the borborbor) were taken into the big cities by migrant workers as a component of ethnic clubs and voluntary associations. These associations not only projected ethnic identity but also had a modern organizational structure and helped familiarize their members with urban life. Trans-ethnic (i.e. national) identity: Kpanlogo street music and also the borborbor taken to the cities by Ewe migrants have been incorporated into the repertoires of private and state-run folkloric groups and cultural dance troupes, including the public university’s dance ensembles where local dances are combined, choreographed and put on stage. Likewise, in recent years the simpa bands and music have been featured by organizations such as the Centre for National Culture in Tamale, the capital of Ghana’s Northern Region. In the case of the Akan konkoma, we noted that as it spread eastwards in the 1940s, its Ewe, Yorùbá, and Bini variants emerged. In these new contexts the neo-traditional drum dances no longer distinguished any particular ethnicity in isolation but, rather, signified an inter-ethnic, composite national identity.

7 Conclusion

This examination of neo-traditional music has demonstrated a range of features which are highlighted in the newer ‘liberation’ and ‘multiplicity’ models

27 Collins, Music Makers of West Africa; Barber, Collins & Ricard, West African Popular Theatre. Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 133 of development theory which are attempts to model characteristics of economies and societies in newly emerging nations regarded as being in some kind of transition. Multiple modernities: In the case of the neo-traditional examples discussed, we have seen quite different types of musical modernity developing among the Akan, the Dagbon, the Ewe, and the Ga; I treat these emerging forms as ethnic musical modernities. Active rather than passive agents: Rather than passive adaptation, we noted that the active selection (called ‘co-orientation’ and ‘cultural triangulation’) of the new developmental theories is also found in neo-traditional music. Although neo-traditional music is still embedded within the traditional mode of communal music, its performers selectively borrow ideas and elements from the West, including the incorporation of Western or westernized instruments, uniforms, dance movements, and even the bureaucratic organization style of the clubs or associations that produced the music. ‘Rural and urban’ denotes a two-way process rather than a ‘divide’: Newer developmental theories question the older ‘modernization’ models that represent traditional rural life as backward and that configure ‘progress’ as a one- way drift or urban pull of migrants from countryside to city. However, both Ghanaian popular and neo-traditional music move from the rural areas to the cities and back again—in an ongoing circular process of urbanization, ‘reverse urbanization’ or ‘rural—urban feedback’.

We have noted that there are processes going on with African neo-traditional music that are also evidenced from African popular music research. One is transculturation, in which traditional performance adopts features of local popular music, such as highlife, that itself is a product of Western/African musical acculturation. One could therefore say that whereas popular music is a result of the primary acculturation of Western and African music in African coastal towns and ports, neo-traditional music represents a secondary form of acculturation that evolved as coastal commercial urban music filtered into traditional music making and into the rural areas. As with popular music, neo-traditional music is also linked to social change, such as migrant work, urbanization, modern politics, nationalism, and generation identity. This picture is a far cry from the earlier eurocentric picture of African traditional music (and, indeed, traditional society) being static, un- touched by time and an irrelevant fossil from the past. At the same time, neo-traditional music studies provide evidence for ideas stemming from the newer liberation and multiplicity developmental theories. The first concerns the multiple modernities model that reflects the unique 134 Collins character and history of each emerging nation rather than just one eurocentric world-system modernity. As this paper attempts to demonstrate, a plurality of modernities also takes place within the realm of African ethnic music making. Thus, within a country like Ghana that consists of many ethnic languages and cultures,28 there can be multiple musical modernities, these being ethnic neo- traditional performance styles, of which this chapter has discussed four. Second, and as more recent developmental models suggest, social change and development emanating from the Western ‘center’ nation is not just a matter of the emerging nations’ being passive recipients of change. Likewise, the creators and performers of African neo-traditional music and dance are active ‘cultural brokers’ who select and adopt the elements of urban commercial popular dance music that they find suitable and relevant to their communal and ethnic form of music making. Rather than westernizing influences resulting in a cultural homogenization or ‘grey-out’, we rather see a proliferation of new ethnic performance styles. Third, newer developmental theories advise encouragement of rural development and focus upon the complex two-way links between the urban and rural areas, for instance through urban-based individuals keeping strong ties with their hometowns and villages, or through the emergence of ethnic voluntary associations in the big cities. From musical studies it has been noted that commercial African popular music was initially a product of the westernization of the music of traditional rural societies and that this new music appeared in the coastal towns in the late nineteenth century, later spreading into the rural hinterlands. The four types of neo-traditional performance discussed in this chapter subsequently incorporated features of this emerging urban popular music into their own communal ethnic music, predominantly in the rural and provincial areas—the exception being the kpanlogo of Accra. In turn, some of these rural based neo-traditional performance styles, such as konkoma and borborbor, were introduced into cities like Lagos or Accra by migrant workers. In short, the growth of neo-traditional Ghanaian performance reveals rural-urban feedback and a to-and-fro between the city and village, the old and the new. A final point to emphasize is that ethnic neo-traditional music forms obviously express ethnic identity, language, community norms, and aesthetic practices; but it does more in contemporary Ghana. Neo-traditional performances also express inter-ethnic and national sentiments. For instance, during the 1940s, as the Akan konkoma music spread eastward, Ewe, Yorùbá, and Beni variants developed. Then from the 1960s and the rise of national cultural

28 In fact, Ghana has around thirty different ethnic groups. Ghanaian Neo-traditional Performance and ‘Development’ 135 policies and sentiments, kpanlogo, borborbor and simpa performance went beyond just projecting their original ethnicities to express national identity.29 This occurred when the neo-traditional drum-dances came to be incorporated, then as now, into the repertoires of privately commissioned and govern- mentally appointed inter-ethnic folkloric groups to perform in urban clubs, national theatres, universities, and at major state functions.

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Coplan, David. In Township Tonight: South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1985). Coplan, David. “The Urbanisation of African Music: Some Theoretical Observations,” Popular Music 2 (1982): 113–129. Cooper, Frederick, & Randall Packard. “International Development and the Social Sciences,” in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2012), vol. 2: 346–367. Enzenberger, Hans Magnus. The Consciousness Industry (New York: Seabury, 1974). Featherstone, Mike. Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (Thousand Oaks CA & London: Sage, 1990). Ferguson, James. “Anthropology and its Evil Twin in Development,” in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2012), vol. 2: 485–501. Frith, Simon. World Music, Politics and Social Change (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989). Gluckman, Max. “Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand,” Bantu Studies 14 (1940): 1–30, 147–174. Gunder-Frank, Andre. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York & London: Monthly Review Press, 1967). Hampton, Barbara. “Towards a Theory of Transformation in African Music,” in Transformations and Resiliencies in Africa, ed. Pearl T. Robinson & Elliott P. Skinner (Washington DC: Howard UP, 1983): 211–229. Hernæs, Per. “The ‘Traditional’ and ‘Modern’ in West Africa,” in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2012), vol. 2: 643–656. Kayvu, Paul N. “The Development of Guitar Music in Kenya,” Jazz Forschung/Research 10 (1978): 111–119. Kubik, Gerhard. “Neo-Traditional Popular Music in East Africa since 1945,” Popular Music 1 (1981): 83–104. Little, Kenneth. West Africa Urbanisation: A Study of Voluntary Associations in Sierra Leone (London: Cambridge UP, 1970). Marks, Desmond. “Pop and Folk as a Going Concern for Sociological Research,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 14.1 (1983): 93–98. Meillasoux, Claude. Urbanisation of an African Community: Voluntary Associations in Bamako (Seattle & London: U of Washington P, 1968). Merriam, Alan P. “The Use of Music in the Study of the Problem of Acculturation,” American Anthropologist 57 (1955): 28–34. Mitchell, J. Clyde. The Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships among Urban African in Northern Rhodesia (Manchester: Rhodes–Livingstone Papers 27, 1956). 138 Collins

Newcomb, Theodore. “An Approach to the Study of Communicative Acts,” Psychological Review 60 (1953): 393–404. Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. Folksongs of Ghana (Accra: Ghana UP, 1963). Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. “History and the Organisation of Music in West Africa,” in Essays on Music and History in Africa, ed. Klaus P. Wachsmann (Evanston IL: Northwestern UP, 1971): 3–25. Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. “On the Historicity of Music in African Cultures,” Journal of African Studies 9.3 (Fall 1982): 91–100. Ranger, Terence O. Dance and Society in Eastern Africa 1890–1970 (London: Heinemann, 1975). Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington DC: Howard UP, 1974). Salm, Steve. “The Bukom Boys: Subcultures and Identity Transformation in Accra, Ghana” (doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2003). Thomas, Ajayi. History of Juju Music (New York: Thomas Organisation, 1992). Twumasi, Patrick A. Medical Systems in Ghana: A Study of Medical Sociology (Tema: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1975). Uche, Luke. “Imperialism Revisited,” Media Education Journal 6 (1987): 30–33. Wallis, Roger, & Krister Malm. Big Sounds from Small Peoples: The Music Industry in Small Countries (London: Constable, 1984). Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World System (New York: Academic, 1976). Waterman, Christopher. “Juju: The Historical Development, Socio-economic Organiza- tion and Communicative Functions of West Africa Popular Music” (doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Champaign–Urbana: University of Illinois, 1986). Waterman, Christopher. Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990). CHAPTER 8 Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist

Olúfẹ́miTáíwò

Abstract

In this essay Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò examines a broad range of topics in the essays of the late Kofi Awoonor. He analyzes some of the recurrent themes in Awoonor’s critical essays, such as democracy in the aftermath of Africa’s honeymoon with socialism; global peace and justice; the scourge of imported religions in Africa and their disastrous impact on the people; and Africa’s enforced dependence on foreign aid. Táíwò finds that, as a way to surmount these and other problems, Awoonor expresses a firm belief in the value of traditional Africa as “a worthy base” from which to contemplate and transform the rest of the world, and advocates in his essays a restoration of the rational agency of Africans to its rightful place at the centre of life and thought, policy and planning. This focus on the rational agency of Africans is the ultimate indicator of the philosophical humanism that undergirds Awoonor’s essays.

I was privileged to have met Professor Kofi Awoonor once and to be a ben- eficiary of his generosity and joie de vivre at his residence here in Accra many years ago on one of my many visits to this great country. So when the tragedy at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, occurred in 2013, there was for me a personal dimension to the loss of Professor Awoonor. But ever since those tragic events, I have become reconciled to the fact that how he lived should be the only thing that matters. Yet, one must remark on the cruel irony of the occasion of his death being procured by the object of one of the recurrent themes in his vast body of writings: the scourge of the imported religions in Africa and the disastrous impact they have on would-be zealots among our youth at the present time. Although many of us probably know and enjoy the works of some of our noteworthy essayists, especially those who work in the journalistic sphere, as a literary form, as a vehicle for public discourse and intellectual exchanges, especially in academia, the essay has not exercised our attention much. We read them, of course. And some of us have collected them in volumes, both our own and those of others we edited, but, as a genre that invites analysis and criticism, I am not even sure that such studies have been undertaken by us.

That is a crying shame. No, this is not the place to pontificate on the essay form. I mention it because to take the present object of my solicitation as an example, Awoonor exploited the essay form to great effect in his engagement with life while he had it, and the world and its ever changing states in which that life unfolded. Although satire offers a refuge, I am not sure how much of a refuge it is when it comes to the essay form. For, given its strictures, the essayist cannot just be a midwife helping others to birth their ideas or plead a separation between her ideas and herself or her characters in novel writing, or the deliberate opacity that poetry often invites. The essayist must own the ideas articulated in the essay; the voice cannot be masked and parentage cannot be farmed out. Yes, I know in academia, in the name of detachment, some of us write as if the ideas in our essays could have been written by just about anyone else or completely by a disembodied entity. Yet we know only too well that those essays are best where the voice of the writer is not muted or elided and the direct ownership of the ideas makes it worthwhile to insist on the responsibility of the writer to her audience and to ask that the writer involved neither shirk nor make light of that responsibility. Such is the essay form. A caveat is necessary here. I do not in this essay make a distinction between speeches, addresses, comments, and essays in the two collections of such that I have examined of Awoonor’s writings. I hope that what I just said regarding the essay form, especially the centrality of standpoint, helps provide some support for this manner of proceeding. I am also not in a position on this occasion to lay before you the vastness of his writings under this heading. What I hope to do is to give a sample of the sheer breadth of the topics he cared to comment on, analyze, criticize or recommend solutions for. Simultaneously, I wish to bring to our notice what I take to be the recurring themes in his exertions and what I suggest is the philosophical standpoint that undergirds them. I know that it is unusual to think of our thinkers as philosophers or think of their ideas as having some philosophical underpinnings. In what follows I shall isolate and name the philosophical impulse that I find to be animating Awoonor’s essays. The opinions of which his essays are teeming are neither scatter shots nor on-the-spur-of-the-moment musings. They are all connected by a strand that runs through them. I will name it in a moment. Awoonor was quite catholic in his choice of topics that he addresses in his essays. There are few essayists in the fine tradition involved in that idea who are equally at home offering some original ideas on what kind of United Nations would be appropriate for the post-Cold War, post-bipolar power world1

1 See Africa: The Marginalized Continent (Accra: Woeli, 1994), ch. 3, 7, 11, and 12. Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist 141 as Awoonor has done while remaining unyielding in his commitment to Kwame Nkrumah and the ism to which he lent his name. Incidentally, the other brilliant worker in this vineyard of minds seeking to come up with appropriate vehicles for global peace and justice in the new world order is none other than Awoonor’s fellow countryman and former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. If people have not read his collection on humani- tarian intervention, it rewards effort. The question of democracy and its march in the world in the aftermath of the demise of ‘really existing socialism’ agitated him and a lot of what he has to say on it, even though I disagree with much of it, if one pays heed, one will consider oneself lucky to have such a worthy interlocutor. The nagging issue of Africa’s place in the world and the fierce urgency of ending Africa’s role as the beggar continent supplied yet another recurrent theme in his essays. His undying commitment to Nkrumah and Nkrumahism was never in doubt till his death. I have no doubt that his commitment must have struck many Nkrumah haters as the ‘Awoonor getting Jesus moment’. Yet, if the Nkrumah hater or lover permits herself to read his essays on Nkrumah, on the fate of education in Africa, on the importance of language in human development, on culture and politics, and on the dire fate of millions of our fellow human beings in Africa at the present time, it becomes clear that here is a sophisticated mind identifying what he sees as cogent arguments and a brilliant case for how to move Africa forward. It is almost an accident that Nkrumah is the author of these ideas. Had those ideas had a different author, Awoonor would still have been a subscriber to them. But all that is because he read Nkrumah! And the rest of us who read and still read Nkrumah may get into disagreements with him on his emphases in some areas, but such disagreements will be insightful and the cause of making life more abundant for our people will be much better served. I am suggesting that reading Awoonor’s essays requires the kind of erudition that too many of us lack and have no interest in developing. He himself took Nkrumah as a philosopher who was schooled in the history of Euro-American philosophy but who was concerned to use the skills he acquired in the conflict- ed context of colonialism to rethink African history and re-form African spaces. In exactly the same way that Nkrumah excoriated what Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would call the ‘follow-follow’ attitude, being a follower of Nkrumah required a critical engagement with the man and his ideas. For Awoonor,

Nkrumah must be seen in the final analysis as the apostle of true African freedom, a Pan-African thinker and activist who translated the dreams of the diaspora African intellectuals into a practical proposition and left an impressive array of political documents to attest not only to his 142 Táíwò

activism but more importantly to his burning faith in the future of Africa. Alongside Amilcar Cabral and Frantz Fanon, Nkrumah remains a revolutionary seer and political tactician.2

I have made his commitment to Nkrumahism the subject of my introductory remarks because it arose from what I take to be the philosophical template that informs his reflections: humanism. Nkrumah appealed especially to him on account of what he saw as the humanist spirit that animated Nkrumah’s overall philosophical standpoint.

Nkrumah may have appropriated Marxist ideology as an ally in his struggle for Ghana’s freedom, building a viable African state and for crafting a strategy for continental liberation and unity. But from all the records and the nature of the policies he adopted whilst in power, it should be concluded that he was neither a communist nor a tool of global com- munism. His commitment to African spirituality and humanist ideas, his firm grasp of the value of traditional Africa as a worthy base from which to construct an objective appraisal of the world, given the historical reality of the Euro-Christian and Arabo-Islamic factors that entered the continent, define him as an original thinker and revolutionary whose first concern was Africa. Because of this concern and his true commitment to Pan Africanism he worked relentlessly to bring in the African Diaspora of the new world as our worthy kinsmen and women who have always had a legitimate right to participate in Africa’s liberation.3

This was the primary philosophical orientation that he shared with Nkrumah that infused his essays. Throughout his essays the overarching concern is with humanity, humans, their fate in the world, their impact on the world, their relations with one another, what they owe one another, what they owe the land, what they owe future generations, what they owe the memories handed down by past generations, and so on. Once one takes seriously this humanist preference it is easy to see how and why he would make it his business to be on the side of shamed, oppressed, deprived, and poor humanity wherever they may happen to be located by the accidents of birth and history.

2 “Kwame Nkrumah—The Pan-African Revolutionary” (Africa: The Marginalized Continent, 33). 3 “Why Was Nkrumah Overthrown?” in Awoonor, The African Predicament: Collected Essays (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2006): 159. Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist 143

Here is an example of this humanism that knows no boundaries. In a 1995 piece commemorating the centenary of the death of José Martí, Awoonor wrote:

Today, when the siren calls of world imperialism, after its alleged trium- phant victory over socialism, sound loudest, when even progressives and revolutionaries seem to be carelessly tossing overboard the bitter lessons of our history, we must pause to take serious stock. The masters of the historical game have perfected new strategies; they are co-opting many revolutionaries into being adulating lackeys and enthusiastic apprentices of their economic and social system. The brutal extermination of the citizens of Chechnya, of Bosnia and many other battle zones of the world receive approbation from the imperialist quarters. Even as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the defeat of fascism, fascism in many mutations whether it take the form of Jew baiting in Europe, immigration barriers, the beating of black people in every European city, or the persecution of Moslems, Islamic states and the Palestinian patriots under the guise of fighting terrorism, the progressive forces of the world must organize a re- grouping. They must define a new agenda; we must rededicate ourselves to the proposition that the era of slavery, brutal oppression and exploitation must end, particularly in that segment of the world called Third.4

The world for him was one constituency and the fate of the lowliest among the world’s peoples was the cornerstone of his prescriptions.5 However, this is without prejudice to his special commitment to that part of the world that is peopled by Africans and African-descended peoples. There are many reasons for this preference but I won’t be going over them. But one stands out in particular and this he shares with other African thinkers that are usually not thought together: Nkrumah and Senghor, yes, that Senghor. For all three of them there is no floating, untethered human essence once we move away from the uninteresting fact of our morphology, a fact denied by only dyed-in-the-wool racists. Humanity, human nature, is a product of history and this history is the sedimented outcomes of ideas, practices, processes, and institutions within which successor generations grow and become human, carrying forward the best that their ancestors have handed down to them with them, too, striving to ensure that their own posterity do not inherit anything less worthy than what they have been given by those who came before them.

4 The African Predicament, 169. 5 See Africa: The Marginalized Continent, chs. 5, 7, 13 and 14. 144 Táíwò

We see the embodiments of these sediments in a people’s religion— Awoonor thought that this is primary6—history, art, philosophy, cuisine; in sum, what we typically call their culture. Given the historical accident that all peoples of African descent in the world trace their origins to Africa, it stands to reason that we have a good roadmap for navigating Africa’s relations with her Diaspora. By a similar token, given the unicity of the human community, we do not need any special reason as Africans for making the sufferings of Palestinians a matter of concern for us or the oppression of Uighurs or Tibetans by the Chinese in that part of the world.7 Coming closer to home, though, Awoonor, again by a historical accident early in his life, had to deal with the diasporic component of Africa’s peoples. I dare say that the essays that make up Part 1 of The African Predicament: Collected Essays, the second and larger collection of his essays, and which were originally intended to be published as a sort of autobiographical engagement with black America, must be taken seriously and widely disseminated in Africana Studies in the USA today and in the burgeoning field of United States Information Agency-sponsored ‘American Studies’ in different parts of the globe today. There are several levels on which Awoonor discussed his links with the Diaspora. There is the strand supplied by the European slave trade and its derivative, New World slavery, from which have descended most peoples of African descent in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean today. Awoonor declares it an imperative for Africa to come to terms with this experience and judiciously study it as a precondition for moving forward at the present time. It is not enough to pour imprecations on European slavers. That we must do. But Awoonor holds that Africans may not pretend that they were entirely victims, not participants in this heinous crime against humanity.

I propose for our African intellectuals, psychologists, lawyers, religionists, poets, social anthropologists a project wherein we will put our ancestors on trial, alongside the European slavers, for their role in this dismal trade. I also suggest to all scholars from every so-called slaving society or those that were victims of this grave crime, to help us organize this trial. It will constitute a great act of acceptance of responsibility, a psychic purgation,

6 See “Contemporary Relevance of Tradition” (The African Predicament, 209–227). 7 See “The UN Flounders after the Cold War: An Interview with Economic Intelligence Review” (The African Predicament, 300–322). Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist 145

an exorcism of the demons of 300 years of guilt as collaborators in a ter- rible historical crime.8

This acceptance of responsibility remains urgent and necessary. Our failure to do so continues to have deleterious consequences for the place of African- descended peoples across the globe. How do we expect the world not to have a dim view of our morality and capacity for moral behavior when we remain, for the most part, happily indifferent to this chequered segment of our long history? The world does not say ‘Never Again’, because we have not led the movement to get the world to buy into ensuring that humanity never witnesses anything that even remotely resembles the horrors of the European slave trade and the New World slavery that it spawned. Worse still, bereft of appropriate historical consciousness of this our share of the depravity of human nature, we have become, again, the source of on going engagement in what is now euphemistically referred to as “human trafficking” and active participants of this twenty-first-century iteration of a crime against humanity. How else do we explain present-day equivalents in the heinous crime of human trafficking that daily wastes hundreds of prime African lives in the waters of the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean? This, to me, is proof of the continuing connivance of Africans at the subversion of their fellows’ humanity. And in our various countries, we persist in treating humanity with levity within our boundaries. Perhaps had we done so, we might have saved the world from another of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s continuing sensation- alizations of this history and repeated taunts in his many documentaries. (One of the latest is “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross,” PBS TV.) More significantly, Awoonor tied this acceptance of responsibility to the fate of the debate on reparations for the descendants of slaves in the USA:

I believe this is where the entire debate on reparations must begin. To pretend that we Africans were merely innocent victims and not, in many instances, enthusiastic accomplices in the Slave Trade is to deny a historical fact.9

Again, it is hard to overemphasize the importance of this acceptance of responsibility to Africa’s moral standing in the world, as was pointed out earlier. Worse still, it continues to preempt any exploration of what it was, within our indigenous culture, which made us give up our young in their prime in

8 “A Socio-Cultural Proposal for African Development” (The African Predicament, 259). 9 “A Socio-Cultural Proposal for African Development, 259–260. 146 Táíwò exchange for kitsch back when the European slave trade lasted. Our failure to do so has meant that we have not been able at the present time to restrain similar demons from wreaking havoc with our relations with the rest of the world.10 At a certain level, Awoonor believed that Africa has not begun the task of atoning to the descendants of those that we sold into slavery in the New World. In an essay on W. E. B. Du Bois to mark the centenary of the publication of The Souls of Black Folk, he fulminated:

The story of how the African American militant and progressive community in Ghana [a group that once included the recently deceased Maya Angelou] was treated after the overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966 remains to be told. For the purpose of setting the record right, it will and must be told. Many of them were chased out, some locked up, and when a streak of charity set in, some were placed on the first available plane at the command of the imperial centre that financed and mandated the overthrow.11

This group ended up in Ghana originally in response to the invitation that Nkrumah, at Ghana’s independence, extended to Diasporic Africans to come back and make a home in Africa. This was an integral part of the Pan Africanist problematic. The dream was alive then. But, obviously, it never percolated to other sectors of the society. The salient segments of the Ghanaian population never shared the dream; so there was no question of their standing up in robust defense of that dream and of those repatriates who shared it and betted their lives on it to, I am sad to say, their permanent regret. In spite of the prattle in the African Union (AU) and repeated meetings sponsored by it on the so-called Sixth Region and its recognition by the AU as worthy of representation on its Economic, Social and Cultural Commission, the fact remains that many of us, intellectuals and politicians especially, remain somewhat amiss in our apprehension of and striving for the right of Diasporic Africans to resettle in Africa, without any hassles! As usual, Africa is dropping the ball. It is no exaggeration to say that one reason why respect eludes African-descended peoples in the global community relates to the reality that we are the only group whose descendants abroad have no homeland that they can relocate to, should the hassles of living where they have momen- tarily ended up become too much for them to take.

10 See http://contrariansdiary.blogspot.com/2013/05/time-to-retire-africa-progresspanel .html, where I have developed this in some detail. 11 “W. E. B. Du Bois: Souls of Black Folk” (The African Predicament, 236). Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist 147

And African-descended peoples, repeated victims of global white suprema- cy since the era of the slave trade, an orientation that has filtered into the rest of common humanity spread across the globe, more than any other group, for this reason, are most needful of such a homeland. China and India have each found a way to channel their long-emigrated descendants back to the homeland. Spain joined the movement recently by extending citizenship rights to descendants of its citizens long since domiciled in Central and South America. Since Nkrumah, only with the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 did the former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade extend an invitation to Haitians to come and settle in Senegal. I echo Awoonor in saying that we can do better and Africans at home and abroad deserve better. He was clear on what he thought had to be done to right this wrong. In what must be that rare understatement to be found in his writings, Awoonor avers:

At present, African response to the overtures of her children in four hundred years of exile is at best indifferent and at worst uncomprehendingly myopic and unfeeling. It is time the various African countries put into their constitutions clauses granting the right of return and abode as full citizens to all her children in the Diaspora.12

Awoonor was unsparing in his judgment of his Diasporic cousins. The essays in Part 1 of The African Predicament contain timely reflections on his life and work in the USA, his encounters with different writers and his impressions of them from Norman Mailer to Allen Ginsberg to Nikki Giovanni. His reflections, positive and critical, on Black Studies in the United States ought to be better known; they continue to have resonance for the field as it has evolved since he wrote those lines. He was witness to and full participant in the birth of what we now know under various headings as Black, Africana, Africalogical, etc., Studies. He knew the tensions and warned against ignoring them or not taking them seriously. He had this caution for our cousins:

On the other side of the Atlantic, among the descendants of the original slave exiles, an equally pathetic disdain for Africa and things African nurtured by the imposed slave culture. This was constructed on the well- established myth that those who were carted away were the lucky ones, redeemed from the dread futurity that awaited their pagan ancestors, and ushered into the bright redeeming glare of civilization. Convinced

12 “Western Ideological Hegemony and the New Drive for Dominion: The African Choice” (The African Predicament, 200). 148 Táíwò

that they were removed by the intervention of the Christian God from the benighted life of deep savagery, the children of the exodus were nurtured, in spite of their own resilient and enduring racial memory, to construct their own version of the great denial and subsequent rejection of their original homeland.13

This is a recurrent theme in the literature and the debate has been continually kindled over time.14 Let us now shift gear to another of his recurring concerns. His critique of the failings of liberal representative democracy is sharp and informed but he never embraced any kind of nativism. Rather, he called for a critical domestication of our borrowings, especially of political engineering models. Africa must attain “true democracy”;

not the democracy of an elite ruling class revolving itself through a mo- ronic parliamentary hall of mirrors, but the democracy which empowers the smallest village to have a say in how it earns its living and how that earning is used for its benefit. A democracy that confers through an active economic program full social welfare as the end-product of political participation. Above all, a democracy which insists on the inclusiveness of all, on the welfare of the community being the precondition for the welfare of each, a democracy in which the notions of equity and justice are realities in the life of each member of the society in which those who occupy positions of leadership are held accountable.15

In order for this democracy to obtain and Africa leave behind its current state of widespread poverty, the agency of Africans must be restored to the center of life and thought. The focus on agency is the ultimate index of the philosophical humanism that I have found in Awoonor’s writings. Nowhere is the concern with agency more demonstrated than in his musings on the human condition under incarceration. In “Notes from Prison,” he declared:

13 “Western Ideological Hegemony and the New Drive for Dominion,” 200. 14 See Tunde Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans: Nineteenth-Century Black Nationalists and the Civilizing Mission (Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1998); Keith Richburg, Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (New York: Basic Books, 1996). 15 “Western Ideological Hegemony and the New Drive for Dominion,” 204. Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist 149

Five minutes to lock up time. I can stay in this prison for 100 years but I’ll never be used to being locked up at a certain hour. It’s the most devastating psychological torture aspect of the whole inhuman business of prisons. Whatever the idea behind this heinous institution, it fundamentally degrades man and reduces him to the level of cattle.16

We receive persistent reports from outfits like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, not to talk of mass media like Al-Jazeera, on torture in the criminal justice system of sundry African countries enacted by the police and other law enforcement agents, including the prison services. If I may be permitted a personal anecdote: I once wrote, back in 2003, on how our legal systems shaft people. A so-called leading journal of African Studies’ referees said that I was behind the time; that things were improving in Africa and I was not paying heed to the yeoman efforts of civil-rights organizations. Here we are, eleven years later, and what I wrote about then remains current in spite of so-called improvements that have been made and the swelling ranks of jobber NGOs dedicated to exploiting their fellow citizens to procure the good life for their owners underwritten by foreign donors. It is precisely this kind of duplicity that Awoonor leveled serious imprecations at in his writings. Finally, in the tradition of true essayists, nothing was verboten to him. In “Laughing at Oneself” he lampooned the faux-seriousness of self-important individuals—be they ordinary people or functionaries:

Take some of those religious preachers on our television and radio stations. You would actually believe the fellows have never let off a fart or that they have cornered the market on eternal goodness, and that the Good Lord has nothing to do but be the eternal watchman at the gate of their moral crusade camps.17

And in another light-hearted piece, reminiscent of Peter Enahoro’s How to be a Nigerian, Awoonor poked serious fun at “The National Character” of Ghanaians. Here it is:

On the road, he drives at break-neck speed for the simple reason that the more trips he makes will enable him to pay what the owner has imposed, and still have something left for himself and his family

16 “Notes from Prison” (The African Predicament, 396). 17 “Laughing at Oneself” (The African Predicament, 228). 150 Táíwò

[…] In the Ghanaian urban character, the matter of neighbourhood cleanliness has been banished since we moved to the city. Take a casual stroll through Nima, Madina, or even Adenta. Sugar cane husks, kenkey wrappers, and the new affliction, plastic bags, have taken over every side street and shrub bush. Even those who live close to them don’t care.18

It gets more interesting what the Ghanaian attitude is to death and funerals. For that, please I implore the reader to familiarize herself with the text directly. I would like to end by quoting a fitting epitaph for a humanist in whose essays we encounter a fine mind gifted with an inner eye for human frailties and possibilities for good that is the task of the intellectual always to strive to bring us to:

Goodness is difficult. It is like love. It cannot be a virtue but a way of life, an inconsequential natural gesture like a good hello in the morning. And when it becomes ingrained, becomes a second nature, unquestioned, in- stinctive, uncalculated, incalculable, simple. It is difficult to reach after only one try. Yet one needs to cultivate it even in the evening of one’s life. But it shall have had its seeds planted long ago, certainly available for the germinating time. I want to be remembered if I did, not for my poetry (the Lord knows they’ll never forgive me, my verse, the DPP. Gyeke Darko said so at the military tribunal.) but for the fact that I have achieved a mild form of goodness in spite of many heavy handicaps of spirit and temperament—arrogance, pride, and mental indolence, not caring much for those nearest me. That is why I refuse to be part of any carnival of hate. But it does not mean that I shall embrace those who are evil. I must work to destroy them. My claim to the smallest bit of goodness enjoins it. And by conquering that evil in concert with others who think and feel like me, we shall have room enough to celebrate the festival of goodness and do so abundantly.19

So let it be with Kofi Awoonor. I hope he delights at this celebration in his name by another contingent of humans who wish to participate in the festival of goodness.

18 “The National Character” (The African Predicament, 242). 19 “Notes from Prison” (The African Predicament, 403). Kofi Awoonor: The Essays of a Humanist 151

Works Cited

Adeleke, Tunde. UnAfrican Americans: Nineteenth-Century Black Nationalists and the Civilizing Mission (Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1998). Awoonor, Kofi. Africa: The Marginalized Continent (Accra: Woeli, 1994). Awoonor, Kofi. “Kwame Nkrumah—The Pan-African Revolutionary,” 1–34. Awoonor, Kofi. The African Predicament: Collected Essays (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2006). Awoonor, Kofi. “Contemporary Relevance of Tradition,” 209–227. Awoonor, Kofi. “José Marti—the Pan-American Revolutionary,” 161–170. Awoonor, Kofi. “Laughing at Oneself,” 228–231. Awoonor, Kofi. “The National Character” 239–245. Awoonor, Kofi. “Notes from Prison,” 396–403. Awoonor, Kofi. “A Socio-Cultural Proposal for African Development,” 254–278. Awoonor, Kofi. “The UN Flounders after the Cold War: An Interview with Economic Intelligence Review,” 300–322. Awoonor, Kofi. “W. E. B. Du Bois: Souls of Black Folk,” 232–238. Awoonor, Kofi. “Western Ideological Hegemony and the New Drive for Dominion,” 182–208. Awoonor, Kofi. “Why Was Nkrumah Overthrown?” 141–160. Richburg, Keith. Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (New York: Basic Books, 1996). CHAPTER 9 Sell, Borrow, Work or Migrate? Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana

Abena Oduro

Abstract

Quantitative data collected in 2008 from households in six regions and 23 districts of Ghana provides information on what strategies households make recourse to when hit by adverse events such as the illness of a family member or the loss of assets through theft. Almost all households that report undertaking a specific action or set of actions in response to shocks resorted to informal social protection mechanisms such as borrowing from friends and relatives, selling their assets or reducing food consumption. Qualitative data from in-depth life history interviews were used to explore what considerations go into a person’s choice of coping strategies when an adverse event occurs. These interviews were conducted in 2009 using a small sub-sample of women and men living in households that were surveyed initially in 2008. The qualitative data added context that is missing routinely from data collected during quantitative household surveys. For example, when probed in the course of interviewing, some respondents provided reasons why one strategy was adopted and not another, or why they relied upon a particular combination of strategies to meet their long-range goals. By relying upon qualitative methods to supplement standard methods of quantitative measurement, the analysis reveals that the way individuals respond to shocks is typically the result of a complex interplay of several considerations including the reliability and strength of their particular social networks, and the way in which they take stock of the physical and financial assets that they own.

1 Introduction

In many African countries the provision of social protection interventions by the state in the form of unemployment benefits and non-contributory pensions, for example, are either limited in coverage or scope, or non-existent. In the absence of these interventions, households and individuals must rely on their own resources or on resources drawn from networks of family and

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_011 Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 153 friends to cope with adverse events when they occur. The coping strategies may not always be adequate to maintain consumption levels, and if the household or individual is hit by more than one adverse event in a row their savings and/or stock of assets can be severely depleted and strain placed on the social networks that they depend on. A number of studies have been conducted that document the coping strategies employed by households in Ghana1 and other developing countries.2 Some studies have gone a step further to examine the factors associated with the type of coping strategy adopted by either using descriptive statistics or econometric techniques.3 These studies provide information on the characteristics of the households that employed particular coping strategies and the association between types of coping strategy and shocks. The objective of the present examination is to gain insight into why a particular coping strategy is employed. It goes beyond identifying the characteristics of individuals or households that utilize particular coping strategies. The choice of coping strategy is determined by the circumstances of the household or individual at the time of the shock. By circumstances, we refer not only to the type of economic activity of household members, their characteristics and the location of their household, but also the nature of the links the household has with non-household members and the norms and values that influence behavior. Large household surveys that collect quantitative data are not the ideal medium for such information. This chapter therefore uses qualitative data collected using in-depth interviews to unearth the reasons why people choose the coping strategies that they employ when an adverse event occurs.

1 Cheryl Doss, Abena D. Oduro, Carmen Diana Deere, Hema Swaminathan, William Baah- Boateng & J. Y. Suchitra, Shocks, Assets and Social Protection: A Gendered Analysis of Ecuador, Ghana and Karnataka, India (Economic Empowerment Discussion Papers; New York: UN Women, 2015). 2 For rural Ethiopia: Zelalem Yilma, Anagaw Mebratie, Robert Sparrow, Degnet Abebaw, Marleen Dekker, Getnet Alemu & Arjun S. Bedi, “Coping with shocks in rural Ethiopia,” Journal of Development Studies 50.7 (2014): 1009–1024; for San Salvador in El Salvador: Damien Echevin & Luis Tejerina, “Shocks and Coping Strategies in the Urban Squatter Settlements of San Salvador,” Poverty & Public Policy 5.2 (2013): 180–202. 3 Echevin & Tejerina, “Shocks and Coping Strategies in the Urban Squatter Settlements of San Salvador”; Yilma et al., “Coping with shocks in rural Ethiopia”; Doss et al., Shocks, Assets and Social Protection. 154 Oduro

2 Methods

The qualitative data were collected as part of the Chronic Poverty Research Project (CPRC). This was a multi-country research project funded by DfiD that aimed among other things at gaining insights into the reasons for the persistence of poverty over time.4 The CPRC project in Ghana was jointly hosted by the Centre for Social Policy Studies and the Department of Economics of the University of Ghana. The project in Ghana had three thematic areas. The first was vulnerability and chronic poverty and the effects of intergenerational transfers. The second was vulnerability and resources, and the third was coping strategies and social protection. The in-depth interviews were designed to obtain information on respondents’ experiences from childhood to the present. In addition, the interviews were designed to collect information on the individual’s perception of his or her well-being when major positive or negative events occurred over the life course. A similar approach has been employed by Peter Davis in his study of poverty dynamics in Bangladesh (2009). Interview guides were designed to collect information on the three thematic areas of the project. It was not intended that each interview would cover all the thematic areas. Interviewers consisting of researchers from the Centre for Social Policy Studies, the Department of Economics, and the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research, all at the University of Ghana, were divided into three groups and each group was responsible for collecting in-depth information on one of the thematic areas. In-depth interviews that collect information on lived experiences over the life cycle make it possible to gain insights into the perspectives of the respondent and link the person’s current situation with events that occurred in the past. It is possible to obtain information on the factors that informed how decisions were made, the options that were available at the time, and the process of change. A difficulty with this method, however, is that the sample size can be quite small, thus limiting the generalizability of findings. However, the rich- ness of the data can provide important insights that are difficult to capture when data is collected using large-scale surveys. Each interview session was on average three hours long. Permission was obtained from participants to have the interviews recorded. The interviews were later transcribed. The interaction took place at the residences of the respondents. In some instances, interviews were conducted in multiple sessions, especially where the respondent’s schedule or age would not permit the session

4 For more information on the Chronic Poverty Research Project, visit the project website (www.chronicpoverty.org). Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 155 to be completed at one sitting. Interpreters were used in those instances when researchers could not speak the language of the respondent. Key events that took place in the country such as independence, earthquakes, and change of government were used to help respondents recollect the dates of events. Candidates for the qualitative survey were selected from households in a survey conducted by the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana in 2008. The survey, GLSS5+, collected high- level disaggregated data on the patterns of household income, consumption and expenditure; health, education and skills of household members and fertility behavior; housing and housing conditions; agriculture production; prices and consumer items; and non-farm household enterprises. Members of the CPRC Ghana team designed a shocks and coping strategy module for inclusion in the questionnaire. The GLSS5+ survey covered the 23 districts in which the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) project is operational.5 The districts are in six regions (Northern, Ashanti, Eastern, Central, Greater Accra and Volta) zoned into three: the Agriculture Zone, the Afram Basin Zone and the Southern Horticultural Belt. Four hundred and five households were interviewed from each district. The districts were enumerated into 621 areas and 15 households were drawn from each enumeration area, bringing the total number of households interviewed to 9,315. The first stage of the data collection process for the qualitative survey was the selection of households from the sample of households in the quantitative survey. The criteria used to select households for the qualitative survey were whether the household had reported a shock in the previous five years, its location (rural or urban) and its poverty status. The second stage was to identify individuals within the selected households who were to be interviewed. In most instances the household head was selected. However, if at the time of the visit to the household the head was not available, another member of the household, usually the spouse or an adult child, was selected. The qualitative survey was conducted in 2009 in each of the six regions. A total of 65 in-depth interviews were conducted. Six in-depth interviews of three men and three women from the sample of interviews that collected data on coping strategies and social protection have been selected for this chapter.

5 The Millennium Development Authority came into being in 2006 through Act 702. One of the objectives of the Authority is to manage the Ghana program of the Millennium Challenge Account of the United States. The focus of the program is poverty reduction through growth. 156 Oduro

3 Shocks and Coping Strategies Reported by Households in the MiDA Zone

Before examining the reasons for the choice of coping strategies, it is useful to have some information on the types of shocks reported by households. In the quantitative survey, respondents, i.e. the heads of household, were asked to list the shocks that members of the household had experienced in the five years preceding the survey. The module on shocks and coping strategies contained a list of shocks to choose from and respondents had the opportunity to report any others that were not on the list. Most households, about 84 percent, reported at least one shock. About 11 percent of households reported only one shock whilst about 35 percent reported at least four shocks over the five year period. The three most frequently reported shocks were increases in the prices of major food items consumed, which were reported by 16 percent of households. About 15 percent of households reported increases in the prices of petroleum products and 10 percent reported increases in utility prices. Thus most of the shocks reported by households may be described as policy shocks. The least frequently reported shocks were loss of property due to fire, disability of an income earning household member, theft of business stocks and loss of property due to riots. Less than 1 percent of households reported experiencing any of these shocks during the previous five years. Other shocks reported by households included flooding that caused harvest failure, death of an adult working member of the household, loss of livestock due to theft or death, and the death of someone who sent remittances to the household. Respondents were asked to indicate the coping strategies that were employed in response to each shock. A list of possible coping strategies was provided, from which a maximum of four could be reported. Respondents could also report coping strategies that were not provided on the list. For the majority of shocks that were reported (about 57 percent), respondents mentioned that they did not take any specific action in response to the shock; they ‘did nothing’. This response is not peculiar to this survey, since surveys in other countries have also found that a not insignificant proportion of respondents report that they did nothing to cope with the shock.6 This would appear to be a perplexing response and could arise for a number of reasons. The first is that respondents may not consider that the action taken was a coping strategy. For example, some households may respond to a hike in electricity prices by not leaving all the compound lights on all night. Second, some may use

6 Yilma et al., “Coping with shocks in rural Ethiopia.” Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 157 coping strategies that they are too embarrassed to reveal—for example, stealing. Third, the enumerator may not probe deep enough in order to obtain a response. Households reported using a wide range of strategies to cope with shocks, ranging from reducing food consumption (employed in response to 13 percent of shocks), receiving assistance from family and friends (11 percent of shocks), relying on savings (9.5 percent of shocks), reducing non-food consumption (8 percent of shocks), selling assets (8 percent of shocks), to taking on extra work (8 percent of shocks). In the absence of social protection mechanisms provided by the state, in less than 1 percent of shocks was recourse made to government or the district assembly for assistance. Excluding those instances of shocks for which households report doing nothing, in about 55 percent of the shocks, one coping strategy was employed. The maximum number of coping strategies per shock that households employed was four and this was for 15 percent of shocks.

4 The Qualitative Data

The three women and three men whose experiences with shocks and coping strategies provide the data for this analysis have quite different backgrounds and life experiences. Kojo is a 36-year-old man who lives in a town in the Central Region. He completed eight years of basic education and is a trader in wood. Kojo suffered four negative events, beginning in 2000, when he was arrested for transporting wood without a permit and the goods were confiscated. He had to reimburse the owner for the loss of the wood by migrating to work as an illegal miner for five months. His second setback occurred three years later when he had an accident while driving a vehicle that was not his. He was hospitalized and had to pay his hospital bills and bear the cost of the damage done to the car. He financed these expenditures by drawing on his savings and selling a plot of land that belonged to his mother. He was arrested a second time, the cause of which was not reported, and had to rely on the revenue from the sale of his uncle’s plot of land to pay the bills. After the downturn of his business in 2008, Kojo took on a girlfriend, who gave him a loan to restart his business. Esi is a 50-year-old woman with no formal schooling who farms in a rural community in the Central Region. She migrated to her present location with her partner thirteen years ago. She refers to him as her husband; however, he did not perform the marriage rites. Her pressurizing him to perform the rites was a cause for their ‘divorce’ in 2005, resulting in her losing access to land she 158 Oduro had farmed on. Fortunately, she managed to cope because she had a small plot that she farmed. In addition, she bought produce from other farmers, which she then sold. She was later able to lease another larger plot. Naana is a 31-year-old woman who farms maize and plantain and trades in cooking utensils in the Ashanti Region. Her mother died when she was quite young. She was taken care of by her maternal grandmother until the death of her father, who had provided her grandmother with money for his daughter’s upkeep. On the death of her father, her brother, who had completed training college, took her in to live with him. By the time she completed junior high school, her brother was going through difficulties and could not meet all her needs ‘in terms of clothes to wear and shoes’. She took on a boyfriend, who was a year ahead of her in school and who claimed he could give her the things she wanted. He got her pregnant when she was eighteen but could not provide for her, since he was an apprentice. Her brother and an uncle who had been providing her with some support withdrew their assistance and her brother threw her out of the house. She left for her hometown to stay with her grandmother, who, however, did not have the financial resources to assist her and advised her to go to the person who had made her pregnant. She went to her boyfriend’s mother, who accommodated her until she had the baby. She used her savings from the sale of bread to take care of herself. She moved back to her hometown when the baby was born, but life was difficult there, so she moved to stay with her sister, where she farmed on land belonging to her father. Her second setback occurred when her second relationship broke down. She refers to the man as her husband, although he had not performed the marriage rites by the time of the breakup. They lived together for five years and she had two children with him. After the breakup, to make ends meet, she hawked fish, accompanied by her three children. She decided to send the children to their father, who lived in a mining community, since he was not providing for their upkeep. She stayed on to work in the mines, carrying sand, to make ends meet. Her third major shock occurred when she fell ill just when she had ac- cumulated enough savings to return home from the mining area. She was ill for four months and was looked after by a man, even though her family were prepared to take her back home. On leaving the mining town, she went to re- side with her sister and her husband, who lived in a farming community. She sold plantain to earn an income. She had to leave because of difficulties with her sister’s husband. On her return home, she ‘married’ her second husband because of the difficulties she was facing. She has a child with this man, but he has not performed the marriage rites, though they have lived together for three years. She sold land that her mother bought her to start a business in order Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 159 to generate income. However, the business is not very profitable, because she uses the capital to pay her children’s school fees. She works as a laborer any time work is available. Akosua is a 48-year-old widow who is in a consensual union. She farms in the Ashanti Region. She used to sell pesticide but no longer does. She did not complete her first year of school, because she fell ill and never returned to classes. She had land that was given to her by her grandmother and has acquired more with her present husband. The death of her first husband was a major setback, especially because his family took everything he owned, including the bed they slept on. She managed to look after herself and seven children through the assistance she received from her mother, who had a cocoa farm that was doing well. Akosua began rearing sheep thirteen years ago and uses revenue from the sale of the livestock to pay for her children’s education. In addition, she collects fuel wood and picks cola nuts from the forest. The cola trees flower three times a year. Difficulties began three years earlier when her mother died. Her mother had willed a cocoa farm to her but this was disputed by her younger brother. He took away the cocoa beans that had been harvested. She said she has had to spend money from her weedicide business to pay the police to deal with the case. This has landed her in debt, because she bought the weedicide on credit. She has planted a yam farm and intends to use the revenue from the sale of the yams to defray part of the debt. She is a member of societies in church that provide assistance when one is in need. Odartey is a 65-year-old man with a university degree in statistics. He lives in the Eastern Region and is a farmer. He also performs circumcisions. He was employed in the past with a state agency in the energy sector and with a private brewing company. He has shares in two companies, has a house that he put up with his wife, and rears goats. In 1983 he lost his yam harvest to bush fires. He did not ask for any support, because he had not been successful in the past when he approached a bank for a loan. He obtained yam seedlings to replant his farm, which did well because the rains came. In 2002 he had an accident which incapacitated him for four months. He sent the medical bills to his church, seeking assistance, but received no help. He used his savings and gifts from friends to pay his bills. Komla is about 48 years old and lives in a town in the Eastern Region. He has about ten years of formal education and farms and sells livestock. After school he migrated to Nigeria, where he played football. Having made little progress in his career as a footballer, he instead went to work on a ship. He lived in Nigeria for five years and returned to Ghana when his father fell ill. He spent his savings paying the medical bills of his father and for the latter’s funeral when he 160 Oduro passed away a fortnight after his return. He borrowed money from a woman he knew and used it to start farming and continue his father’s business. When the pepper he planted on his farm was destroyed by floods he had to borrow money to tide him over until the next harvest. When times are difficult he and his wife sometimes reduce their food consumption but try to maintain that of the children. He belongs to a family association that requires each member to contribute ten cedis a month to a fund that is deposited in a bank. Family members are given some support when they face difficulties such as a death.

5 Understanding the Choice of Coping Strategies

Four out of the six respondents relied on social networks, in particular family or friends, in one form or another when they were facing difficulties. However, the experiences of these four persons illustrate the complexity of depending on social networks, particularly family. Being able to obtain assistance from family depends on several factors. First, it depends on whether the family member is in a position to help. Komla tends to borrow from non-relatives, possibly moneylenders. When asked why he does not rely on family to assist him when he is in difficulty, he said: “I do have relatives but I do not borrow from them. Their economic hardship is even worse than mine.” The family association established by Komla’s family to provide support for members who contribute to the fund defines the terms of support, thus setting limits to their obligations to one another. Kodjo, by contrast, has been able to take recourse to two family members, his mother and his uncle. They both had the means to assist him. When he was arrested and released a second time, he “went to an uncle who sold his land and gave me the money to get back into business.” Kodjo had a family member who lived abroad, but his appeal to him for help was unsuccessful: “I have another relative outside the country who my father looked after. I tried getting some help from him but he failed to help me.” Thus, not all family members may be willing to help even if they can. Naana was thrown out of her brother’s home when she became pregnant. Her uncle, who had also been contributing to her upkeep, withdrew his support. Accord- ing to Naana, beyond providing moral support family members are unable to provide any help:

If you have a problem, you can get people to go with you or accompany you, but not in terms of money. They won’t contribute anything. In my family there is no help from anybody. Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 161

Family support is based on reciprocity. Kodjo decided to approach his uncle for help after his second arrest because “he also comes to me for help sometimes and he is someone who likes me very much.” However, his relative who lived abroad did not respond to his appeal for help even though the relative had been supported by Kodjo’s father. Thus, the strength of the family relationship is important in determining the willingness of a family member to provide support. Akosua was able to rely on her mother for help when her late husband’s family took away all his property after his death. However, the source of her current predicament is a dispute with her younger brother over land that was willed to her by her mother. She cannot go to other family members for help, because they are embroiled with her younger brother in a court case over a cocoa farm belonging to her late mother. Friends are an important social resource, but the probability of obtaining assistance from them in time of need is determined by the same constraints that influence family relationships. Kodjo does not go to his friends for assistance, because “they are not financially sound.” Odartey, on the other hand, benefitted from the goodwill of his friends when he was incapacitated for a long period. Membership of social groups is a strategy that is sometimes used as an in- surance measure. Akousa joined the women’s group in church so that “if I need any help I can go to them for assistance.” She received some support from them when her mother died. Members have to pay dues of one cedi and make a contribution when someone is bereaved. In Esi’s case she joined the group so that when she dies “they will help my children bury me.” Unfortunately, associations and groups do not always yield the expected benefits. Odartey is no longer a member of an association, because “those that we joined disappointed us, so we don’t have a group.” Being able to put some money aside as savings can be a challenge for some. Akosua is not a member of a savings association, because she says “I don’t have money to save.” Her resources are spent on providing for her children. Thus, not unexpectedly, one can only rely on savings when one has savings. Savings are drawn down when they are available, but they may not always be adequate. Kodjo mentions that at the time of his first accident:

I used the savings I had to bounce back and also sold a piece of land my mother gave me at Kasoa and used the proceeds to pay for the damages.

His savings were not enough and thus had to be supplemented with the revenue from the sale of his mother’s land. Odartey had savings but was not keen to 162 Oduro draw on them as a first line of recourse. He sent his medical bills to the church for payment. It was when he was denied assistance that he had to draw on his savings and the revenue from presents he received from friends. Wealth can be held in the form of financial assets such as treasury bills or shares in a company or as physical assets such as land, livestock or buildings. The sale of one’s assets may not be the first response when hit by a shock. Assets can be lumpy and it may not be advisable to sell an asset whose value exceeds the payment one has to make. To maximize the value of the revenue obtained from the sale of assets, the timing of the sale is important. When Akosua complained of being in difficulty and was reminded that she had some sheep that she could sell to help her out of her predicament, her response was: “They are not many and mature.” She outlined her strategy as follows:

I always sell the males and leave the females until their number has shot up […]. I always sell the mature ones and leave the young ones to replace them and have been doing this for a very long time.

Sometimes assets are transformed in response to an adverse situation in order to obtain the maximum return. When Naana was facing “hardships,” she said,

I had to sell the plot of land my mother bought for me which I could not develop so I went to the chief for permission to sell so that I can get some money to look after my children. So he gave me the opportunity to do that and had some money to start my business.

She sold the land, however, because “there was nowhere I could have gotten the money from.” Thus, assets may be sold as a last resort. Komla’s preference is to borrow—not from family—when he is need. When asked what he would do if he could not obtain a loan when he needed one, he said, “Then I may sell sheep that I rear and fend for ourselves.” Additional income generation as a coping strategy occurred under various circumstances. It occurred when the opportunity to rely on social networks, borrow or draw on savings was limited or did not exist. It is expected that being able to generate additional income when hit by adverse events will depend on whether there is a functioning labor market. When individuals are not able to get employed for wage labor, they create their own income-earning opportunities. This is what Naana did. She was in a desperate situation when she got Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 163 pregnant because financial support from her family was withdrawn. She had just completed junior high school and had no skills. In those circumstances,

I talked to the bread baker’s sister to let her give me some of the bread to sell so that I can get some money for myself and the baby.

When her first ‘marriage’ broke down and she again had to fend for herself and her children, she sold fish to survive:

[I] talked to a woman at … who sells fish to give me some to sell. So I was frying fish and carrying it on my head to sell every evening. In fact, if I tell you what I went through wasn’t easy at all, selling and carrying these kids along up to 10pm each day before we go sleep.

When she found it difficult to cope alone with the children, she decided to send them to their father, who had not been remitting any money for their upkeep and who lived in a mining town,

and at that place there were a lot of small-scale mining activities [galamsey], so I joined them to carry sand for some time to see if I could get some money. I got some money to the tune of one million.

Thus, her intention when she set off was to leave the children with their father, who was not sending her money for their upkeep. However, when she found out that there were opportunities for work, she stayed on. Akosua, who carefully manages her stock of sheep, is not willing to sell them, even though she is in need of cash. She cannot approach family members for support. She has therefore planted yam which she intends to harvest for sale. The search for additional income sometimes requires migration. Kodjo was arrested because he was transporting wood without the necessary documentation. In order to pay the owner for the loss of the wood, he “went to … for five months to do galamsey work in order to pay my debts.” A strategy that emerged during discussions but is not usually included in the list of coping strategies in large surveys is that of starting a conjugal type of relationship. In the two instances when this happened, the individuals who made the decision to use this strategy, Naana and Kodjo, may be described as being in desperate circumstances. Naana has used this strategy on a number of occasions. The first time she did so, her situation got worse when she became pregnant. The second such decision, which she took when her first child was 164 Oduro three years old, landed her in a relationship that did not last, and she ended up with two more children. At the time she made the second decision she felt that she had limited options. Her brother was not interested in providing any form of assistance. She left her grandmother, who was too old to provide her with any support, and went to live with her sister in Ejura, where she met this man “and married him because of hardship. Otherwise I would not have married him.” She took the decision to form a relationship with her present partner based on the same line of reasoning. When she was asked why she was with this man, she said:

The reason is that I was single at the time and was going through some hardship. And as a woman you have to marry if you are going through difficulties.

The third relationship appears to be more stable. Her current partner has bought her a plot of land which is registered in her name. Kodjo attributes the difficult situation he is currently in to a relationship he started with a client who is many years older than he. He said that his business problems began in 2008:

when an elderly woman came to buy wood from me and she asked whether I was married. We started dating from then and since then nothing went on well with me. I lost everything of mine until a friend of mine took me to see a pastor who told me to leave the woman and look for someone younger to marry. I met a young lady whose name was given to me by a pastor and the lady gave me fifty cedis to restart my business and that is the money I used in restarting the business.

In none of the case studies was assistance obtained from the district assembly. This is not for lack of trying. Komla said:

Last year or so, some council members promised to give us some loans for us to pay back with some little interest. They asked us to fill some forms, pay some fees. We did all that but we never heard from them again.

The absence of a community fund or scheme to support people when they are in need of assistance is one of the reasons why Komla’s family set up the family association. Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 165

6 Conclusion

Individuals use different strategies at different times to deal with shocks, depending on their circumstances. They do weigh the different options, but sometimes are limited in the range of choices available to them. Except for Odartey, who has tertiary level education, none of the other five people whose experiences with shocks and coping strategies have been examined have much formal education or any skills. This reduces the scope of their job-seeking opportunities when they want to earn additional income. Their lack of skills pushed some of them into rather precarious activities such as working in the illegal mining industry. From the quantitative studies, one of the most frequently used coping strategies is reliance on support from family and other social networks. However, the in-depth interviews reveal how unreliable and fragile such networks can be in the performance of their role as social safety nets. Families, social groups, and associations form the vehicles for the provision of informal social protection. Sabates-Wheeler and Devereux posit that social protection should have four dimensions.7 They should prevent the fall into deprivation due to adverse events, protect persons who are unable to earn income due to age or disability, promote income generating opportunities, and be transformative by addressing issues of social equity and exclusion. The in-depth interviews clearly show that informal social protection mechanisms provided through social networks are unable to perform these functions. Indeed, the family itself can be a source of shocks and adverse events. The weakness of family and social networks to perform these functions notwithstanding, it is possible to draw on non-mone- tary family assets, in particular land, to generate income. Thus Naana was able to rely on a family asset, her father’s land in Ejura, after she had her first child and needed to generate some income, and Akosua was living in a family house with her partner. Under customary law spouses do not inherit from one another, and under the matrilineal system of inheritance children do not inherit from their fathers. This practice can leave surviving spouses, particularly women, quite vulnerable when their spouses die intestate. The Intestate Succession Law, 1985 was enacted to protect the interests of surviving spouses against what may be described as ‘marauding relatives’. However, the experience of Akosua shows

7 Rachel Sabates-Wheeler & Stephen Devereux, Cash Transfers and High Food Prices: Explaining Outcomes on Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (Working Paper 004; Nairobi: Future Agricultures Consortium, January 2010). 166 Oduro quite clearly that the law has limited reach.8 More public education programs are required to inform people about this law. In addition, people should be sensitized about the importance of registering property, especially when it is jointly acquired. There is currently an Intestate Succession Bill before parliament which is designed to address the loopholes in the current Law that make its implementation fraught with difficulty. Apart from Akosua’s first marriage, the three women are either currently in consensual unions or were in such unions in the past. The breakup of these relationships was a source of distress. Customary law does not make provision for women when marriages break up because they are unions ruled by the separation of property regime. Assets and property acquired before or during marriage do not become the joint property of the couple. The formal legal framework, the Marital Causes Act, 367 of 1971 also has grey areas. Although none of these women would have qualified for legal remedies under the Act when their relationships broke down, their vulnerability highlights the importance of putting in place a legal framework that provides clear guidelines on how property should be distributed when marriages are dissolved. The 1992 Constitution makes such a provision, but it has not been implemented. The Property Rights of Spouses Bill that has been placed before parliament seeks to provide such a framework but has not been passed into law. This examination of the options and the decisions made by people when they are hit by adverse events presents a clear case for the provision of reliable and inclusive social protection interventions by the state. Naana may not have made the ‘marriage’ decisions that she did if there were a child support grant that she could have applied for when she became a teenage mother and was homeless. Akosua would probably have been able to put aside some savings if she had received such support. As Ghana continues to develop its social protection framework, room should be made for the provision of child grants, social pensions, and measures to improve access to education and the provision of quality education.

Works Cited

Davis, Peter. “Poverty in time: Exploring poverty dynamics from life history interviews in Bangladesh,” in Poverty Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Tony Addi- son, David Hulme & Ravi Kanbur (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009): 154–182.

8 See also Jeanmarie Fenrich & Tracy E. Higgins, “Promise Unfulfilled: Law, Culture and Women’s Inheritance Rights in Ghana,” Fordham International Law Journal 25 (2001): 259–341. Exploring the Choice of Coping Strategies in Ghana 167

Doss, Cheryl, Abena D. Oduro, Carmen Diana Deere, Hema Swaminathan, William Baah-Boateng & J. Y. Suchitra. Shocks, Assets and Social Protection: A Gendered Analysis of Ecuador, Ghana and Karnataka, India (Economic Empowerment Dis- cussion Papers; New York: UN Women, 2015). Echevin, Damien, & Luis Tejerina. “Shocks and Coping Strategies in the Urban Squatter Settlements of San Salvador,” Poverty & Public Policy 5.2 (2013): 180–202. Fenrich, Jeanmarie, & Tracy E. Higgins. “Promise Unfulfilled: Law, Culture and Women’s Inheritance Rights in Ghana,” Fordham International Law Journal 25 (2001): 259–341. Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel, & Stephen Devereux. Cash Transfers and High Food Prices: Explaining Outcomes on Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (Working Paper 004; Nairobi: Future Agricultures Consortium, January 2010). Yilma, Zelalem, Anagaw Mebratie, Robert Sparrow, Degnet Abebaw, Marleen Dekker, Getnet Alemu & Arjun S. Bedi. “Coping with shocks in rural Ethiopia,” Journal of Development Studies 50.7 (2014): 1009–1024.

Part 3 Language and Knowledge Production from Postcolonial Perspectives

⸪

CHAPTER 10 Scientific Decolonization and Language Use in the Study of African Medicine, Religion, and Art

Alexis B. Tengan

Abstract

This essay argues that African religion and art constitute a source for developing the requisite scientific language for studying and creating knowledge about African medicine. This claim is elucidated by using ethnographic data on the Dagara people of northern Ghana which was collected during many years of research into three fields of Dagara knowledge systems: religion, art, and medicine. In addition, the chapter uses supporting data from a cultural study of two identical sets of Dagara sacred art objects (bɛr-tibɛ), about 52 objects in all collected from two different family shrines, which are invaluable sources of sacred knowledge and meaning regarding the three fields of focus. Based on an analysis of the linguistic and symbolic dimensions of these objects, the chapter demonstrates how a scientific language can evolve from the study of African indigenous systems, and how such a language can help create a discourse of scientific decolonization.

1 Introduction: African Studies and Scientific Knowledge

African studies, as a knowledge discipline, has to have its own specific language and jargon as a created symbolic system, without which it cannot see and understand the African reality and condition that it has chosen as its focus of study. It has been the case that “scientific colonialism”1 has led to a distortion of the language and culture used to understand African indigenous knowledge generally and, by extension, African studies as a discipline. The distortion is most prevalent in three knowledge areas, namely indigenous medicine, religion, and art. Hence, it is not uncommon for one to read such ill-defined terms as ‘traditional’, ‘herbal’, ‘divinatory’, and ‘therapeutic’ practices as canons for the study of indigenous medicine; or for one to encounter such negative terms

1 Johan Galtung, “Scientific Colonialism,” Transition 30 (1967): 10–15.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_012 172 Tengan as ‘sorcery’, ‘witchcraft’, ‘satanic’, and ‘magic’ in the literature on African religion and art. This essay first argues that African studies, as a multidisciplinary field, has hardly begun to tackle the issue of scientific decolonization in these fields. Following this, it contends that such events as the old missionary practice of wanting to replace African religion with Christianity through negative representation, and the old colonial educational pedagogy of presenting Western science as intrinsically objective and as a universal knowledge system unmediated by any cultural tradition, continue to impede the development of any African scientific language. Throughout the essay, ethnographic data from the Dagara people of northern Ghana are used to draw attention to the fact that African religion and art expound a basis for the scientific language that needs to be developed for any proper study of the African medical knowledge system. The focus is on my many years of research into Dagara religion, art, and medicine as a common area of study. The supporting data is a cultural study of two identical sets of Dagara sacred art objects (bɛr-tibɛ), some fifty-two objects (see list tables 1 & 2, Appendix below) collected from two different family shrines as part of my research into Dagara art, religion, and medicine and as endangered archives that are also still loaded with sacred knowledge and meaning within the interwoven fields of religion, art, and medicine. They are also linked particularly to the ancestral cult as an institution of life transmission and sustenance.

1.1 African Studies and the Scholastic Language of Knowledge It is heartening to note that the founder of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana spelled out very achievable goals within a focussed area and discipline, namely to “study the history, culture and institutions, languages and arts of Ghana and of Africa in new African centred ways,” and to “reassess and assert the glories and achievements of our African past and inspire our generation, and succeeding generations, with a vision of a better future.”2 For the past fifty years, the Institute and, indeed, other similar institutes that followed it stuck to these goals and much has been achieved, mainly in the fields of African historical reconstruction, cultural aesthetics, and African contemporary socio-political institutions and practices—at least we have gone beyond the conception that African political systems are all about kinship. Though the method and conceptual frameworks have largely adhered to

2 Kwame Nkrumah, “The African genius,” speech delivered by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, President of the Republic of Ghana, at the opening of the Institute of African Studies, 20 October 1963 (Accra, 1963). Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 173

Western academic norms, the studies made in these fields have shaped a new and positive understanding of the African experiences in these domains. This, however, cannot be said of such major areas of African indigenous knowledge as art, religion, and medicine and the scientific language used for their study. In this chapter, I first outline the impediments that have hindered progress in this area of African studies. Secondly, I discuss briefly the nature and character of African scientific knowledge and how the distinct separation between religion, art, and medicine as unique knowledge disciplines leads to their mischaracter- ization; to their being falsely understood and not considered as true scientific knowledge. The final part of the chapter is an ethnographic case study of these issues using my focused research into Dagara/Lobi art, religion, and medicine as an area of common knowledge. I focus mainly on the schematic analysis of the material objects used in the constitution of the ancestral cult as a religious as well as a medical institution.

2 Approaching African Knowledge and Science

2.1 Negativity and Narrow-Minded Views In the first year of my anthropological studies in Leuven, a distinguished African professor of linguistics jokingly reproached me for studying a discipline that is not really scientific. In his words, anthropology limits its discourses, fields of research, and study to specific substrata of human beings and their cultures. He made me feel that by opting to become an anthropologist I was a sellout to my own continent and people. Since anthropology allows Europeans to direct their gaze at mainly Africans and their culture but not at their own society, it is insulting to aim my gaze at my own people as if I were not one of them. A few months after my encounter with the African professor of linguistics, a well-known European professor of anthropology jokingly remarked that anthropology was no longer an interesting discipline, because Africans have started to specialize in it. This was after he learnt that I was studying anthropology. I was able to deal with the two remarks by reminding myself that I had chosen to do anthropology out of my own interest and motivation, and any time one or two persons made similar remarks I would retort that there are as many anthropologies as there are anthropologists. As a discipline, anthropology, which started as ethnology, has throughout the decades thrived by appealing to Europeans’ consciousness that native cultures are ‘exotic’, very different from their own and, perhaps, bizarre and in- compatible with Western technological and scientific culture. Native cultures, by being exotic, are not components of the real world and have no scientific 174 Tengan truth or value. At the same time, Europeans are given the impression that they have lost memory of their ‘primitive’ times, and that, to understand their own primitive culture which was one time in existence, they have to study African culture. Once this consciousness was created, ethnology then gave itself the task of documenting ‘exotic‘ cultures and analyzing ‘primitivity’, first to satisfy European curiosity about the exotic and secondly to inform them about their own past, a past which equally belongs to the realm of unreality. The fear that primitive cultures are being destroyed by modern civilization in a similar manner as the Europeans’ past was, and the fact that, as oral cultures, the former have no writing systems to effectively record their own traditions made the work of ethnography most urgent.3

2.2 An Anthropological Perspective on African Knowledge For a long time, many scholars of African studies, intellectuals, and politicians have viewed anyone engaged in the study of anthropology as openly agreeing with the premises upon which this discipline has thrived, and also as tacitly accepting to promote the ideals lying behind the premises. Such scholars have unconsciously felt that anthropology, through its method of reductionism and ethnographic analysis, has been consciously and systematically demystifying the core cultural components around which the African lifeworld has been built and, by the improper use of negative language, is destroying the scientific value embedded in those components constituting the African worldview. In other words, anthropological analysis, in itself, threatens to destroy native cultures through the analytical practice of gaze and disclosure and through negative representation. As a result, and in order to preserve themselves and their societies from extinction, African intellectuals and politicians would, in theory, vehemently dismiss the conceptual notions, mode of practice, and analytical powers associated with the discipline of anthropology. In practice, however, being trapped in the colonial educational paradigm, some would ag- gressively promote a few selected ideals constitutive of the world of the foreign anthropologist as a way of saving their own societies. Some of these ideals are not necessarily the most lucid or the most appropriate for the reconstitution of native societies. Most African intellectuals would, for example and in theory, try to argue that their cultures and societies are not primitive and backward; but, in practice, they would make it impossible for all those still hanging on to

3 See Edward B. Tengan, The Social Structure of the Dagara: The House and the Matriclan as Axes of Dagara Social Organization (Tamale: St. Victor’s Major Seminary, 1994), and Alexis B. Tengan, Hoe-Farming and Social Relations Among the Dagara of Northwestern Ghana and Southwestern Burkina Faso (Frankfurt am Main & New York: Peter Lang, 2000). Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 175 their native cultures to participate fully in modern civilization as a process of refashioning society. Broadly, there are two factors that have led to this situation. First, the old missionary practice of wanting to replace African traditional religion with Christianity through negative advertising of African religion and culture, thereby presenting the religion as belief in spirits and the worship of ancestors; and, secondly, an old educational pedagogy still very much in function which views Western science as intrinsically objective universal knowledge unmediated by any mythological tradition of thought and symbolization. According to Johan Galtung, Kwame Nkrumah as president of Ghana understood that Africa was colonized not just economically but also culturally and scientifically. Hence, describing the struggle as depicted by a large painting, Galtung wrote:

the painting was enormous, and the main figure was Nkrumah himself, fighting, wrestling with the last chains of colonialism. The chains are yielding, there is thunder and lightning in the air, the earth is shaking. Out of all this, three small figures are fleeing, white men, pallid. One of them is the capitalist, he carries a briefcase. Another is the priest or missionary, he carries the Bible. The third, a lesser figure, carries a book entitled African Political System: he is the anthropologist, or social scientist in general.4

For many years the decolonization process has focussed on political and economic aspects to the neglect of the cultural and the scientific nature of colonization. Indeed, it is now extremely difficult to appropriately learn the language via which African indigenous religious and scientific knowledge, especially medical scientific knowledge, was initiated and developed. This is mainly because, in African indigenous knowledge, art, religion, and cosmology did not exist as unique disciplines separate from the sciences of medicine or healing but acted as the symbolic and abstract language via which one views and understands the world of matter and living elements. The scholar of African science no longer has the cultural paradigm of his own that is required to view and understand the indigenous knowledge system. Indeed, for the contemporary Western-educated African, the Western scientific paradigm that he has acquired through education has become, as Bourdieu describes it, the mode of reasoning and practical ‘habitus’ with which he tries to understand and

4 Johan Galtung, “Scientific Colonialism,” 13. 176 Tengan communicate his own indigenous knowledge.5 It is clear that the Western scientific paradigm has become a major impediment. This impediment is reinforced by his false belief and notion that ‘true’ scientific knowledge, particularly the science of nature and our environment, must follow the same scientific method and approach, and that this approach is a naturally given rational method independent of any cultural construction. The African scholar is blinded by the centuries of Western science propaganda—that its approach is this naturally given rational one constructed from pure reason, without resorting to any religious and cosmological abstractions and specific cultural symbolization. I was a victim of this blindness until I started to involve myself positively with African indigenous scientists and to learn their language of abstraction and symbolization, particularly through the combination of religion, art, and medicine as a single discipline. Hence, the African conceptions of art, religion, and medicine, as outlined by such scholars as Mbiti, Mulago, and Kagame,6 paradoxically very much reflect Christian ideas about nature and often contrast the natural with the supernatural. These conceptions are most clearly expressed by studies in the ill-defined fields of ‘African traditional religion’ and ‘African cultural studies’. Similarly, features used to outline the fields of study in both disciplines are often ill- defined. Studies in African traditional religion sometimes report that natural features such as hills, mountains, rivers, forests etc. are conceived by Africans as sacred locations because of their relationships with the supernatural. The supernatural itself is regarded as a vast sacred realm somewhere beyond the domain of the natural, and populated by a myriad of ghosts, spirits, deities, nature spirits, ancestor spirits and others. Mythical, spiritual, and imaginary relations are then established between living beings of this-world and these other beings through religious practice. In some cases, scholars often report about a proliferation of ‘spirits’ of nature in almost every location and try to find in each exceptional natural object or location a corresponding spirit from the supernatural order. By bringing up this issue, it is certainly my intention to protest against the canons established in these fields of study. Indeed, I would like to state that the studies carried out so far in these fields have little bearing on my ethnographic

5 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, tr. Richard Nice (Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, 1972; Cambridge Studies In Social Anthropology 16; Cambridge & New York: Cambridge UP, 1977). 6 John S. Mbiti, African Religions & Philosophy (London & Ibadan: Heinemann, 1969); M. Vincent Mulago gwa Cikala, La religion traditionnelle des Bantu et leur vision du monde (Kinshasa: Presses universitaires du Zaïre, 1973); Alexis Kagame, La Philosophie bantu com- parée (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1976). Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 177 approach to the analysis of religion, art, and medicine among the Dagara. Robin Horton has shown how much the Christian cosmological model and Christian faith have patterned the study of African systems of thought. According to Horton,

For much of the past fifty years, the study of the indigenous religious heritage of Africa has been dominated by social or cultural anthropologists of Western origin and agnostic or atheistic religious views. In recent years, however, the dominance of this set has been challenged by a new wave of scholars, some Western and others African, who repudiate the established approach to the field and advocate a radically different one. Some of these scholars, such as Evans-Pritchard and Victor Turner, have been anthropologists by formal professional affiliation. Others, like Idowu, Mbiti, Gaba and Harold Turner, have been affiliated to such disciplines as theology and comparative religion. Yet others, such as Winch, have been philosophers. They are united, however, by a methodological and theological framework which has been strongly influenced, first and foremost by their own Christian faith, but also by the long tradition of comparative studies of religion carried out by Christian theologians.7

Horton shows how the above-mentioned scholars have used Judeo-Christian religious concepts to interpret African thought, and asserts that such notions as God (Supreme Being), spirits, souls, spirits of the wild, and so on are meaningful only to people who have spent years studying and practicing Judeo- Christian religion, and who wish to have a translated version of African thought in Western Christianity. This, as Horton points out, is the scope of the work of John Mbiti, but also of Vincent Mulago and Alexis Kagame, whom Horton does not mention.8 In our particular case, we have observed that the Dagara, within a short period of time, massively converted to Christianity.9 However, these conversions have not led to a complete christianization of their cosmology. On the contrary, selected elements of Western Christian cosmology are continually being integrated into Dagara traditional cosmology as a way of dealing with current

7 Robin Horton, Patterns of Thought in Africa and the West: Essays on Magic, Religion, and Science (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge UP, 1993): 161. 8 See fn 6 above. 9 Remigius F. McCoy with René Dionne & J. C. Dewart, Great Things Happen: A Personal Memoir of the First Christian Missionary Among the Dagaabas and Sissalas of Northwest Ghana (Montreal: Society of Missionaries of Africa, 1988), and Tengan, Hoe-Farming and Social Relations Among the Dagara of Northwestern Ghana and Southwestern Burkina Faso. 178 Tengan socio-cultural changes. Christianity and modernization have not led the society away from their traditional methods of hoe-farming, nor from their outlook on the cosmos as hoe-farmers. Interviews conducted and activities observed among Dagara, both Christians and non-converts, indicate the existence of a common cosmology based on the same concepts of space and time. They view the ordering of the cosmos as a concrete process of hierarchizing the environment in terms of locations consisting of farms, homesteads, village stead, the bush, hills, rivers etc., and of dealing concretely with atmospheric conditions as personified agents. Through the process of personification, Dagara view both the physical and the metaphysical dimensions of environmental locations and atmospheric conditions as personified beings with whom they share a common space. The shared space in question is the constituted Dagara world, which they visualize always as a concrete non-transcendental realm. As Kwasi Wiredu argues,

a people can be highly metaphysical without employing transcendental concepts in their thinking, for not all meta-physics is transcendental metaphysics.10

In other words, metaphysical concepts are usually embedded in such institutions and practices as the personified Earth (Téng) or Rain (Sàà), without necessarily conceptualizing them as transcendental supernatural beings.

2.3 Holism and African Science African views of and approach to scientific knowledge, particularly knowledge of health and healing, take a holistic perspective as against reductionism and analysis. It is based on the hypothesis that, first, the meaning and knowledge content of any object or element is multigeneric and specifically identifiable with the ecological and environmental context in which the object is located for observation; and, secondly, that knowers or scientists, as much as they might want to stand at a scientific distance from the object and the environment, are intimidated by the object and the location and are then absorbed into the meaningful context they are trying to understand. In other words, the meaning given to the object and the environment include the knowers’ understanding of the syntactic relationships between the object, the environment, and their own experience as learners or scientists. African scientific knowledge is therefore generative and dynamic in a multidisciplinary context. In this

10 Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (African Systems of Thought; Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996): 87. Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 179 chapter, I focus on the notion of healing as a specimen of study within African science and contend that it is best observed when it is linked to other notions within religion and art. Indeed, my thesis is that whereas African art exists as the appropriate scientific language and jargon in the field of healing, religion, including ritual, constitutes its practice and praxes. In the rest of the chapter, I discuss, through ethnographic description, the issue of art as a language of scientific healing. I then describe and outline how much religion becomes practice and praxes of healing and proceed to discuss the misuse of language and its effect, which is scientific colonization in contemporary African society. The Lobi/Dagara society and culture found originally in northwest Ghana but now dispersed unevenly throughout the globe have been my site of laboratory- based scientific observation for many years.

3 Society and Knowledge Production: A Case Study of Dagara Art, Religion, and Healing

3.1 Dagara People and Society The people calling themselves Dagara today and whose family settlements are distributed in the northwest and southwest corners of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso are culturally very much akin to the people often referred to in the literature as the ‘true Lobi’ and also to the Dagaaba, with whom they traditionally share a close linguistic similarity. Beyond my earlier identification of these peoples in my earlier writings, I will only stress here the similarities in cultural practices and reproduction that exist between these people in order to underscore why, for this study and in terms of ethnographic understanding, I am looking at them as one common social group. Indeed, the Dagara dialect is well understood by many of the ‘true Lobi’ living in the Gaoua region, whose dialect is much more akin to Pwa. In the course of my research, I have used this dialect to communicate with the majority of the population, including members of the family settlement of Bindute Da near Gaoua. As itinerant hoe-farmers, the Dagara have been migrating and creating settlements in many parts of northern and southern Ghana as well as in other areas in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, and I have made a point of getting into contact with these people living both in the home region and in the diaspora. My contacts with the different groups of Dagara and Lobi hoe-farmers, both in the diaspora and in the home regions, suggest to me that beyond the linguistic variations, these groups, especially with respect to their art, religion, and medicine, relate to a common cosmological worldview and shared forms of cultural practices. The current work focuses on a descriptive study of the common 180 Tengan language of art, religion, and medicine used mainly by specialists within the society to sustain, repair, and protect life from different forms of danger as it begins its journey from the unseen world of the unborn through the world of the living and into that of the afterlife. The Dagara/Lobi people living in settlements around the urban center of Wa, as a group, have continued to resist the cultural infiltration of, first, Islam and, later, European colonialism, Christianity, and modernity. From time to time, however, individual families or a section of the extended family, for one reason or another, do decide to convert to Catholicism. Since the mass conversion, in the early 1930s, of the Dagara populations living further north of Wa and extending into southern Burkina Faso, there has been greater pressure on the Dagara/Lobi living further south to convert as well. This pressure mounted in the 1970s when the number of Dagara local clergy increased substantially to enable the church to send local priests with a much better understanding of Dagara language and culture, thus making evangelization more effective, and when many Dagara families from the Nandom area of the then Lawra district already converted to Catholicism began to migrate in large numbers into this area. The increase in Catholic ritual activities and the rapid developmental processes taking place as a result of missionary activities have continued to seduce even the Dagara traditional religious leaders, some of whom hitherto stuck to their healing cults, to want to convert to Catholicism. For these leaders’ conversion and integration process, the church puts on a display by conducting special rituals dedicated to the dismantling of the cultic institution and the removal of all the material objects associated with it. In the past, the items collected were publicly set on fire, their burning a sign that they did not possess any spiritual power, contary to what their original owners claimed. The beautiful art objects, however, were sometimes retained by the missionaries and, with the coming of the local clergy, there is an ambiv- alent attitude toward setting these objects on fire. There is a greater tendency to store them away in an abandoned location within the parish house. This was the case with the two sets of archives that serve as the main ethnographic data for my current study. Indeed, I first came to know of their existence through Fr. Linus Zan, who had served as the priest in the parish from which the artifacts were collected. It was actually he who conducted the public Catholic ceremony to dismantle the cultic institution and to further conduct the rites integrating the then new convert into Catholicism. These items, as further study and investigation indicate, belong to one of the knowledge institutions alluded to above and found in every Dagara homestead before the arrival of the missionaries. They are categorized as sacred objects (bɛr-tibɛ) belonging to the ‘ancestral cult of fertility and life transmission’. Before focusing on the items (see tables 1 and Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 181

2 below, Appendix) and their relationship to life transmission or fertility and to three other knowledge institutions and domains within Dagara society, let me make a brief statement on Dagara religion and philosophy in general and establish a link to the Dagara house as the focal point of knowledge production and socio-cultural practices.

Table 10.1 List of items from basket one

Item descriptive name Comment

Ancestral Figurine (Kpiindaa/ Hardwood with patina and sacrificial blood Beteba_01 (height: 19.5 cm) Ancestral Figurine Kpiindaa/ Hardwood with patina and sacrificial blood Beteba_02 (height: 19.5 cm) Ancestral Figurine Kpiindaa/ Hardwood with patina and sacrificial blood Beteba_03 (19.5 cm) Empty medicine pot with lid Circumference: 52 cm; height: 18 cm; depth: 16 cm; one round of 27 spikes on the pot and 22 spikes on the lid Double pig/Chameleon figurine (height: 9 cm; width: 10cm); the eye is very pronounced Arm Ring with chameleon Circumference: 17cm; opening: 6 cm Arm Ring 17 cm; open: 1cm Two Snake Figurines a) length 29 cm; b) length 29 cm Two Calabashes/Gourds with a) Pito calabash size with a small opening and a prepared medicine in each cloth string as handle (black powdered) Small Bell – Animal Skulls Three animal skulls tied with string and a key A cloth sack A small cloth hand sack with three smaller bags each with a number of cowries a) oesophagus sack with (8 cowries) guinea corn stock as lid Stocks Four stock pieces from the millet plant Two curved iron rods locally made and shaped as walking stick (height 20 cm); a bike spoke shaped enclosed oblong (25 cm) A string with keys – Broken pots Six broken pieces of small pots (lale) with medicine on them 182 Tengan

Table 10.2 List of items from basket two

Item descriptive name Comments

Ancestral Figurine Hardwood in the process of being eaten by Kpiindaa/Beteba_05 termites; feet all eaten (height 41 cm) Ancestral Figurine Hardwood and still in good condition (height Kpiindaa/Beteba_06 26–27) cm Ancestral Figurine Hardwood still in good condition (height 21 cm) Kpiindaa/Beteba_07 Pot of medicine Circumference 63 cm; height: 20 cm; depth ?cm; two rounds of 20 and 19 spikes on the pot and 23 spikes on the lid; lid circumference: 56cm A Snake Figurine A snake figurine with a bell An Animal Figurine A wild pig figurine A wooden divination stick – A calabash divination rattle From the gourd plant A small sack One cloth bag with three sealed goat omasum bags, each containing a number of cowries Two small gourd containers one is empty and yet covered with a piece of cloth; b) the second has five cowries, three pieces of black charcoal, four of white chalk Skulls Three skulls of goat or sheep tied together with a piece of cloth Wooden stocks Three V-shaped pieces of wooden stocks of about equal length and a millet stock Animal Figurine (iron) One domestic pig figurine Snake Figurine One snake figurine in iron Two Shells Two hardened oyster shells Two Stones Two stones probably collected from different locations

3.2 Material Objects as Art, as Sacred Religious Objects, and as Medical/ Healing Material 3.2.1 Nature, Being, and Life Dagara religion and philosophy take root from their practitioners mythicizing reflections and historical experiences as migrating hoe-farmers. In essence, its center of gravity is the thought and perception that nature is the supreme Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 183 divine entity existing both as the concrete world of living beings and elements and as the transcendental supernatural realm of awe, fascination, and wonder. For generations, and in terms of religious practices, they have relied on four cultic institutions for knowledge and cultural production. These include the ancestral cult (kpimε); the kontomε cult, the tibε cult and the bagr cult,11 as well as their mythical narratives, orations, and sacred rituals. Each of these cults exists separately within the family and house community and is specifically located in the house structure. According to the Dagara myth of origin, Nature itself is autogeneric, consisting of two extending spatial domains, namely the space-above (saa-zu) and the space-below (teng-zu). The space-above, in human language, is figuratively and metaphorically described as an undivided single extending entity and perceived to be one common house-space society of beings and elements. The Rain, as a male father figure, is the manifestation of the life-force embodied in the space-above and is in constant relationship with the Moon and the Sun as personified characters.12 In contrast to the space-above, the space-below, consisting of the earth and its atmospheric surroundings, is further segmented into six prototypical domains that are replicated into fragments and located randomly to cover the whole of the earth space. These include the arboreal/plant space, the hill space, the rock space, the atmospheric space of the wind, the sea/water space, and the atmospheric space of fire. This mythical structure of the cosmic realm appears as the main socio- cultural syntax for understanding Dagara society and culture. In the first place, the society is a house-based social structure supported by a mythical ideology of kinship relations. As a noncentralized and nonhierarchical society, each house community is a de facto center of gravity for socio-cultural activities specifically relating to a particular institutional order. This is so because by assigning a generic name to each house group and community through trac- ing patrilineal descent lines, and also by associating a generic institutional foundation and practice with each house community, the system focuses on

11 Alexis B. Tengan, Hoe-Farming and Social Relations Among the Dagara of Northwestern Ghana and Southwestern Burkina Faso, “Space, Bonds and Social Order: Dagara House- Based Social System,” in Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso, ed. Sten Hagberg & Alexis B. Tengan (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 30; Uppsala: U of Uppsala P, 2000): 87–103, Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara Black Bagr (Brussels & New York: P. I. E.-Peter Lang, 2006), and The Art of Mythical Composition and Narration: Dagara White Bagr (Brussels & New York: P. I. E.-Peter Lang, 2012). 12 See Tengan, Hoe-Farming and Social Relations Among the Dagara of Northwestern Ghana and Southwestern Burkina Faso, 76–84. 184 Tengan ensuring an egalitarian yet distinct individualized co-relationship among different communities and individuals on the basis of their common origin and specific institutional custodianship.

3.2.2 The House and House Community: Temple, Temple Cults, and a Medical Institution for Public Health The notions of the old house (yir-kura), also sometimes defined as the big house (yir-kpee), from which all individuals emigrate to constitute newer houses (yir-pale) or smaller houses (yir-bili), will at all times remain the center of Dagara socio-cultural as well as religious and political activities. The constitution of the old house or big house and, for that matter, of any of this sub-category of houses is destined to put into place the most effective known processes that will ensure the survival, prosperity, and good health of each individual and the house community at large. As hoe-farmers, who are in a very close relationship with nature and their constructed cosmic realm, it is important for each individual and the community as a whole to know the type of socio-cultural relationships they must have with nature and with each of its elements, in order to stay in good health and to ensure survival and prosperity. As all scholars studying Dagara society and culture have confirmed, the four most significant cultural and knowledge institutions via which Dagara re- create and transmit their survival memory and toolkit for the reproduction of society, as alluded to above, remain the ancestor-spirit (kpiin), the nature-spirit (konton), the life-spirit (tibr) and the bagr spirit. In very general terms, we can distinguish among these four institutions by the way they deal with life. Hence, the kpiin focuses on life transmission through fertility and fertilization (doglu), the konton figures knowledge of life sustenance, bagr figures knowledge of life aesthetics, and tibr figures the knowledge of life as substantive essence. For all of these four institutions, the house building and community located as homesteads remain the central focus for all socio-cultural and material reproduction and practices, including the scientific reproduction of knowledge. Hence, for each house location, the founding male and female ancestors tend to comprise four categories of cultic shrine institutions in different locations of the house in order to ensure the proper understanding and management of life transmission processes, life sustenance processes, life aesthetics, and life substantive essence. In the homestead, each of these shrines may be located in a separate specific domain except when the owner is a professional healer. Hence, the main ancestral shrine is located in a special room known as the ‘ancestral room’ (kpiin dié), whereas that of bagr will be located on the terrace near to the neck of Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 185 the main granary.13 The kontomε are very diverse and can be located at several places in and outside of the homestead. The tibr shrine is the most sacred and is located in a specially chosen room that is consecrated and dedicated to it. All of these categories of shrines and the purpose for which they have been set up tend to make the Dagara house a library and a museum for scientific research, experimentation, and learning as well as a cultic temple which exists to cater for the total well-being of its members and the society at large. Let me now turn my attention to the holistic nature of the science as applied to concrete situations. It is my intention to study in detail each of the four areas of healing outlined above; however, it will not be possible to do so in the context of a chapter such as this. Let me therefore focus on understanding the ancestral healing cult and shrine based on the two baskets of evidence collected.

4 The Art and Language of the Ancestral Cult14 of Life Transmission and Reproduction through the Human Life Cycles

It is important in this process to understand the language used in this context of care, sustenance, and healing. Let me repeat again that the language turns on holism linked to life as a consciousness that is experienced in different objectified bodies and forms. Hence, the human body is a corporeal consciousness much like any other life form that is also consciousness in its own unique way. In other words, the human body is just one of the objectified bodies that is interacting and communicating with other bodies and life forms in a conscious way. There is a language, independent of culturally and analytically constructed human linguistics and languages, via which communications among all life forms tend to take place; as far as the African science of healing is concerned, health care can only effectively take place if there is a proper understanding and use of the language which, for want of a better term, I will refer to as the proto-language of life. As mentioned above, the main concern of all health

13 Jack Goody, The Myth of the Bagre (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972); Tengan, Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara Black Bagr. 14 I am aware of the many studies on Lobi/Dagara art and religion, including those of Piet Meyer, Isabelle Wettstein & Brigitte Kauf, Kunst und Religion der Lobi (exh. cat.; Zürich: Museum Rietberg, 1981), and Daniela Bognolo, Lobi (Milan: 5 Continents, 2007). Because of the nature and focus of this chapter, I am not able to engage in a dialogue with their work. My work is less about art history than about art as an intrinsic language of religion and medicine. 186 Tengan care is the proper transmission of life from one source to another; the proper sustenance of this life within the second source is to ensure its full growth and viability within a life span; and, lastly, the proper passing on of life to its ‘original source’, where it is to be recycled through regeneration. The movement of life through different sources, therefore, cannot be a process restricted solely to human language and human understanding, since the human cyclical life span is only one of the many options whereby life consciousness can exist and flourish. From this perspective, life sustenance and healing are not just about the human body and life form but about all bodies and life forms. Sustenance and healing become a process of putting all bodies and life forms in resonance with each other within their ecological environment. Indeed, all healing cults, shrines, and institutions are within this perspective.

4.1 Objects and Figures as Metaphoric Expressions of Life Cycles The ancestral cultic shrine or institution is the most basic and primary cult existing in all homesteads and families in order to ensure fertility and its proper continuation. The items used to constitute the shrine communicate, mythi- cally and symbolically, the complete notion of life fertility, transmission, and reproduction. In this context, the same items convey processes of and views on life transmission and sustenance at all levels and for all beings and life forms— the cosmic, physical, and social levels—within a cyclical order. I shall rely on my knowledge of the main oral script on Dagara culture, bagr narration, and my participant observation of ritual process during fieldwork, to outline a schematic structure within which these items and objects have meaning and communicate a language of life transmission, sustenance, and reproduction. Based on knowledge drawn from the bagr myth15 and Dagara religion, art, and healing practices, one can group all the objects and artworks into thematic categories and construct a knowledge reasoning consistent with the Dagara approach to and practice of life transmission, sustenance, and healing. Hence, the first, a group of objects found in each basket relates to the two most significant Cosmic Beings in Dagara cosmology, namely Earth (Téng), representing the space-below, and Rain (Sàà),16 representing the space-above as ultimate

15 See Goody, The Myth of the Bagre; Jack Goody & S. W. D. K. Gandah, The Third Bagre: A Myth Revisited (Durham NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2002). 16 I have written widely on Dagara cosmology and mythical narratives and symbolic structure and cannot repeat the details here. I will, however, provide below a brief paraphrase of the bagr myth regarding Earth and Rain: “Sàà (Rain) sent his son, Sàà-bié, down to try and sexually consort with Téng. Téng had gone to fetch water from the river when Sàà-bié first arrived. Sàà-bié was informed by the Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 187 sources of all life. (See Figure 10.1, Appendix.) They consist of a sample mixture of earth and soil deposited around and in the immediate vicinity of the shrine at the time it was being constructed, and collected into a plastic bag during the dismantling process; and two stones, one probably picked from the river bed and the other from the hilltop (see Theme 1 and Figure 10.1, Appendix). These two elements are the most basic requirements for the constitution of all religious practice, including the focal points for cults, shrines etc., and serve as the altar upon which ceremonies such as worship and sacrifices are performed. For the dismantling of these two ancestral shrines, it was necessary that the floor on which the cult was built be swept clean of all dust and earth, this material being added to the artefacts collected. The second group of items (see Theme 2) consists of three carved wooden ancestral figurines in each basket and, likewise in each basket, an iron rod shaped like a walking stick. There is a third object in Basket A with a slightly different shape. (See Figure 10.2, Appendix.) It is important to note that both the figurines and the iron rods have undergone some transformation, making them metaphoric representations. Indeed, it can be argued that the wooden figurines bear a direct relationship to the Earth (Teng) as being, whereas the iron ones represent what the Dagara people call ‘the arrow of Rain’ (sapii). The first two sets of objects definitely relate to life in the cosmic realm and,

child of Téng, Téng-bié, that Téng had gone to fetch water from the river. Sàà-bié hid himself behind the big granary in the house of Téng. When Téng returned, she was warned by her child that a stranger was hiding in the house and between the granaries. Téng turned back and started to run away from the house. Sàà-bié chased her but failed to get her. The son went up to Sàà and Sàà asked him if he was able to sexually consort with Téng. He replied that he could not. Sàà sent him again for the second time. He gave him a cowhide as a mat and a whistle as a weapon. Sàà-bié went and hid himself again behind the granaries. When Téng entered the house with the pot of water, he tried to move closer to her but the dragging of his cowhide alerted Téng who again escaped. Sàà-bié went after her but he could not run fast enough to catch up with her. Sàà sent him down for the third time. On this occasion, he added a gun to the son’s weapons. The son first moved the cowhide towards Téng and tried to free his penis from its foreskin, but Téng wanted to run away again. The son shot the gun into the air and Téng became frightened. She fell down and Sàà-bié fell on her and had intercourse with her. So we know that when we hear thunder in the sky it is the gun that the son of Sàà-bié is shooting in order to get Téng; when we hear the roaring of the thunder, we know it is he who is dragging his cowhide and when we see lightning in the sky we know that it is he who is freeing his penis from its foreskin.” Paraphrased from the black bagr recited by Vuuyin in the village settlement of Chèboggo, 1994; see the full version of this in Tengan, Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara Black Bagr (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006). 188 Tengan

A1: Two stones probably taken from the river or sea B1: Two stones probably taken from the river sea bed bed and the hill or mountain top and the hill mountain top

A2: Soil as symbol of Earth B2: Soil as symbol of Earth Figure 10.1 Item representing the life cycle of the physical cosmos and universe. Theme one: symbolic representation of the cosmic realm as life source (the space- above or rain and the space-below or earth) © Alexis B. Tengan

as the bagr myth states, the beings represented by these objects are both life source and agents of life transmission (see footnote 2 above). The next two themes (three and four) also go together and metaphorically outline the processes of life transmission through sexuality and fertilization in the physical world with its diversity of life cycles. A distinction is drawn between nondomestic processes, unmediated by culture yet secret and unseen, and domestic cultural ones that can be observed within the domestic sphere of life. Hence, the objects and figurines mirror this reality. First, the sexual and prolific breeding habits of an animal species such as the pig are depicted through a copulating figurine or single foraging figurines of such animals. Second, there are figurines of reptiles, particularly the snake as a symbolic representation of the nondomestic and the uninhabited spheres of life. These lead Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 189

A3: Set of Ancestral Figurines in Wood as source B3: Set of Ancestral Figurines in agents of life Wood as source agents of life

A4: Carved Iron rods as source agents of life B4: Carved Iron rods as source agents of life Figure 10.2 Items representing the metaphysical abstraction of the cosmos and universe. Theme two: objects and beings as source agents of life transmission (the plant and mineral kingdoms) © Alexis B. Tengan

us to the human socio-cultural sphere of existence and the processes needed to ensure the continuous flow of human life within its cycle. The objects here are many and varied and I cannot elaborate fully on their symbolic and linguistic significance (see Figure 10.4 and the list of items in Tables 10.1 and 10.2 above). Let me just state that they convey the formation of society and social relations through marriage, the processes of childbearing and rearing, and the sustenance of human life within the human body—physical, social, and cosmic.17

17 See René Devisch, Weaving the Threads of Life: The Khita Gyn-Eco-Logical Healing Cult Among the Yaka (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993), and Tengan, “Space, Bonds and Social Order: Dagara House-Based Social System” and The Social Structure of the Dagara. 190 Tengan

A5: Male and Female Copulating Animal Figurines B5: Male and Female Foraging Animal Figurines

B5a

B5b

A6: Fertilisation: Male and Female Snake Figurines B6: A hunting Snake Figurine Figure 10.3 Items representing the life cycle of the undomesticated. Theme three: the reproduction of life in the human and animal kingdom (sexuality and fertilisation) © Alexis B. Tengan

The last three themes (see Figures 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7) can be placed together under the general rubric of medical and healing practices. Hence, in theme five (see Figure 10.5), sounding objects such as the hand bell and the rattling gourd are present as basic speech elements that allow the medical doctor to communicate with the human body and its environment. Also present are the wooden sticks and the cowrie shells commonly used to diagnose disease and illness within the body and through ritual practice. The last two themes tend to focus on methods of medicine preparation and healing processes. The first focus is on external bodily features as these communicate with the external environment. They include amulets with animal figurines on them and herbal medicine prepared with vegetable butter and placed in broken pots. In the second basket, empty oyster shells appear as both medicinal material and Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 191

A7: A small cloth hand sack with three smaller bags B7: Three animal small skin bags and one big bag each with a number of cowries and a black stone with various sums of cowries

B8: Two skulls of goat or sheep tied together with a A8: Three animal skulls tied with string and a key piece of cloth Figure 10.4 Life transmission and sustenance of the life cycle. Theme four: life sustenance (marriage, childbearing and rearing) © Alexis B. Tengan

containers of medicine. The second focus is on healing life within the human body and maintaining the internal invisible bodily features in their proper structure and function. The items therefore tend to be closed containers from plant and earth material which are either empty or contain substances such as various forms of vegetable (roots, herbs, leaves, etc.), mineral (cowries, chalk), and animal material. It is certainly beyond the scope of this essay to fully articulate the complete semantic structure of the items used to constitute the ancestral shrine as a religious and medical institution. Suffice it to mention, by way of closing this section, that the responsibility for tending the ancestral shrine lies with the most senior son of the deceased man. He becomes the house doctor for all the family members. 192 Tengan

A9: An iron divination bell B9a: Iron divination bell tied to a snake figurine B9b: An iron divination bell

A10: Stocks of the Guinea corn for B10a: A wooden divination B10b: A divination gourd divination stick Figure 10.5 Diagnostic items and the cyclical passing of life. Theme five: life sustenance (disease and life threats and diagnostic process) © Alexis B. Tengan

5 Conclusion

The progress of African indigenous knowledge, whatever that might mean, has been long trapped within the process of fragmentary disciplinary methods and theories on scientific knowledge. The historical conditions leading to the emergence of a particular paradigm of reductionism that underpin formal education and academic learning about African knowledge systems have further made it impossible to understand the knowledge content and practices of African sciences in their socio-cultural context. It has been the contention in this chapter that it is not possible to study such seminal knowledge areas as religion, art, and medicine as if they were distinct and separate knowledge systems that accidentally cross each other in the minds of specialists. Indeed, reading much of the literature on these three knowledge areas since the inception of anthropology and African studies as disciplines, what they seem to have in common are the negative and derogatory terminologies that have been bundled together as having no place in Judeo-Christian and Euro-American societies and cultures and thrown onto the African academic scene as the focus of study. Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 193

A11: An amulet for Prevention, Protection and Healing B11: An Amulet for Prevention, Protection and Healing

A12: Broken pots of medicine substances and B12: Oyster shells as medicine Substances and preparation Preparation Figure 10.6 Healing items and the external body: maintaining life in the human cycle. Theme six: life sustenance (prescriptive and healing process) © Alexis B. Tengan

This chapter has first endeavored to look beyond the negative and derogatory language use with regard to African knowledge systems and practices, particularly with regard to religion, art, and medicine. Secondly, it has argued that knowledge in art, religion, and medicine has a common objective, namely to ensure the proper understanding of the cyclical transmission and transfer of life within and across different life forms or species. Different life forms manifest themselves either as non-moving material objects/elements or moving embodied beings/elements. Using ethnographic material from the Lobi/Dagara people of northern Ghana, the chapter demonstrates how the development of art in all its forms (material and performative) is also the development of a peculiar scientific language that is first used to reflect intelligently on and talk about the universe as observed, and subsequently to understand the meaning 194 Tengan

A13: An empty medicine pot with lid B13: A medicine pot filled with medicinal substances

A14: Two Calabashes or Gourds with B14: Two small gourd containers one is empty the second has black powdered prepared medicine five cowries, three black charcoal pieces four white chalk Figure 10.7 Healing items and the internal body: maintaining life in the human cycle. Theme seven: medicine and life conservation © Alexis B. Tengan

of its structure and purpose. This understanding takes the form of religious and cultural ideas that will form the basis for a medical system of thought and practice. The ancestral cult that can be found in every homestead in traditional Lobi/Dagara communities is one of the elementary institutions where these ideas and practices are objectified and localized. Using artefacts from two family homes that were once used to constitute their ancestral shrines or cults, the essay outlined a thematic discourse on the general religious beliefs and medical practices regarding life source, its transfer and transmission, and its sustenance within a given cyclical order. Scientific Decolonization and Language Use 195

Works Cited

Bognolo, Daniela. Lobi (Milan: 5 Continents, 2007). Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice, tr. Richard Nice (Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, 1972; Cambridge Studies In Social Anthropology 16; Cambridge & New York: Cambridge UP, 1977). Devisch, René. Weaving the Threads of Life: The Khita Gyn-Eco-Logical Healing Cult Among the Yaka (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993). Fiéloux, Michèle, Jacques Lombard & Jeanne-Marie Kambou-Ferrand, ed. Images d’Afrique et sciences sociales: les pays lobi, birifor et dagara (Burkina Faso, Côte- d’Ivoire et Ghana): actes du colloque de Ouagadougou, 10-15 décembre 1990 (Paris: Karthala/ORSTOM, 1993). Fortes, Meyer, & E. E. Evans-Pritchard. African Political Systems (1940; London & New York: International African Institute/Oxford UP, 1970). Galtung, Johan. “Scientific Colonialism,” Transition 30 (1967): 10–15. Galtung, Johan. Sociological Theory and Social Development (Kampala: Transition/ Makerere University Bookshop, 1968). Goody, Jack. The Myth of the Bagre (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972). Goody, Jack, & S. W. D. K. Gandah. The Third Bagre: A Myth Revisited (Durham NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2002). Hagberg, Sten, & Alexis B. Tengan. Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 30; Uppsala: U of Uppsala P, 2000). Hawkins, Sean. Writing and Colonialism in Northern Ghana: The Encounter between the LoDagaa and “the World on Paper” (Toronto & Buffalo NY: U of Toronto P, 2002). Horton, Robin. “African Conversion,” Africa 41.2 (1971): 85–108. Horton, Robin. “On the Rationality of African Conversion,” Africa 45.3&4 (1975): 219–235. Horton, Robin. Patterns of Thought in Africa and the West: Essays on Magic, Religion, and Science (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge UP, 1993). Kagame, Alexis. La Philosophie bantu comparée (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1976). Mbiti, John S. African Religions & Philosophy (London & Ibadan: Heinemann, 1969). McCoy, Remigius F., with René Dionne & J. C. Dewart. Great Things Happen: A Personal Memoir of the First Christian Missionary Among the Dagaabas and Sissalas of Northwest Ghana (Montreal: Society of Missionaries of Africa, 1988). Meyer, Piet, Isabelle Wettstein & Brigitte Kauf. Kunst und Religion der Lobi (exh. cat.; Zürich: Museum Rietberg, 1981). Mulago gwa Cikala, M. Vincent. La religion traditionnelle des Bantu et leur vision du monde (Kinshasa: Presses universitaires du Zaïre, 1973). 196 Tengan

Nkrumah, Kwame. “The African genius,” speech delivered by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, President of the Republic of Ghana, at the opening of the Institute of African Studies, 20 October 1963 (Accra, 1963). Tengan, Alexis B. Hoe-Farming and Social Relations Among the Dagara of Northwestern Ghana and Southwestern Burkina Faso (Frankfurt am Main & New York: Peter Lang, 2000). Tengan, Alexis B. “Space, Bonds and Social Order: Dagara House-Based Social System,” in Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso, ed. Sten Hagberg & Alexis B. Tengan (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 30; Uppsala: U of Uppsala P, 2000): 87–103. Tengan, Alexis B. Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara Black Bagr (Brussels & New York: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2006). Tengan, Alexis B. The Art of Mythical Composition and Narration: Dagara White Bagr (Brussels & New York: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2012). Tengan, Edward B. The Social Structure of the Dagara: The House and the Matriclan as Axes of Dagara Social Organization (Tamale: St. Victor’s Major Seminary, 1994). Wiredu, Kwasi. Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (African Systems of Thought; Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996). CHAPTER 11 Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse: Increasing the Awareness of Ghanaian Graduate Students

Gordon S. K. Adika

Abstract

Drawing on a social constructionist perspective to written scholarly communication, this chapter argues that training in academic writing for students in higher education especially in second language contexts should go beyond emphasis on grammatical correctness and paragraphing strategies, and also focus on the rhetorical character of academic discourse together with the mastery of its communicative protocols. Using the University of Ghana as a reference point, the essay reviews a selection of accounts showing Ghanaian graduate students’ awareness of the protocols that govern academic discourses in scholarly writing. In consideration of their unique educational and socio-cultural circumstances, the chapter proposes strategies, from the pedagogical and institutional standpoints, aimed at increasing students’ awareness of the relevant communicative practices that engender credibility and promote accountability.

1 Introduction

Credibility and accountability in academic discourse can be achieved by fulfilling what Ken Hyland describes as conditions of adequacy and acceptability. Adequacy conditions refer to the requirement that a statement has to occupy some persuasive and reasonable position within the discipline’s knowledge corpus, expressed using the specialized vocabularies recognized by that discourse community. This is accomplished by adopting a particular conceptual slant towards a given body of data or textual subject matter, giving our work authority and credibility. Acceptability conditions refer to the requirement that statements should be crafted in a manner that is responsive to the “affective expectations”1 of the prototypical voices representing the discipline; this is

1 Ken Hyland, Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004): 13.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_013 198 Adika accomplished by making linguistic choices that portray a professional attitude, and by providing proper and complete acknowledgement of our sources, giving our work accountability. In scholarly writing, new understanding and insights emerge intertextually as authors explore the diversity of prior knowledge, mapping out the thematic landscape in terms of histories of ideas and schools of thought, and dealing with the vast literature which typically invites interpretative challenges depending upon one’s ideological viewpoint. In this regard, we gain credibility and relevance by how thoroughly we con- textualize our work through the rhetoric of literature review and ample demonstration of our work’s relation to specific specimens of prior knowledge in the discipline. While analyzing, interrogating, and synthesizing prior knowledge, we demonstrate accountability by observing proper citation protocols; these conventions are the way we signal our relative dependence upon and respect for other members of the knowledge-building community in which we thereby demonstrate our right to belong. Indeed, the competence we ex- hibit in handling these linguistic and rhetorical choices is decisive in whether we facilitate or obstruct our access to privileges in the scholarly community. Fluency in these conventions will confirm or deny our validation as members of this community. Despite the growing relevance of this aspect of academic discourse, in Ghana research has tended to focus on grammatical lapses and infelicities in paragraph writing.2 Additionally, the initiation of Ghanaian students into

2 Gordon S. K. Adika & G. Owusu-Sekyere, “Standards of English in the University of Ghana and a proposal for department based writing programmes,” Working Papers in Language Teaching 1 (1997): 1–3; Mabel Yeboah Asante, “Variation in subject‐verb concord in Ghanaian English,” World Englishes 31.2 (2012): 208–225; John Kumah Quagie, “Students’ use of grammatical concord: An evaluation of examination scripts of some selected students at Ghana Technological University College (GTUC),” International Journal of Research in the Academic Disciplines in Higher Education 1.1 (2013): 69–78; Faustina B. Hyde, “On the state of English Studies among first year students in the University of Ghana,” in Multilingualism, Language in Education and Academic Literacy: Applied Linguistics Research in the Language Centre, ed. Gordon S. K. Adika & Charles C. Asante (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2015): 37–56; E. K. Klu, “An Analysis of Grammatical Concord in Selected Examination Scripts of Students of the Ghana Technology University College,” International Journal of Educational Sciences 7.3 (2014): 727–773; Patricia Beatrice Mireku-Gyimah, “Analysis of Errors in the English of Final Year University Students: A Case Study at the University of Mines and Technology,” Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL) 2.4 (2014): 23–46; Mabel Yeboah Asante, “L1-Influence as a possible source of variation in the use of the third person singular in Ghanaian English,” in Multilingualism, Language in Education and Academic Literacy: Applied Linguistics Research in the Language Centre, ed. Gordon S. K. Adika & Charles C. Asante (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2015): 25–36. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 199 disciplinary communicative norms has not been vigorously debated within clear epistemological and pedagogical paradigms. Conceivably, this is because expertise in the area of academic writing in Ghana is in its developmental stages; granted that, currently, there are few researchers spearheading inquiries into English for Academic Purposes (EAP) especially from a genre-analytical perspective and contrastive rhetoric.3 Indeed, research on student writing in higher education has largely focussed on analyzing errors at the sentence and paragraph level, and has neglected social constructionist perspectives, which I believe address fundamental questions related to how our students locate and model themselves in the academic discourse community. Using the University of Ghana as a reference point, I review a selection of Ghanaian graduate students’ awareness of the protocols that govern academic discourses. I also explain the core of linguistic skills and rhetorical strategies that are particularly useful for Ghanaian students in light of their unique educational and socio- cultural circumstances, in order to demonstrate credibility and accountability in their academic discourse.

2 Educational and Socio-cultural Setting

When students enter university we want to introduce them to a range of lit- eracies that will help them to negotiate their space in the competitive world of work; that is one ultimate objective. At the same time, we want to be able to equip them with the communication skills and strategies that will enable them to gain membership in the academic community and subsequently to master its norms and protocols further so they have the capacity to negotiate and consolidate or to expand their space within that community. Therefore,

3 Joseph Benjamin Archibald Afful, “A rhetorical analysis of examination essays in three disciplines: The case of Ghanaian undergraduate students” (doctoral dissertation, National University of Singapore, 2005), and “Academic literacy and communicative skills in the Ghanaian university: A proposal,” Nebula 4.3 (2007): 141–159; Gordon S. K. Adika, “Language teaching, critical voice and the construction of knowledge,” in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and the Humanities through African Perspective, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub Saharan, 2012), vol. 2: 1493–1502; Richard B. Lamptey & Hagar Atta-Obeng, “Challenges with Reference Citations Among Postgraduate Students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana,” Journal of Science and Technology (Ghana) 32.3 (2013): 69–80; Vera E. M. Arhin, “Voices that compete with students’ writing process: A case study of learners from less endowed communities,” The Dawn Journal 3.1 (January–June 2014): 693–714; Adamu Musa, “Hedging Strategies in English and Chemistry Masters’ Theses in the University of Cape Coast, Ghana,” Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL) 2.3 (2014): 53–71. 200 Adika universities in Ghana (like most universities elsewhere) have introduced language and study skills or communication courses designed for this purpose. The contents of these syllabi are fairly uniform across universities. They tend to address paragraph writing difficulties, lapses in grammar, study skills (reading and note-taking techniques), as well as basic issues in referencing skills. Due to cuts in staffing and increasing student numbers, these classes tend to be large—up to two hundred students.4 Naturally, such large classes do not permit regular instructor feedback on class assignments; this negatively affects students’ academic writing development. Compounding the problem further is the fact that many of our university students do not take such courses seriously. They only begin to see the value retrospectively when in their final year they have to write long essays which require observing the right academic discourse protocols. Most students swiftly shelve the knowledge thus gained and never actually develop the skills they urgently need. Those who are able to enter graduate school appear lost, and those with sufficient tenacity ask countless albeit naive questions about referencing conventions and plagiarism: why should I acknowledge a source if I have summarized the information? Why do I need to cite the author of an idea when it occurred to me before I read the source? Some questions also border on the distinction between common knowledge and interpretation, or between fact and opinion. Do graduate programs in Ghana’s universities incorporate academic writing as a course into their curricula? The answer is negative. Most of these programs rely on the obligatory course in research methods to provide graduate students with a general understanding of essential communication skills, academic protocol, and discourse strategies as well. Indeed, graduate programs in Ghana’s universities all have strong research methods courses. But the written communication aspect of research, analysis, and theorizing is largely taken for granted. The assumption is that students should know their discipline’s writing conventions and be able to communicate comfortably without coaching. Graduate level text composing skills are therefore dependent on what students have already learnt at the undergraduate level. But, as already pointed out, that is where students are unlikely to get adequate training in the nature of academic discourse. Furthermore, even beyond the foundational course in academic writing, the model of classroom interaction that students have internalized is that of the

4 For decades the University of Ghana ran average class sizes of 60–80 students; however, for the past four years it has been able to reduce its class sizes to 45–50 for its academic writing courses. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 201 lecturer as a dominant figure endowed with all required knowledge, a figure disseminating unassailable information, to be revered as sacrosanct. The unquestioning and wholly submissive attitude is the mark of a good student; this view is held by some lecturers themselves. The student who dares to ask questions in class is often regarded as a disruptive element. I recall a case in my own undergraduate days when a lecturer in an introductory course on literature walked out of the class because a student had apparently obstructed his flow of thought by asking a question. With the lecturer gone, we all trooped out of the class in disappointment. While acknowledging that this interactive model may not be entirely responsible for the lapses in our students’ grasp of the normative protocols for academic discourse, I contend that such incidents erode our graduate students’ sense of intellectual conviction and self-confidence. Several of these students shuttle between one supervisor and another with stereotypical perspectives about the writing process and what participation in knowledge construction entails. For example, graduate students have periodi- cally walked into my office merely to bemoan their inability to construct their research proposals. In some cases they ask about the meaning and requirements for an assignment that they have been given. They do not present their own perspectives on how the work could be approached but, rather, come to seek the senior authority’s instructions. This attitude is consistent with the perception that the lecturer or the supervisor is the unassailable custodian of knowledge, a semi-god to be placated and assuaged with submissive deference, a creature who favors those who come for benefaction with an unquestioning heart and open mind. In other words, those who seek proximity by consulting the lecturer by that very action are approaching the truth. Certain lecturing styles also discourage students from assuming the role of participants in the learning process, ignoring or suppressing the student’s job as one who interrogates and challenges the received approach to issues as presented by the lecturer, the one who presents an antithetical, alternative, or untutored perspective, as one who brings a fresh and unstudied perspective. Rather, many lecturers impose their own standpoint upon students sometimes unwittingly, through a unidirectional lecturing style, unaccom- modating of students’ reactions to the knowledge or information that is being transmitted. The university’s own structure and modeling exacerbates this problem of acculturating students as participants in the knowledge construction process. For undergraduates, apart from academic writing or communication skills courses at the first-year level (with the exception of the University of Ghana, where it extends to the second year), there is no substantial effort at 202 Adika the disciplinary level to impart mastery of discipline-specific communicative practices.5

2.1 Theoretical and Conceptual Considerations In presenting the theoretical underpinning for this chapter, the works of Ken Hyland on social interactions in academic writing feature large. I have also been influenced by the works of John Swales, whom I met as a graduate student at the University of Cambridge several years ago, when Swales’ landmark Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings had just been published by Cambridge University Press; from the start it was and remains widely acclaimed in Applied Linguistics circles.

2.2 Academic Discourse Communities Swales offers an enlightening definition of discourse community by contrasting it with speech community:

A speech community typically inherits its membership by birth, accident or adoption; a discourse community [my emphasis] recruits its members by persuasion, training or relevant qualification.6

As Swales points out, gaining membership is not accidental; membership is earned through training and qualification. Academic discourse communities are composed of individuals with diverse experiences, expertise, commitments, and influences. Establishing yourself in a competitive disciplinary ter- rain requires the capacity to communicate your use of prior knowledge, and on the relevance of your new contribution. There are also groups in competition clustering around accepted or contested ideas, with peripheral and dominant contributors.7 For example, a PhD in Linguistics qualifies you as a member of the community of linguists, and with this membership come two things: first, you bring along with you your distinctive expertise as well as ideological lean- ings, which may then engender an alignment with others of similar persuasion. Secondly, you may produce research that becomes generally accepted or

5 Gordon S. K. Adika & G. Owusu-Sekyere, “Standards of English in the University of Ghana and a proposal for department based writing programmes,” Working Papers in Language Teaching 1 (1997): 1–3. 6 John Swales, Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990): 24. 7 Ken Hyland, “Activity and evaluation: Reporting practices in academic writing,” in Academic Discourse, ed. John Flowerdew (London: Longman, 2002): 115–130. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 203 that challenges conventional thinking in one or another subdisciplinary area. The thread that binds these two traits is your mastery of the normative rhetorical practices that govern written communication in your discipline. How scholars write, therefore, reflects their competence in negotiating research spaces for themselves. The point is that the writer and the reader of academic texts usually belong to shared or cognate discourse communities, with shared beliefs and shared assumptions about knowledge construction and argument structures in their disciplines. Within and between cognate disciplines there are communally accepted ways of presenting ideas and negotiating meaning. For example, while writing in linguistics is largely data-driven, in the field of philosophy it is largely through critical analysis of a specified issue most often already marked out by previously established literature; further content is developed and contributed through argumentation and counter-argumentation. The published writing of scholars reflects their competence in handling discipline-specific communicative practices. As Hyland puts it: “These practices are not simply a matter of personal stylistic preference, but community- recognized ways of adopting a position and expressing a stance.”8 That is the turf on which Ghanaian graduate students and, indeed, students and young scholars elsewhere have to negotiate their space and validate their individual voices. For this purpose, Swales views the usefulness of the concept of discourse community, in that it “can be invoked in order to help students […] become better amateur ethnographers of their own communities.”9

2.3 Establishing a Research Niche in Academic Discourse 2.3.1 The Rhetoric of Literature Reviews As part of the background research for this chapter, I reviewed the most recent (2012/2013 academic year) assessors’ reports for graduate theses submit- ted to the University of Ghana School of Graduate Studies (UGSGS). In all, I examined thirty-five reports, nine from the Sciences and twenty-six from the Humanities. The breakdown was as follows: Sciences—three PhD and six Mas- ters reports; Humanities—seven PhD and nineteen Masters reports.

2.3.2 The Pitfalls Some of the predominant negative comments (categorized as Comments a–g) that I came across are discussed below:

8 Hyland, Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing, 11. 9 Swales, Genre Analysis, 202. 204 Adika

Comment (a) However, in several parts of the chapter (i.e., literature review chapter), the author fails to provide the relevant sources of the review to allow the independent assessor to have full confidence in establishing the quality of the review.

The import of comment (a) is that the candidate does not provide the relevant sources; the effect is that the independent assessor does not have full confidence in establishing the quality of the candidate’s literature review in terms of the dates, reputation, and verifiability of the sources. In short, the required intertextual warrants lack credibility.

Comment (b) The researcher was not able to cite properly the source of the NDHS 2008 whose data he analyzed in his project.

Comment (b) signals a violation of the accountability requirement. Verifi- able sources express to the reader that neither our claims nor our sources are fictitious.

Comment (c) The dissertation has a section with the title “Literature Review”. However, it is not clear why the literature cited is being reviewed. It is not obvious how the information provided in the literature review is linked to the research objective and hypothesis. I suggest that the author refers to the following paper which provides some direction on the purpose and how to prepare a literature review. Andrew Armitage, Dianne Keeble-Allen and Aglia Ruskin “Undertaking a structured literature review or structuring a literature review: tales from the field”. Another useful reference is “Writing a literature review” prepared by the Academic Writing Help Centre, Graduate Student Writing of the University of Ottawa. They can both be downloaded from the net. Comment (d) One unfortunate point though, is candidate’s inability to relate the literature being reviewed to his work. A cardinal principle in the writing of such dissertations is to show the relevance of literature being reviewed to the work. Comment (e) Showing the relevance of work being reviewed to the dissertation is imperative, not an option. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 205

The candidates’ failure to establish credibility emerges from comments (c), (d), and (e). First, in some theses the motivation for the literature review is ambiguous; second, when a candidate is unable to situate current research within the disciplinary body of prior knowledge, there is a violation of adequacy conditions which require that a reasonable relationship be shown between the thesis and the discipline’s prior knowledge framework. With respect to comment (f) below, apart from obvious problems with citation protocols, the assessor’s concerns also have to do with the structuring of content as well as the handling of authorial voice. The import is that negotiating our research space when reviewing prior knowledge precludes un- warranted personal narratives. Our expository posture should be driven by counterclaiming, indicating a gap, or question-raising as we align the network of prior literature.

Comment (f) Candidate needs to recast the literature review. The format chosen is completely at variance with the norm. Some of the literature seems quite irrelevant. Also, the reader is kept in suspense as to which literature is being reviewed, as candidate veers into narratives of her own.

Regarding comment (g) below, the assessor’s comments indicate violations related to both adequacy and acceptability conditions. The point at issue is that the candidate has not demonstrated an awareness of the important references, defined here as works produced by academics as opposed to activists. In other words, the candidate has focused on the perceived peripheral members of the disciplinary community to seek validation for his or her research. The evaluation of the candidate’s communicative style as pedestrian: ie commonplace or dull, implies that the assessor assumes a preferred rhetorical style for engaging with prior knowledge. The expectation is that the style should be reflective rather than impassive, analytical rather than non-discursive, dialectical rather than acquiescent. The verdict, then, is that the candidate’s credibility is doubtful; and his accountability profile has been considerably discredited.

Comment (g) The candidate demonstrates limited knowledge of the literature pertaining to political science, international politics and international political economy, from which concepts such as global governance and participatory governance can be derived. Much of the very thin assembly of literature reviewed is lightweight: consultancy reports, un-refereed and other publications of 206 Adika

dubious scholarly provenance. Indeed, quite a number of them were written by activists as opposed to scholars…. The literature review is equally pedestrian. It attempts to summarize pieces of literature without analyzing how they relate to each other—in terms of the similarities they share or the differences between them. For example, the difference or similarity between the contentions of Author X and those of Author Y is not specified, even though the summary of the latter in the next paragraph begins with the phrase “on the other hand”.

3 An Analysis of a Sample Literature Review Section

In this section, I analyze the literature review section (Extract 1 below) of a Master of Philosophy dissertation. The piece demonstrates the inability of some Ghanaian graduate students to adopt a critical and analytical perspective when reviewing items of previous literature. Indeed, the review of literature below is generally organized on a geographical or regional basis: from Ghana to Zimbabwe, then to New York, and finally London. The macro structuring of the content is not on the basis of the issues but in terms of ‘home and abroad’. Within the ‘home and abroad’ framework, items of previous research are considered or listed not according to any principle of selection, but apparently on the basis of how they occur to the writer or the student as the text is composed. This arbitrariness is not a sporadic flaw but is quite pervasive in the writing of our graduate students, as available examiners’ reports have demonstrated.

3.1 Extract 1: Sample Literature Review (M.Phil. Thesis) 3.1.1 Ghana

Agor (2003) conducted analyzes of how teacher training college students of Ghana apply the principles and the rules of concord in their writings. He did his work in three training colleges, Presby Teacher Train- ing College, Akropong, Accra Teacher Training College, and Mampong Teacher Training. He found that students in the training colleges lack the explicit knowledge of concord. Dako (1997), examined scripts of Literature of part 11 final year students of department of English in University of Ghana, Legon. She examined the scripts with regard to the sentence level problems that the students faced. Her findings show that the students did not adhere to the rules of reference. Tandoh’s (1987) work was based on standard of undergraduate students written English in the University of Ghana. She looked Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 207

at error types and established twelve types of error, among which are noun phrase, verb phrase, concord, vocabulary, spelling and punctuation. Odamten et al (1994) also did error analysis at the sentence level in the areas of concord and spelling. Gyimah and Tay-Agbozo (2005) looked at paragraph development in a Senior High School and basic school respectively. The two of them concluded that the approach normally used to teach the students was not helping them to grasp the skills of paragraph development. They therefore recommended process approach to be used to teach at those levels. Anyidoho (1997) analyzed essays of final year students who offered Phonology. She based her analysis on grammar; spelling and mechanical inaccuracies. Her work revealed that students failed to master the ru- diments of grammar and therefore suggested that revision and editing skills should be taught pupils at the basic level. Adika (1999) did analysis of essays of first year students of university of Ghana. His analysis was based on sentence level concerns with particular reference to thematic progression and underdeveloped theme as well as ambiguous co-reference.

3.1.2 Zimbabwe

Gonye et al (2012) looked at academic writing challenges in the Great Zimbabwe University. They did analysis of students’ essays which was based on sentence level weaknesses. Their findings revealed so many sentence level errors among which are, pronoun references, concord, punctuation and wrong use of homophones.

3.1.3 New York

Raimes (1985) works on writing; she suggests that grammar should be well taught in schools, because writing helps students to display what they know about grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary.

3.1.4 London

Mattew [sic] et al (1985) worked on essay writing; their focus was on punctuation. They conclude that writing has to be well punctuated and more cohesive if it is to achieve its purpose. Now, eight out of the ten works looked at so far at both home and abroad show that the researchers conducted error analysis at sentence 208 Adika

level. They focused on errors such as concord, spelling, punctuation, phrases, complex sentences and other sentence-level errors. The remaining two, Gyimah and Tay-Agbozo, (2005) looked at paragraph development problems at Junior high and Senior high schools respectively. The rest of the researches were done at the university level. And most of them were also done in the 20th century except Agor (2003), Gyimah and Tay- Agbozo (2005) and Gonye et al (2012). Now, this research intends to look at the paragraph development problems students face at the training college level, in that the trainees are required to have sound knowledge of principles of paragraph development so that they will be able to impart the right way of developing ideas in writing to the pupils they will be going to teach upon completion of their course. Secondly, the two works on paragraph development were silent on the thesis statement, which is the main idea of any write up. And, finally, their works were done at the M. A. level, not MPhil level.

Another intriguing feature of Extract 1 is the writer’s use of reporting verbs10 in an integral environment. This predictably gives greater prominence to the authors cited. Arguably, this style may be a derivative from Ghanaian students’ respect for authority, especially scholarly authority; granted, though, that it is also in line with Hyland’s assertion that the soft disciplines (humanities) “are more inclined to explicitly recognize the role of human agency in constructing knowledge.”11 Nonetheless, in the case of this student, the framing of the reporting context lacks analysis and synthesis. Prior knowledge is represented as isolated events rather than an interrelated community-driven enterprise. The reporting verbs used derive mainly from Research Acts, which describe the author’s findings or comment on research procedures. Within the Findings subcategory of Research Acts, the student has acknowledged his acceptance of the author’s results or conclusions with factive verbs such as ‘establish’, ‘show’, and ‘reveal’. The student also deploys verbs from the non-factive subcategory which signal no clear attitudinal posture as to the reliability or otherwise of the information (e.g., ‘find out’). There are also verbs which refer to the proce- dural aspects of the student’s investigation (‘analyze’, ‘do’, ‘examine’, ‘work’, and

10 Geoff Thompson & Yiyun Ye, “Evaluation in the reporting verbs used in academic papers,” Applied Linguistics 12.4 (1991): 365–382; Sarah Thomas & Thomas P. Hawes, “Reporting verbs in medical journal articles,” English for Specific Purposes 13 (1994): 129– 148; Ken Hyland, “Activity and evaluation: Reporting practices in academic writing.” and Disciplinary Discourses. 11 Ken Hyland, “Activity and evaluation: Reporting practices in academic writing,” 124. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 209

‘look at’). We do not find clear instances of Discourse Act verbs which convey an evaluation of the cited material and allow the writers to take responsibility for their interpretation, convey their uncertainty or assurance of the claims reported, or attribute a qualification to the author. The only instance where we encounter an explicit evaluative statement regarding the prior research being reported comes in the last paragraph—and this is where the student formal- izes and attempts to establish a research niche in terms of Swales‘ CARS model (Move 2):12 “Secondly, the two works on paragraph development were silent on the thesis statement which is the main idea of any write up. And finally, their works were done at the M. A. level not MPhil level.” In sum, the sample analyses above, combined with examining assessors’ reports, show that teaching, assignment design, and assessment methods should incorporate elements for building the capacity of graduate students in the use of the specialized vocabulary and rhetorical skills required for demonstrating credibility and accountability in their academic writing. My strong conviction is that these skills and rhetorical strategies can be acquired and perfected through systematic study, with the support of faculty and the relevant institutional writing units at Ghanaian universities. That, indeed, is the motivation for a schema I have proposed for handling literature reviews.

4 A Schema for Writing Effective Literature Reviews

The schema I have proposed is a practical way of introducing students to the essential skills and strategies for writing effective literature reviews. As part of an academic writing course, students can be taken through these communicative protocols and shown how the protocols contribute to fostering credibility in academic discourse The schema has two core parts. These are Specialized Vocabulary, on one side; and Rhetorical Strategies, on the other. Specialized Vocabulary comprises three aspects—Reporting Verbs, Evaluative Language, and the Language of Comparison and Contrast.

12 Swales’ CARS model proposes a move structure for research article introductions motivated by the rhetorical need to establish the relevance of the current research. There are three moves: Move 1: Establishing a Territory (by providing background information that previews the main issue), Move 2: Establish a Niche (by identifying the main issue or problem that will be discussed), Move 3: Occupying the Niche (by indicating the contents, structure; and/or aims of the paper). 210 Adika

5 Specialized Vocabulary

5.1 Reporting Verbs Reporting verbs signal our attitude as writers towards the status of an author’s ideas, theories or research; or our evaluation of the evidential status of the sources we are reviewing. The verbs are an effective way for writers to refute or respond critically to prior research and establish a niche for their own alternative position; and, as demonstrated in the analysis of Extract 1, our students need training in the use of these verbs. Complex categorizations of reporting verbs exist;13 however, for our purposes the simple categorization offered by Monash University‘s language learning support center would suffice. Thus, reporting verbs may be categorized into five groups:

Category 1: Author makes a point to develop or justify his/her argument. Examples: account for, claim, contend, establish, find, hold the view, maintain etc. Category 2: Author draws attention to a particular point. Examples: emphasize, focus on, insist, note, observe, draw attention to, reiterate etc. Category 3: Author positions him/herself against other authors. Examples: dispute, challenge, reject, support etc. Category 4: Signals author’s omissions. Example: assume, take for granted. Category 5: Signals author’s admissions; that is, the author concedes a point of potential weakness. Examples: acknowledge, recognize.

5.2 Evaluative Language Evaluative language is the kind of language that expresses the value, importance, weakness or limitation of the object of the discourse. It also demonstrates the posture or attitude of the writer towards the evidential status of a proposition. It is a very broad category involving the use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Examples: sanctioned, doubtful, rudimental, unprece- dented, overworked, flawed. An awareness of the language of evaluation would enable students to demonstrate their critical perspectives on what others have done and equip them to establish a basis for negotiating their own research space. However, how much of evaluative language do Ghanaian graduate students deploy? A close examination of their academic writing shows a limited

13 For example, Thompson & Ye, “Evaluation in the reporting verbs used in academic papers,” and Ken Hyland, “Academic attribution: Citation and the construction of disciplinary knowledge,” Applied Linguistics 20.3 (1999): 341–367. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 211 use of these evaluative words or phrases. The underlying reasons are not far- fetched. One of these is the ‘do-not-question authority’ syndrome. As I explained in a recent paper on this topic,14 over the years, education in Ghana has been fed mainly by printed material produced overseas by Euro- American scholarship. Our school system has clung uncritically to the use of these materials in molding the minds of students. Textbooks, and for that matter the printed word, have assumed the status of authority. The attitude of teachers and the nature and quality of class exercises and activities arm students to imbibe printed information, and to demonstrate their capacity to recall—sometimes at the merciless hands of cane-wielding teachers. For most of our students, then, the printed word cannot be questioned; their task as readers is to memorize the information in print and regurgitate it when the occasion demands. At university level, published material is perceived as an embodiment of authority, and therefore infallible and unquestionable. Information from textbooks is thereby uncritically incorporated into essays.15 The exercise of evaluative language also derives from students’ capacity to draw on their personal repertoire of vocabulary. Weak evaluative language, in terms of range and felicity of usage, limits our students’ capacity to find and use refreshing or creative ways to engage or interrogate printed material or to comment on the evidential status of a proposition. Worse still, within the setup of our universities the opportunities for extended writing and therefore the exercise of evaluative judgement is limited; large classes have constrained the nature of assignments that lecturers can give to students. Assignment types therefore mainly consist of short notes or answers requiring brief notes.

5.3 Language of Comparison and Contrast In order to properly align our sources in terms of similarity and contrast, we ought to be able to deploy the linguistic resources that signal such alignments. Examples of such expressions are ‘similarly’, ‘likewise’, ‘in the same fashion’, ‘as in X, in Y’, and ‘the same’. To show contrast we have words and phrases such as ‘in contrast’, ‘unlike X, Y’, ‘in contrast to’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘however’, ‘but’, ‘whereas’, and ‘while’. Incorporating the language of comparison into our communication of prior literature enables our readers to see explicit and vivid linkages among sources. In the context of the writing class or in lecturers’ responses to students’ writing, students can be made aware of the multiplicity of pieces of language for expressing similarity and contrast despite the fact

14 Adika, “Language teaching, critical voice and the construction of knowledge.” 15 Gordon S. K. Adika, “Language teaching, critical voice and the construction of knowledge,” 1496. 212 Adika that the language of comparison is a recurrent feature of everyday communication. However, as part of academic discourse, it is reflective of students’ intellectual and analytical engagement with the reading material. That is why it is important to increase the linguistic awareness of our students in this respect and help them to shore up their repertoire accordingly. Writing tasks could be structured around key terms or words signaling relationships of similarity or contrast between and/or among sources. Some of my graduate students have expressed genuine surprise at the range of words available. So far we have been examining the first part of the schema, which is Specialized Vocabulary. Now we can shift our attention to the second part— Rhetorical Strategies.

6 Rhetorical Strategies

The rhetorical strategies outlined in the schema have been inspired by Swales’ conception of move-structure in the rhetoric of research article (RA) introductions. I propose a three-move composing strategy for the literature review segment which constitutes the turf where scholars build their credibility through a demonstration of their understanding of the “dialectics” of knowledge construction in the research area. Move 1 involves analyzing sources in order to chart or plot the common ideas in the plethora of materials that have been gathered. Move 1 has two steps; step 1 involves surveying the materials that have been assembled, and deploying the applicable skimming and scanning techniques. The overall purpose is to familiarize ourselves with the material in order to transit smoothly into step 2, which involves annotating the sources and making a chart of common ideas. A simple numbering system could be employed to plot threads between one source and another or among sources. Move 2 involves synthesis, which also involves two steps. Step 1 calls for cat- egorizing the maze of ideas plotted or charted. Categorization then goes with integration. Sources can be grouped on the basis of the thematic and subthe- matic categories identified and specified. Move 3 signals that the text is constructed on the basis of thematic relationships and tensions rather than on a bland summary of what various authors have said in their research papers. Depending on our purposes, the overall macrostructuring of the content may be chronological, logical, or a combination of the two. The essential point here is that we have allowed ourselves to go through a process that allows us to interrogate and align our sources in relation to a debate or a central concern or in a way that allows us to see gaps in the Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 213 state of knowledge in the area. The research niche thus opened would then have been given credibility by the fact that it would have been embedded in the analysis of the relevant network of references or prior knowledge.

7 Establishing Accountability through Proper Citation Practices

7.1 Citation Protocols and Plagiarism Citation protocols, referencing skills, or documentation methods enable scholars not only to share their findings while making it clear who had done the original research but also to provide proof that their sources of information are not fictitious. Referencing is thus a fundamental and critical aspect of scholarship. It is a way for members of the academy to acknowledge the contributions of others to knowledge creation and dissemination, and to signal the extent of their use of such contributions and their own original input.16 Graduate students, as potential members of the scholarly community, need to understand the value of such textual practices and commit to them.17 Referencing evokes an explicit “inter-textual framework”18 for the construction of new knowledge, violation of which could create credibility problems for writers, especially researchers striving to consolidate their membership of the scholarly or scientific community. It is important for our students to understand citation protocols and the whole area of referencing and making attributions. The citation protocols we observe constitute an integral part or aspect of the accountability requirement. As scholars we have to indicate our reliance on prior knowledge, and how, in negotiating our research spaces, we have drawn on existing knowledge. Often, at the undergraduate level, issues related to referencing and making proper attributions are taken for granted. Even in terms of assignment design, many lecturers neglect this aspect of the preparation and orientation of their students. The result is that the latter proceed through their academic career with the wrong intellectual orientation, especially with respect to plagiarism.

16 Gordon S. K. Adika, “Ghanaian Graduate Students’ Knowledge of Referencing in Academic Writing and Implications for Plagiarism,” Frontiers of Language and Teaching 5.1 (2014): 75–80. 17 Adika, “Ghanaian Graduate Students’ Knowledge of Referencing in Academic Writing and Implications for Plagiarism.” 18 Ken Hyland, Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004): 21. 214 Adika

7.2 Graduate Students’ Knowledge of Plagiarism I conducted a study recently19 to determine whether graduate students at the University of Ghana have sufficient background preparation in the use of documentation styles, and to establish the extent of their knowledge as regards referencing styles. The major issue that emerged was that while our graduate students do substantial writing and depend a lot on the Internet for source materials, most of them do not have extensive practical background training in the use of referencing formats. They are consequently unable to identify the types of documentation formats, let alone apply the formatting skills related to a specific referencing style. I argue that assignment design and the expectations of lecturers, especially at the undergraduate level, indirectly encourage purloining or stealing from source material, and that issues related to methods of documentation are only highlighted to students who decide to write long essays or embark upon project work that involves extended writing in the final year of their undergraduate studies. Invariably, the whole process becomes a one-time experience for the few students who decide, or are selected, to write long essays. Their personal narratives of the ‘toil and sweat’ involved in incorporating and acknowledging source texts into their writing abound. This one- time experience is only reactivated when these students decide to enroll in graduate school. In the study, I emphasized that there appears to be a gap between what students are introduced to in their academic skills courses and the assignment design along with lecturer expectations in students’ discipline-specific areas. Therefore, by the time students get to the final year it is most likely that they will have forgotten about referencing skills, leading thus to violations of citation norms when they proceed to do regular extended writing requiring the use of multiple sources at graduate school. Dealing with referencing challenges and ensuring accountability in the academic writing of Ghanaian students require individual and institutional commitment. At the individual level, each student should take personal responsibility for developing or sharpening their reading and note-taking skills; and at the institutional level, the university should create and implement policies that will ensure that pedagogical approaches sufficiently address referencing and plagiarism matters as well as provide the appropriate intellectual climate for orientating students to their commitments to the academy.

19 Adika, “Ghanaian Graduate Students’ Knowledge of Referencing in Academic Writing and Implications for Plagiarism.” Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 215

8 Conclusion

This chapter presented a theoretical overview and some technical skill building in the art of academic self-determination. As a starting point, I explained the notions of credibility and accountability in academic discourse, and elucidated the concept of an academic discourse community; I then provided a brief overview of the educational and socio-cultural context of Ghanaian university student academic life, after which I examined the link between establishing credibility and the rhetoric of literature reviews. Finally, I demonstrated how accountability can be achieved through proper citation practices and, in this connection, considered the nature and causes of plagiarism, discussing strategies for dealing with the phenomenon at the individual and institutional levels. In academic discourse, we are essentially negotiating research spaces and establishing our “authorial self” through a network of linguistic and rhetorical choices.20 In this chapter, I have tried to explain the specialized vocabulary, the essential skills, and the rhetorical strategies we need to master so that, as members of the academic discourse community, we do not violate the conditions of adequacy and acceptability that govern the construction of knowledge in our discourse communities. This is particularly relevant to Ghanaian graduate students, given their peculiar educational and socio-cultural circumstances, as well as to graduates in other contexts of English as a second language. As up-and-coming members of the scholarly community they need to familiarize themselves with citation protocols and adhere to them in a rigorous manner. That is a definite way of guaranteeing the integrity of their scholarship and making themselves more accountable to the affective expectations of members of their disciplinary community. In the universities of Ghana, institutional processes for initiating students into academic discourse communities are still evolving. There is recognition of the effect of small class sizes on the academic writing development of students, but issues of cost still stifle initiatives to reduce class sizes. Plagiarism policies are being crafted and reviewed to respond more effectively to the electronic availability of information and to students’ lack of experience in using protocols of respect for intellectual property. As African universities develop and acquire the technology to explore new pedagogical styles, issues of plagiarism will, I believe, be tackled in a much more systematic and scientific way. As with their counterparts in Western or anglocentric universities, there will be greater awareness of the fundamental violations of referencing protocols.

20 Hyland, Disciplinary Discourses, 37. 216 Adika

Additionally, the teaching of research report writing requires greater emphasis, particularly in disciplinary contexts, and senior academics ought to take a greater interest in helping graduate students and young academics to master this aspect of scholarly communication. The practice, especially in North American universities, is to institute writing centers as support units. Indeed, the University of Ghana, under the auspices of the Carnegie Corporation, has established such a center, with the goal of providing editorial assistance to students as well as young scholars. While acknowledging the usefulness of a writing center, I contend that, by and large, it is the entire university, not least the senior academics of the community, that can ensure that the process of acculturation properly takes place. Indeed, all the things that we require our students to do or that we ourselves do in university—give lectures, seminars, write assignments, term papers, dissertations, and long essays—require essential communicative practices that should be taught in practical ways to equip the student with strategies appropriate for each rhetorical situation.

Appendix: Plagiarism

1. Heinrich Heine: Nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. There is no sixth commandment in art. The poet dare help himself wherever he lists—wherever he finds material suited to his work. He may even appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he thus supports be a beautiful one. Goethe understood this very well, and so did Shakespeare before him. 2. Oliver Wendell Holmes: It is not strange that remembered ideas should often take advantage of the crowd of thoughts and smuggle themselves in as original.— Honest thinkers are always stealing unconsciously from each other.—Our minds are full of waifs and strays which we think our own.—Innocent plagiarism turns up everywhere. 3. Charles Kingsley: No earnest thinker is a plagiarist pure and simple. He will never borrow from others that which he has not already, more or less, thought out for himself. 4. Augustus M. Toplady: Keep your hands from literary picking and stealing. But if you cannot refrain from this kind of stealth, abstain from murdering what you steal. 5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from. 6. Ralph Waldo Emerson: It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled, thenceforth, to steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the property of him who can entertain it and of him who can adequately place Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 217

it.—A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own. 7. Oliver Wendell Holmes: Literature is full of coincidences, which some love to believe are plagiarisms.—There are thoughts always abroad in the air which it takes more wit to avoid than to hit upon. 8. La Bruyère: Horace or Boileau have said such a thing, before.—I take your word for it, but I said it as my own; and may I not have the same just thoughts after them, as others may have after me? 9. Benjamin Disraeli: Plagiarists have, at least, the merit of preservation. 10. Richard Brinsley Sheridan: Steal! to be sure they may, and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children—disfigure them to make them pass for their own. 11. Charles Caleb Colton: Most plagiarists, like the drone, have not the taste to select, the industry to acquire, nor the skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive. 12. Voltaire: All the makers of dictionaries, and all compilers who do nothing else than repeat backwards and forwards the opinions, the errors, the impostures, and the truths already printed, we may term plagiarists; but they are honest plagiarists, who do not arrogate the merit of invention.—Call them, if you please, book-makers, not authors; rather second-hand dealers than plagiarists. 13. Lady Marguerite Blessington: Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower. 14. Laurence Sterne: As monarchs have a right to call in the specie of a state, and raise its value by their own impression; so are there certain prerogative geniuses, who are above plagiaries, who cannot be said to steal, but, from their improvement of a thought, rather to borrow it, and repay the commonwealth of letters with interest; and may more properly be said to adopt than to kidnap a sentiment, by leaving it heir to their own fame. 15. Horace Walpole: It is a special trick of low cunning to squeeze out knowledge from a modest man who is eminent in any science, and then to use it as legally acquired, and pass the source in total silence. 16. John Ruskin: Touching plagiarism in general, it is to be remembered that all men who have sense and feeling are being continually helped; they are taught by every person whom they meet and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The greatest is he who has been oftenest aided; and, if the attainments of all human minds could be traced to their real sources, it would be found that the world had been laid most under contribution by the men of most original power, and that every day of their existence deepened their debt to their race, while it enlarged their gifts to it. 218 Adika

17. Charles Caleb Colton: If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.—But in this respect every author is a Spartan, more ashamed of the discovery than of the depredation. 18. Thomas Babington Macaulay: There is a very pretty Eastern tale, of which the fate of plagiarists often reminds us. The slave of a magician saw his master wave his wand, and heard him give orders to the spirits who arose at the summons. The slave stole the wand, and waved it himself in the air; but he had not observed that his master used the left hand for that purpose. The spirits thus irregularly summoned, tore the thief to pieces instead of obeying his orders. 19. James Russell Lowell: Borrowed garments never keep one warm. A curse goes with them, as with Harry Gill’s blankets. Nor can one get smuggled goods safely into kingdom come. How lank and pitiful does one of these gentry look, after posterity’s customs-officers have had the plucking of him!

Works Cited

Adika, Gordon S. K. “Ghanaian Graduate Students’ Knowledge of Referencing in Academic Writing and Implications for Plagiarism,” Frontiers of Language and Teaching 5.1 (2014): 75–80. Adika, Gordon S. K. “Language teaching, critical voice and the construction of knowledge,” in Reclaiming the Human Sciences and the Humanities through African Perspective, ed. Helen Lauer & Kofi Anyidoho (Accra: Sub Saharan, 2012), vol. 2: 1493–1502. Adika, Gordon S. K., & G. Owusu-Sekyere. “Standards of English in the University of Ghana and a proposal for department based writing programmes,” Working Papers in Language Teaching 1 (1997): 1–3. Adjei, Amma Abrafi. “Analysis of Subordination Errors in Students’ Writings: A Study of Selected Teacher Training Colleges in Ghana,” Journal of Education and Practice 6.8 (2015): 62–77. Afful, Joseph Benjamin Archibald. “Academic literacy and communicative skills in the Ghanaian university: A proposal,” Nebula 4.3 (2007): 141–159. Afful, Joseph Benjamin Archibald. “A rhetorical analysis of examination essays in three disciplines: The case of Ghanaian undergraduate students” (doctoral dissertation, National University of Singapore, 2005). Arhin, Vera E. M. “Voices that compete with students’ writing process: A case study of learners from less endowed communities,” The Dawn Journal 3.1 (January–June 2014): 693–714. Asante, Mabel Yeboah. “Variation in subject‐verb concord in Ghanaian English,” World Englishes 31.2 (2012): 208–225. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse 219

Asante, Mabel Yeboah. “L1-Influence as a possible source of variation in the use of the third person singular in Ghanaian English,” in Multilingualism, Language in Education and Academic Literacy: Applied Linguistics Research in the Language Centre, ed. Gordon S. K. Adika & Charles C. Asante (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2015): 25–36. Hyde, Faustina B. “On the state of English Studies among first year students in the University of Ghana,” in Multilingualism, Language in Education and Academic Literacy: Applied Linguistics Research in the Language Centre, ed. Gordon S. K. Adika & Charles C. Asante (Accra: Sub-Saharan, 2015): 37–56. Hyland, Ken. “Activity and evaluation: Reporting practices in academic writing,” in Academic Discourse, ed. John Flowerdew (London: Longman, 2002): 115–130. Hyland, Ken. Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004). Hyland, Ken. “Academic attribution: Citation and the construction of disciplinary knowledge,” Applied Linguistics 20.3 (1999): 341–367. Klu, E. K. “An Analysis of Grammatical Concord in Selected Examination Scripts of Students of the Ghana Technology University College,” International Journal of Educational Sciences 7.3 (2014): 727–773. Lamptey, Richard B., & Hagar Atta-Obeng. “Challenges with Reference Citations Among Postgraduate Students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana,” Journal of Science and Technology (Ghana) 32.3 (2013): 69–80. Mireku-Gyimah, Patricia Beatrice. “Analysis of Errors in the English of Final Year University Students: A Case Study at the University of Mines and Technology,” Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL) 2.4 (2014): 23–46. Musa, Adamu. “Hedging Strategies in English and Chemistry Masters’ Theses in the University of Cape Coast, Ghana,” Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL) 2.3 (2014): 53–71. Quagie, John Kumah. “Students’ use of grammatical concord: An evaluation of examination scripts of some selected students at Ghana Technological University College (GTUC) ,” International Journal of Research in the Academic Disciplines in Higher Education 1.1 (2013): 69–78. Swales, John. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990). Swales, John, & Christine B. Feak. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills, vol. 1 (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004). Thomas, Sarah, & Thomas P. Hawes. “Reporting verbs in medical journal articles,” English for Specific Purposes 13 (1994): 129–148. Thompson, Geoff, & Yiyun Ye. “Evaluation in the reporting verbs used in academic papers,” Applied Linguistics 12.4 (1991): 365–382. CHAPTER 12 About the English Language in Ghana Today and about Ghanaian English and Languaging in Ghana

Kari Dako

Abstract

This chapter deals with the history of the sociolinguistic position of English in Ghana which is realized in the distinct new variety: Ghanaian English (GhaE) and in its sub- categories: Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhaPE) and Student Pidgin (SP). It is argued that these are mainly urban-driven. The statistics on the spread and competence of English and the repercussions of the linguistic imbalance in the country as English is in contact and in competition with the over 50 local languages are considered. The attitude to and the dominance of English in the education system and the implications of these are also discussed. GhaE’s distinct phonology, lexical features and its structural tendencies are discussed. As GhaE moves ever further from the dominant center the chapter speculates on the sociolinguistic implications of this shift and on whether a distinct sociolectal divide is being created.

As Richard Hakluyt tells us, English might first have been heard on the coast of what is today Ghana in the 1550s.1 Well into the nineteenth century, the influence of English was minimal, the language heard only around the British forts and trading posts, but when the British wrested control of Asante and a wider territory and made these a colony of its empire in the nineteenth century,2 the English language enhanced its significance, and its influence has increased ever since. This chapter looks at English in Ghana today. The territory of Ghana, formerly called the Gold Coast, was created by the British for both political and economic reasons and with borders drawn quite haphazardly. As the country readied itself for independence, Ghanaians

1 Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1599; London: James McLehose & Sons, 1903–1905), cited in Magnus Huber, Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context (Amsterdam & Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins, 1999): 31. 2 Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, “Multiple bilingualism and urban transitions: Coming to Accra,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 141 (2000): 9–26.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_014 About the English Language in Ghana Today 221 rejected the name given it by the British and chose to give it the name of an ancient African empire whence some historians believed various groups that now occupy Ghana had migrated. Before the British seized the territory, it consisted of several ethnic nation states of varying sizes, strengths, and degrees of resistance to occupation and also of varying importance in terms of economic value. Gaining control of Ghana and making it part of the British Empire was achieved either through conquest or by treaties. The nation of Ghana can be perceived as an undertaking founded on the aspiration to create a political entity bound together by historical and cultural ties as well as by shared conceptions about the direction in which the nation should head and about what a future prosperous Ghana should entail. Ghanaians have in this process assumed an identity as Ghanaians. As Edward Said suggests, nations need to fashion narrations to validate their existence.3 English was the language of the British Empire, and thus the language of what Johan Galtung refers to as the controlling center, a center that maintained its hegemony over its former colonies for years after these gained independence.4 The countries that emerged after Independence with English as their official language, of which Ghana is one, were relegated to the periphery, not only linguistically but also economically and politically. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o wants to move the center, or at least rattle it, and reminds us that “English and the African languages never met as equals.”5 And these languages remain as unequal in prestige and acceptance today as they were during colonial times. The multilingual colonies in Africa had few options when it came to choosing the language of officialdom upon gaining independence.6 Most had no viable alternative to English, French or Portuguese, though at least Tanzania and Kenya made a valiant stand for Swahili and opted for two official languages: English and Swahili. In the other new nations in Africa, however much the incursion and dominance of English in all aspects of life were resented, it should be remembered that the discourse of nationalism and independence was fought in the languages of the colonial powers. The post-Independence elite perpetuated their power through these foreign languages, and in Ghana, English became as formidable a means of power and control, both politically

3 Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1994): xiii. 4 Johan Galtung, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” Journal of Peace Research 8.2 (1971): 81. 5 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Moving the Centre (London: James Currey, 1993): 35. 6 Chinua Achebe, “Politics and politicians of language in African literature” (1989), in Chinua Achebe, The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009): 96–106. 222 Dako and socially, as it had been in colonial times. By controlling the medium of language, the discourse is controlled. But then, English is also a neutral language with no ethnic connotations, and so the choice of English is a super- ethnic solution to a potentially very divisive issue: the language of the nation; and by choosing English, the question of a national language was somewhat shelved, or so Ghanaians prefer to think. Ghana is a nation with between fifty and eighty distinct languages.7 English is its official language, a language that Ghana’s first president envisioned as a major bond to bring this ethnic conglomerate together as a nation.

During the Nkrumah era, political leaders demonstrated concern over the possible impact of a mother tongue medium policy. Although English is a language alien to Ghana they saw it as the best vehicle for achieving national communication and social and political unification.8

Nkrumah envisaged a Ghana where all had had at least basic education and were literate in English.9 He regarded education in local languages as of little value in his paradigm for the new nation—however inconsistent this may appear in view of his emphasis on African values and an African identity. Since then, the official attitude to English has not changed much. In fact, the word ‘language’ is hardly mentioned in Ghana’s constitution of 1992, and when it does appear, it is not in connection with any language policy for the nation. According to the constitution, it is also not incumbent on the president of the nation to be able to speak a Ghanaian language, nor is it obligatory for the nation’s civil and public servants. Where are we fifty years after Nkrumah’s removal from office or sixty years after Ghana gained her independence? According to the Ghana Living Standard Survey 5 of 2008, 52% of adult Ghanaians can read and write a simple letter in English. This percentage is based on self-reporting. I will narrow this scope and suggest that possibly only about 30% of Ghanaians have enough

7 Akosua Anyidoho and Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu estimate the number of languages at over fifty—Anyidoho & Kropp Dakubu, “Ghana: Indigenous Languages, English, and an Emerging National identity,” in Language and National Identity in Africa, ed. Andrew Simpson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008): 141; Bodomo Adams, Jemima A. Anderson and Dzahene Quarshie argue for eighty languages—Adams, Anderson & Quarshie, “A kente of many colours: multilingualism as a complex ecology of language shift in Ghana,” Sociolinguistic Studies 3.2 (2009): 357. 8 David R. Smock, “Language Policy in Ghana,” The Search for National Integration in Africa, ed. David R. Smock & Kwamena Bentsi-Enchill (London: Collier Macmillan, 1976): 176. 9 John A. Sackey, “The English language in Ghana: A historical perspective,” in English in Ghana, ed. Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu (Accra: Ghana English Studies Association/Black Mask, 1997): 126–139. About the English Language in Ghana Today 223

English to function in a modern literate society where English is the official language. Unfortunately, many leave school today after they have had nine years basic education and should have had seven years of education in English only, without basic reading, writing, and comprehension skills in this language. Consequently, possibly 70% of Ghanaians are excluded from fully participat- ing in their nation. “Fanon was one of the few to remark on the dangers posed to a great socio-political movement like decolonization by an untutored national consciousness.”10 For, in Ghana, as in other newly independent states, the national consciousness was formulated in the language of the center, not in languages spoken by the majority of the population. But, as Kwasi Wiredu reminds us,

The period of colonial struggle was […] a period of cultural affirmation […] to restore in ourselves our previous confidence which had been so seriously eroded by colonialism. We are still, even in post-colonial times, in an era of cultural self-affirmation.11

This idea he later developed into his theory of ‘conceptual decolonialization’ in 1995.12 But we need to ask: Through which language(s) was this cultural affirmation restored? For surely cultural affirmation must realize itself through language, and the question of language in the postcolony has attracted various opinions and degrees of attention. Chinua Achebe does not feel particularly threatened by English; he merely demands that the language must carry “the weight of my African experience,” so that it will be transformed into “a new English, still in communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.”13 Ngũgĩ, by contrast, calls for a wholesale decolonizing of the mind.14 Ngũgĩ comes from the settler colony of Kenya, and must have felt a more urgent need to get rid of the trappings of a foreign culture than the Nigerian Achebe and, for that matter, Ghanaians, who have never had to fight settler occupation of their land. From the Ghanaian’s point of view, I will argue that Ghanaians have removed themselves from this domination of being controlled by a foreign language in

10 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 371. 11 Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and an African Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980): 2. 12 As espoused in his book Conceptual Decolonialization in African Philosophy: Four Essays, intro. Olusegun Oladipo (Ibadan: Hope, 1995). 13 Chinua Achebe, Morning Yet on Creation Day (London: Heinemann, 1975): 62. 14 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1986). 224 Dako that they have approbated English and made it their own, as Achebe suggested, while at the same time deconstructing and reconstituting it as a process of decolonizing themselves. Ghanaian English (GhaE) is a New English written and spoken in this country, and underlying this concept is a process of indigenization, as English is in contact with Ghana’s many local languages. GhaE is still in the process of being created and has been described only to a degree, and parallel to GhaE there are supplementary spoken forms of English, which include Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhaPE) and Student Pidgin (SP). Particularly the latter is an accepted form of informal communication by educated male speakers at all levels of especially urban society.15 By so absolutely sabotaging and deconstructing the English language, it can be argued that Ghanaians have made sure that they have relegated any rem- nant of an exocentric culture and that they do not endorse the presence of any foreign civilization, in accordance with what Fanon claimed:

To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a foreign civilization.16

In their mode of speech, Ghanaians use what they find worthwhile in this imposed language and discard the rest as irrelevant. Yet, the prestige of English has been allowed to penetrate and assume eminence in all private educational facilities in the country,17 even as this practice goes against national educational policies and norms. Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin draw attention to language and “the impos- sibility of evading the destructive and marginalizing power of the dominant centre,”18 arguing that both the language and its form must be taken control of. This is a process we witness in Ghana today as GhaE, according to Edgar

15 We now have increasing evidence that SP is also being spoken by females. 16 Frantz Fanon, “The Negro and language” (Black Skin White Masks, 1952), in The Routledge Language and Cultural Reader, ed. Linda Burke, Tony Crowley & Alan Girvin (London & New York: Routledge, 2000): 425. 17 Kari Dako & Millicent Akosua Quarcoo, “Attitudes towards English in Ghana,” Legon Journal of the Humanities 28.1 (2017): 20–30; George Atiemo, “Codeswitching by kindergarten teachers in selected school in the Dormaa Municipality” (MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, 2015). 18 Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (1989; London & New York: Routledge, 2nd ed. 2002): 113–114. About the English Language in Ghana Today 225

Schneider’s predictive theory,19 sheds its exogenous trappings and transfigures itself into a code of endogenous norms. In Ghana, English may have so “sunk in esteem” that to a large extent it has become “the language of utility, of educational necessity, of elevation to the middle class,” but by these attributes it has assumed a “manipulative identity,”20 which I interpret as Ghanaians being coaxed into believing that unless the child is immersed in English from birth, its chances of integration into the Ghanaian school system and passing its exams are minimal. The Ghanaian has a love-hate relationship with English: on the one hand, out of necessity forced to use it; on the other, abrogating British Standard English, still the target of the educational system, while approbating a New English, a GhaE. Scrutinizing the language situation in Ghana today, focussing on English but with special attention to what is taking place in the urban linguistic caul- dron, Accra, I believe the matrix for the Ghanaian language situation is molded in Accra.21 And I use the example of Accra because I think this is a pattern that is gradually being replicated all over the country. Accra, as do other urban conglomerates, attracts people from all over Ghana as well as the West African subregion. In Accra, the majority language is not Ga, the language of the indigenous population, but the Akan dialect Twi. Accra has a large mobile multiethnic and highly educated population who use English as their daily working language and who increasingly use English as the language of the home and speak it exclusively with their children. What, then, about the rest of the Ghanaians—who, according to Anyidoho and Kropp Dakubu, speak one or, typically, more of the more than fifty other distinct languages? We have very meager statistics on this. Ghana and hence its statistical services do not find it relevant to know who speaks what where. We know that there are some languages that are big and function as lingua fran- cas, that some languages are much smaller, and that some languages are under threat. We know that just short of 50% have an Akan dialect as L1, but that only about 43% are ethnic Akan. We can guestimate, then, that possibly a further 30% have Akan as an additional language in varying degrees of competence. This language is statistically more important than English, but sociolinguisti- cally less so.

19 Edgar W. Schneider, “The Dynamics of New Englishes: From Identity Construction to Dialect Birth,” Language 79.2 (2003): 233–281. 20 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 377. 21 See Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, “Multiple bilingualism and urban transitions: Coming to Accra,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 141 (2000): 9–26. 226 Dako

1 English as an L2 in Ghana

What are the distinctive features that make it possible to call English in Ghana ‘Ghanaian English’ (GhaE)? In the literature, GhaE is termed a second language, an L2. GhaE is thus a New English and a member of the World Englishes, for GhaE adheres to the structural rules of BSE but is recognized as a distinct variety by its phonology, by its lexis, and by some structural and idiomatic tendencies. GhaE is not a ‘broken English‘ (so called because it would fall short of its target BSE). English is the official language of Ghana, and it functions like other L2s termed New Englishes or World Englishes.22 Platt et al. describe the sociolinguistic characteristics of the new varieties that classify them as new varieties of English. These denote that the new varieties are spoken by a minority in a country where the majority speak other languages, that they are acquired in the school system, that they have indigenized23 themselves, and that they are institutionalized L2s and the language of officialdom, the media and education. Schneider hypothesizes a continuum of increased nativization through five stages that move the new varieties further and further away from the native variety of the center.24 GhaE falls into Schneider’s Nativisation Phase (Phase 3).25 Kachru’s theory of World Englishes26 draws three concentric circles, the focal point and center of which is occupied by the native English varieties:

22 John T. Platt, Heidi Weber & Mian Lian Ho, The New Englishes (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984); Braj B. Kachru, The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions and Models of Non-Native Englishes (Oxford: Pergamon, 1986), and “Models for non-native Englishes,” in The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, ed. Braj B. Kachru (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2nd ed. 1992): 48–74; Manfred Görlach, “English as a world language,” RELC Journal: A Journal of Language Teaching and Research 17 (1986): 91–96, and English Studies in Varieties of English (Amsterdam & Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins, 1991); Schneider, “The Dynamics of New Englishes: From Identity Construction to Dialect Birth,” and Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the World (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007); Marko Modiano, “International English in the global village,” English Today 58/15.2 (1999): 23–25; Tom McArthur, The English Language (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998), and “English in the world, in Africa, and in South Africa,” English Today 57/15.1 (1999): 11–16. 23 I use ‘indiginized’, ‘localized’, and ‘nativized’ interchangeably, as employed in the literature. 24 Schneider, “The Dynamics of New Englishes: From Identity Construction to Dialect Birth.” 25 Magnus Huber, “Stylistic and sociolinguistic variation in Schneider‘s nativization phase: T-affrication and relativization in Ghanaian English,” in The Evolution of Englishes: The Dynamic Model and Beyond, ed. Sarah Buschfeld, Thomas Hoffman, Magnus Huber & Alexander Kautzsch (Amsterdam & Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins, 2014): 86–106. 26 Kachru, The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions and Models of Non-Native Englishes. About the English Language in Ghana Today 227

English as a native language (ENLs). The outer circle is occupied by the English of the second-language varieties (ESLs). The extended circle is reserved for the EFLs (English as a foreign language). Kachru’s representation is very much influenced by Galtung’s structural theory of imperialism. Kachru, Görlach, Modiano, and McArthur have all created theories of concentric models to illustrate the relationship between the controlling central power and the encircling former colonies of the periphery.27 The outer circle is the periphery of the World Englishes. Where these theories differ is in which circles the various language categories should be placed. English as an L2 is localizing itself in Ghana. This is seen primarily in the vocabulary of GhaE,28 in which English items undergo semantic shifts and there is widespread transfer of local items. But GhaE has also developed its own structural and idiomatic usage. Among those who teach English or are interested in language matters, an important platform of disagreement is the extent to which GhaE should be ‘allowed’ to continue its localizing inclina- tions or whether English speakers of the outer circle should work against any further ‘decline’, meaning away from British Standard English (BSE), for this is a matter of maintaining the presumed purity of English and of proscrib- ing further contamination.29 Standard English of whichever native variety is, after all, the most prestigious variety and the minority variety of any English speaking country in terms of both vocabulary and grammar. Owusu-Ansah’s proposal of a ‘tolerability scale’ to be adopted in Ghana30 might be an innovative and workable approach towards a compromise to facilitate nativized structural and idiomatic items as acceptable variants of BSE forms. Louisa

27 Kachru, The Alchemy of English; Görlach, English Studies in Varieties of English; Modiano, “International English in the global village”; McArthur, “English in the world, in Africa, and in South Africa.” 28 Kofi A. Sey, Ghanaian English: An Exploratory Survey (London: Macmillan, 1973); John P. Kirby, A North American’s Guide to Ghanaian English (Tamale, Ghana: Tamale Institute for Cross-Cultural Studies, 1998); Kari Dako, “Ghanaianisms: towards a semantic and a formal classification,” English World Wide 22 (2001): 23–53, and Ghanaianisms: A Glossary (Accra: Ghana UP, 2003). 29 Ibrahim Kwaku Gyasi, “The hornet’s nest: Who decides what’s right?” English Today 22 (1990): 52–53, “The state of English in Ghana,” English Today 23 (1990): 24–26, and “Why abominable English,” The Ashanti Independent (4–10 July 1994). 30 L. K. Owusu-Ansah, “Nativisation and the maintenance of standards in non-native varieties of English,” in English in Ghana, ed. Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu (Accra: Ghana English Studies Association/Black Mask, 1997): 9–22. 228 Dako

Koranteng’s call for a standardized mode of spoken GhaE31 somehow echoes Owusu-Ansah’s suggestion. To be fluent in a language requires five distinct skills: reading; writing; speaking; listening comprehension; and reading comprehension. These are not acquired simultaneously. In an L2 situation, how these skills are developed varies according to whether some of the skills were already mastered in the L1. If a person is fluent in the L1 and has learnt to read in that language before the L2 is introduced, a good foundation for all five skills has been established and this can be transferred to a new language. When the expected L1 is shoved aside to be replaced by the official L2, as appears to be the dominant practice among middle-class Ghanaians, the child has to acquire these skills in a non- native language. How well the child will become fluent in all five skills will depend very much on the language competence of its parents, the immediate environment, and the competence of the teachers. There is a problem in countries where English is the official language and where the majority speak a multitude of other tongues. Because English is so prestigious and so important in any educational progression, it has been allowed to take precedence over the role of the many indigenous languages, thereby creating a social divide. In Ghana, only the public basic schools adhere to the teaching of the most widely used local language for the first three years of basic education. The training of teachers of Ghanaian languages is grossly neglected, as very few senior high schools teach a Ghanaian language, and maintaining the major local languages as viable written alternatives is given scant attention. There are today, for example, no serious newspapers written in any local language. There is no literature of merit written in any local language. It is only as spoken codes on the many new FM stations that a couple of the indigenous languages hold sway and thus exert a hugely important influence as information channels for the general populace. English, because it has been acquired in the school system, can also be clas- sified according to competence. We can conceptualize a cline from the basilectal ‘broken English’ speaker to the mesolectal average Ghanaian speaker and to the acrolectal ambilingual speaker with native competence. It is a pyrami- dal structure, with a broad base of basilectal speakers and with relatively few acrolectal speakers at the top. Acrolectal speakers, members of the mobile, educated class, have often spent long periods abroad in native-speaking environments which have especially reinforced standard phonological and lexical forms. The acrolectal speaker is usually conversant with the mesolectal

31 Louisa Koranteng, “Ghanaian English: a description of its sound system and phonological features” (doctoral dissertation, University of Ghana, 2006). About the English Language in Ghana Today 229 and basilectal ranges, but the basilectal and mesolectal speakers are not conversant with the superior ranges of the continuum. Two ways of determining levels of competence have been attempted, both resulting in four stages. Whereas Sey classifies his four stages according to number of years of formal education,32 Lindsay Criper classifies her four stages according to degree of L1 transference.33 It is in performance, in how close to the target the speaker can perform, that competence is determined, but the social situation determines choice of register. Thus, in the more informal registers an acrolectal speaker, for example, will use a high degree of local indices both phonologically, lexically, and structurally, while at the same time using a high level of code-switching.

2 Language Contact Phenomena

In Ghana, English is in contact with the many indigenous languages. Sarah Thomason defines language contact thus:

the use of more than one language in the same place at the same time […] and most often involv[ing] face-to-face interactions among groups of speakers, at least some of whom speak more than one language.34

This describes the circumstances of this encounter between English and the local languages. By detaching itself from its original cultural ties, English at- taches and assimilates itself to its new Ghanaian milieu. If Ghanaians have taken ownership of English, then they can control it35 and bend it and twist it as they see fit and not yield to the dictates of the center.36 The result of this contact situation is the variety of English we can call Ghanaian English (GhaE). When languages are in contact, they borrow from each other, and the speakers of the language in contact switch codes. Nearly all Ghanaian speakers of English are bilingual. As a result, the languages they speak are in constant contact and therefore influence each other and the speakers maneuver between and in and out of these languages. They may translanguage, by moving from

32 Kofi A. Sey, Ghanaian English: An Exploratory Survey. 33 Lindsay Criper, “A classification of types of English in Ghana,” Journal of African Languages 10.3 (1971): 6–17. 34 Sarah G. Thomason, Language Contact: An Introduction (Washington DC: Georgetown UP, 2001): 1. 35 Charles Ferguson, “Foreword” in The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, ed. Braj B. Kachru (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1982): vii–xi. 36 Henry G. Widdowson, “The ownership of English,” TESOL Quarterly 28.2 (1994): 377–388. 230 Dako one language to the other without necessarily mixing them, as by reading in one language and discussing what they have read in another, but when the languages are mixed, either intersententially or intrasententially, code-switching (CS) takes place:

I’m telling you, nipa yε bͻne, (Akan-English: I’m telling you, people are bad) The broken plate? Me nim anything about it. (Akan-English: The broken plate? I don’t know anything about it. Boɛ kaa worry. (Ga: You don’t worry) Jɛmɛ yɛ fine tsↄ, wha:t! Nakai area mii sani mↄfɛɛmↄ ahi; no noise, peaceful. (Ga-English: ‘the place is very fine (nice), wha:t. That’s the kind of area (neighborhood) in which everybody should live. No noise, peaceful.)

CS is widespread in Ghana, at all levels of society and at all levels of English competence. Over the years much has been learnt about the extent and breadth of this Ghanaian phenomenon. Barnabas Forson,37 the first to study it, investigated Fante-English CS and was the first to suggest that CS might develop into a distinct—third—code in Ghana,38 a view also expressed by Amuzu and Quarcoo.39 That CS is developing into a distinct code is also supported by findings in some rural areas in the country where English-Twi CS is the manner used by untrained instructors in ‘English medium’ kindergartens.40 One can anticipate that the ‘English’ of these children will in fact evolve into an English-Twi hybrid. We have today a fair insight into the structural properties of CS in the major southern languages. Amuzu has written extensively on Ewe-English CS, Quarcoo has written on Twi-English CS, and Lawrencia Lartey has written on

37 Starting with “Code-Switching in Akan–English Bilingualism” (doctoral dissertation, University of California, 1979). 38 Barnabas Forson, “Code-switching, our third tongue,” Universitas 10 (1988): 180–194. 39 Evershed K. Amuzu, “Ewe–English codeswitching: A case of composite rather than classic codeswitching” (doctoral dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra, 2005), “Codeswitching in Ghana: still the ‘third tongue’ of the educated?” Legon Journal of the Humanities 26 (2005): 27–53, and “Producing composite codeswitching: the role of the modularity of language production,” International Journal of Bilingualism 18 (2014): 384–407, http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/18/4/384 (accessed 7 August 2015); Millicent Quarcoo, “Code-switching in Academic Discussions: A Discourse Strategy by Students in the University of Education, Winneba” (doctoral dissertation, University of Ghana, 2013). 40 George Atiemo, “Codeswitching by kindergarten teachers in selected schools in the Dormaa Municipality.” About the English Language in Ghana Today 231

Ga-English CS.41 These studies have all found that the matrix of the CSed utterance is the Ghanaian language, whereas the embedded language is English. What this means is that, so far as the speaker is concerned, the language spoken is the L1. From sociolinguistic studies we have findings on CS in the primary school classroom,42 in the church,43 among male students,44 and in study groups at university level;45 we also have material showing CS extensively used in the homes of the highly educated.46 It is therefore clear that CS is a widespread strategy of communication in the country. To some extent, CS could be interpreted as the result of inadequacy in English. Amekor, Brew-Daniels, and Quarcoo suggest this, but much of Amuzu’s work indicates otherwise, as do Lartey’s findings. The literature suggests various communicative strategies as the main drivers of CS.47

41 Evershed K. Amuzu, “Codeswitching in Ghana: still the ‘third tongue’ of the educated?” and “Producing composite codeswitching”; Millicent Quarcoo, “Grammatical constraints on Twi–English codeswitching” (MPhil thesis, Legon, University of Ghana, 2009), and “Code-switching in Academic Discussions”; Lawrencia Lamiley Lartey, “Code-Switching Among Ga-English Speakers: A Grammatical Analysis” (MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, 2015). 42 Collins Kwabla Amekor, “Codeswitching as a medium of instruction in selected schools in the Volta Region” (MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, 2009); Josephine Brew-Daniels, “Twi–English Codeswitching in the classroom: A case study of some selected Colleges of Education in the Ashanti Region” (MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, 2011); Quarcoo, “Code-switching in Academic Discussions.” 43 Mohammed A. Albakry & Dominic M. Ofori, “Ghanaian English and Code-Switching in Catholic Churches,” World Englishes 30.4 (2011): 515–532. 44 R. C. Nettey, “Linguistic interaction among male students at the University of Ghana– Legon: a micro study” (unpublished Long Essay, Department of English, University of Ghana, 2001). 45 Quarcoo, “Code-switching in Academic Discussions.” 46 Jo Arthur–Shoba, Kari Dako & Elizabeth Quartey, “Locally acquired foreign accent (LAFA) in contemporary Ghana,” World Englishes 32.2 (2013): 230–242; Lartey, “Code-Switching Among Ga–English Speakers: A Grammatical Analysis.” 47 Jan-Petter Blom & John J. Gumperz, “Social Meaning in Structure: Code-Switching in Norway,” in Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. Gumperz & Dell Hymes (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1972): 409–434; Shana Poplack, “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y terminal Espanol: Towards a typology of code-switching,” Linguistics 18 (1980): 581–618; John Gumperz, Discourse Strategies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982); Marius Heller, “Strategic Ambiguity: Codeswitching in the Management of Conflict,” in Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, ed. Monica Heller (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1988): 77–96; Carol Myers- Scotton, Duelling Languages: Grammatical Sstructure in Codeswitching (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), and Social Motivation for Codeswitching: Evidence from Africa (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); François Grosjean, “A psychological approach to code-switching: The recognition of 232 Dako

Ghanaian English has incorporated a lot of local vocabulary items as loans and also changed the semantic significance of many English items. Susu (Ga fr. Yorùbá) is a saving scheme, banku (Akan & Ga) is a ball of fermented maize dough, kakalika (Ga) is ‘cockroach’, from Dutch and Danish ‘kakelak’), shito (Ga) in GhaE does not refer to pepper as it does in Ga, but to a pepper paste. Fugu (Moore) is used for the Northern ‘smock’. Tea refers to all hot beverages; you drop (alight) from a vehicle; to be booklong in Ghana is to flaunt your level of education; to be too known is to have an inflated sense of self. And there are hybrid items such as kramo days (Akan, English) ‘Muslim holidays’ and kubor- lor boys (Ga, English) ‘truants’. On the other hand, there are hardly any items in GhaE that have been created locally or do not have any connection with another language somewhere in the world. Items such as kenkey (?from South-East Asian Pidgin English), galamsey (?from Brazilian Portuguese), kalabule (from Hausa) are such examples. Whereas Dako and Kirby recognize local items as part of Ghanaian English, Sey does not include any local items in his glossary. Certain non-standard tendencies can be observed structurally:

Stative verbs used progressively: She is having a child with Musa. Determiners left out: Majority of Nigerians…. Determiners inserted: She is working at the Barclays Bank. Double determiners: That his dog is dangerous. Non-count nouns as countable: They had new furnitures. Particles added to non-phrasal verbs: They voiced out their opinion. Male/female pronouns in free variation: She loves his husband very much. / The boy was looking for her aunt. Tendency towards left-branching in the sentence: Issaka, it is here that he lives. / In this my house, there are many rooms. Confounding of items that are pronounced similarly: * He past my house.* / He left early in other not to be late.

But acrolectal speakers/writers differ from native speakers more in terms of frequency of certain structures than in distinct localized stylistic patterns.

guest words by bilinguals,” in One Speaker, Two Languages: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Code-Switching, ed. Lesley Milroy & Pieter Muysken (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995): 259–275; Peter Auer, Codeswitching in Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity (London: Routledge, 1998). About the English Language in Ghana Today 233

3 Spoken English

Even though RP (Received Pronunciation) is supposed to be the spoken target in the education system, there are not many Ghanaian teachers of English who can examine oral English according to RP pronunciation; in addition, the Ghanaian does not aim to achieve this target, as Koranteng demonstrates. Sounding very British is frowned upon,48 a sentiment that Ayi Kwei Armah so lucidly expresses:

his attempts to adopt an air of importance not just ridiculous but actually irritating in the special way in which the efforts of a Ghanaian struggling to talk like some Englishman are irritating.49

GhaE has developed as a mode of speech that is recognized as local and as part of Ghanaian identity construction. However, this Ghanaian mode of speaking English is best acknowledged as a continuum ranging from the basilectal to the acrolectal, reflecting tendencies in pronunciation rather than any fixed pattern50 and not necessarily revealing the level of education. The boarding school, where all Ghanaian languages and all ethnic accents of English in Ghana meet, might have been the melting pot for GhaE speech. Several factors have influenced the characteristics of the GhaE accent, such as L1 transference, the unsystematic English orthography, and pronunciation based on analogy. As a result, GhaE pronunciation is shifting away from the exogenous models. When MPhil students in the Department of English, University of Ghana, were asked in 2015 whether they listened to the BBC, their response was that they found the language difficult to understand; they were also hesitant to attend a lecture by a foreign visitor, because they thought they might not understand what the person said.51

3.1 Major Traits in the Phonology of GhaE The most salient features of Ghanaian spoken English are found in its vowel system, intonation system, and accentuation system.

48 Kofi A. Sey, Ghanaian English: An Exploratory Survey, 8. 49 Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (London: Heinemann, 1968): 24. 50 Louisa Koranteng, “Ghanaian English: a description of its sound system and phonological features”; Richard Bonnie, “The segmental features of Ghanaian English pronunciation: A study of usage at the mesolectal level” (MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, 2011). 51 I am grateful to Frimpong Kodie for this information. 234 Dako

GhaE uses a reduced system of vowel sounds: it operates with fewer vowels than RP: between 3–4 front vowels (/i/, (/e/), /ɛ/. /a/) and 3–4 back vowels (/ͻ/,(/o/),/u/,/ʊ/); central vowels are generally not heard. There is thus a system of between six or eight vowels. a) We do not find much of a distinction made in quality between [i] and [I] or between [u] and [υ]. Leave and live, and Luke and look, are therefore, if the context demands it, distinguished by quantification of the vowel sound. b) [a] replaces [a], [æ] and [ə]. There is spreading in the pronunciation of RP [a] sounds so that after /ɑftə/ -> /’afta/, answer /ɑnsə/ -> /ansa/. Bad, sad, hand are pronounced: /bad/, /sad/, /hand/. About, better, are pronounced: /a’baut/ and /’beta/. c) The central vowel [3] is replaced by [ε], so that nurse /nɜs/ -> /nεs/, bird: /bɜd/ ->/bεd/, [˄] is replaced by [a] or [ε], so that cup: /k˄p/ ->/kεp/ or / kap/, bus -> /bεs/or /bas/. The rising diphthongs /ai/, /au/, and /ͻi/ are retained, but /eI/ is realized as [e] make -> /mek/ and /əυ/ is realized as [o] over-> /ova/. Of the three centring diphthongs: a) dear and fear /dI:ə/ and /f I:ə/, are rendered as /dε:/ or /dεa/ and /fε:/ or / fεa/. b) care and scarce /kε:ə/ and /skεəs/ are rendered as /kε:/ and /skεs/, c) poor /pυə/ is rendered as /pͻ:/ or /pυ/ and jaguar /djægυə/ is rendered as /djágυa/. In GhaE, any initial, medial or final vowel can be phonetically lengthened, and this quantification of the vowel sound is a morph that may assume semantic significance [+intensification] or [+emphatic].

/mÍ:: aI ‘nεva dId It/ (me?/I didn’t do it).

GhaE is a pitch-accent tone language in which pitch assumes the role of mark- ing the accented syllable. Two tones can be distinguished in GhaE: High and Low. In the rare cases in which the syllable has two tones, these are always H followed by L: / ´ˋ/. In some idiolects, the Kwa system of downstepping can be heard. Whereas Student Pidgin (SP) has fully adopted this system, it is much less noticeable in GhaE. Accent is a more problematic aspect of GhaE, as the language is syllable- timed. Accentuation is therefore most likely less the result of an enhanced effort or intensity than the result of the use of contrastive tone and pitch and quantification. About the English Language in Ghana Today 235

A characteristic of English, a stress-timed language, is the restriction of one primary stress per word. GhaE replicates this system by allowing only one accented syllable per word. The accented syllable is in most cases H, but especially in loan words, the accented syllable may be L. It is normally the high tone in the multisyllabic word that carries the accent. At the utterance level, the tonic syllable is characterized by heightened pitch. The accented low tone is characterized by lengthening of the vowel sound or the lengthening of the nasal coda. A characteristic of a tone language is that pitch is used phonemically, so that minimal pairs show difference in pitch only.

Noun: /grádjùεt/ Verb: /gràdjù´ɛt/ Count noun: /sístà/ Proper noun: /sìstá/

In GhaE the lexical accent is primarily a feature of multisyllabic words of Eng- lish origin. It is, however, difficult to ascertain whether a syllable in GhaE actually carries stress, high tone or both stress and high tone:

/selebrεt/ or /sele’brεt/.

Therefore, a feature of accentuation in GhaE is the perceived lengthening of the accented vowel. This can be heard at both the lexical and the syntactic level. Since GhaE is syllable-timed, all syllables in the language that have a ‘short’ vowel as peak carry equal time. ‘Long vowels’ [I:] and [ɔ:] are, so far as can be ascertained, given a double beat: i.e. twice the duration of the ‘short vowel’. ‘Long vowels’, therefore, have more quantity than their equivalents in English. The quantity of any vowel can again be extended as an intensifying device or for emphasis (focus). The following examples demonstrate this:

/kòfí lεvz tù dáns/ Kofi loves to dance: seven equal-timed syllables /kòfí lε:vz tù dáns/ Kofi really loves to dance: the third syllable in order to put emphasis on ‘loves’ has a higher pitch and rhythmically double quantity.

The most salient deviation in consonant sounds is the tendency to replace the dental fricatives with [d] and [t]. There is also the transference phenomenon of [l] and [r]—these being allophones in some Ghanaian languages. It is especially in initial and medial consonant clusters that these create problems: */ plɔ:brems/ (problems), /bled/ (bread), /tlεst/ (trust), /ablɔ:d/ (abroad), /abrɛs/ (ablaze). 236 Dako

Final plosives and consonant clusters are often modified or deleted: but / b˄t/ -> /ba/, crashed /kræʃt/ -> /kras/ or /krast/, watched /wɔtʃt/ -> /wɔsd/52 Some instances of spelling pronunciation have become fairly fixed, as in Wednesday (wenzdi/ ->/wednesdɛ/, and plumber /pl˄mə/ -> /plamba/. Analogous pronunciation can be heard in words such as country /kaʊntri/ in analogy with count, chasm /kæsm/ -> /tʃasɛm/ as in chase, charismatic /ker- ismætik/ at times becomes /tʃarismatik/ possibly in analogy with charity, cha- pel or chance etc. Whereas the Ghanaian does not see him/herself assuming a British identity in mode of speech, the American accent is highly regarded.53

the global influence of AmE in the media has […] been noticeable in Ghana in recent years […] an American or Americanized accent can be heard in less formal broadcasts like host shows and commercials.54

This popular upsurge of American English in Ghana has been given the laugh- able yet rather ironic acronym of LAFA (locally acquired foreign accent). Who coined this wonderfully descriptive term is not clear, but we already encounter it in the 1990s, when this novel mode of speech became quite prevalent in the then newly created FM stations. LAFA is an assumed American accent and is copied by young people who may never have set foot in the USA nor even been in touch with an American native speaker. It is best recognized by the rhotic [r] and the voiced flap plosive [d] used as the median consonant in words such as /beda/ (better) instead of the unvoiced alveolar stop [t]. An intrusive [r] is noticed where it does not belong as in /ha[r]sbõnd/ (husband) or /wa[r]ʃ/ (wash). One sometimes also hears [æ] where Ghanaian speech would normally use [a] as alternative to RP [æ]. In the 1990s, one of the most influential people promoting an American accent in the media was a young reporter, Komla Dumor,55 who was working at Joy FM and who genuinely had an American accent, since he had spent part of his childhood in the USA. He became the ideal whom the other new and

52 I am grateful to Frimpong Kodie for this information. 53 Beatrice Oforiwa Bruku, “A sociolinguistic analysis of LAFA: A locally acquired foreign (American) English accent in Ghana” (MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, Legon, 2010); Jo Arthur-Shoba, Kari Dako & Elizabeth Quartey, “Locally acquired foreign accent (LAFA) in contemporary Ghana.” 54 Magnus Huber, “Ghanaian English: phonology,” in Language in South Africa, ed. Rajend Mesthrie (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge UP, 2002): 73. 55 The late Komla Dumor subsequently became a highly successful reporter with the BBC. About the English Language in Ghana Today 237 often inexperienced reporters at other FM stations tried to emulate, which is how this new phenomenon got its name. LAFA is also associated with former president Rawlings, who assumed this accent and is remembered for his pro- nouncing ‘country’, not the Ghanaian way as /kɛntri/ but as /kauntri/. He also signaled ‘otherness’ by speaking local languages as a foreigner. But in LAFA there are also influences from American trained or inspired pastors and from contemporary popular culture The phenomenon is best described in term of ‘acts of identity’56 and this creative languaging appears to be perceived as ensuring the speaker’s inclusion in the global community of ‘the others’; most dominant here is American popular culture, as can be observed not only in choice of accent, but also, for instance, in the Ghanaian adoption of Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated quite ostentatiously, but the American influence is also observed in the mode of worship seen in the many new charismatic prosperity churches with strong American connections, and in the contemporary choice of music and mode of dress. It is not the culture of the former center that is sought and adopted; a new global culture is asserting its identity among the younger generation.

4 Pidgins

English languaging in Ghana is not just about the various modes of pronunciation. It might also be that Student Pidgin should be considered an outcrop of English, even though the pidgins and creoles of this world have never been accepted as varieties of their superstrate languages. There are two distinct English pidgin varieties in Ghana: Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhaPE),57 and Student Pidgin (SP).58 GhaPE refers to a pidgin that is spoken in especially high-density multiethnic locations of towns in southern Ghana and also in army and police barracks, though as recruits to both establishments today require at least a Senior High School (SHS) certificate with

56 Robert B. Le Page & Andrée Tabouret-Keller, Acts of Identity: Creole-Based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985). 57 Acronym by Magnus Huber, Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context; see also Joseph K. Y. B. Amoako, “Ghanaian Pidgin English: In search of synchronic, diachronic and sociolinguistic evidence” (doctoral dissertation, University of Florida at Gainesville, 1992). 58 Term employed by: Benjamin Forson, “An investigation into the argot (pidgin) as a means of communication among students in Ghanaian secondary schools”; Huber, Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context; Dako, “Pidgin as a gender specific language in Ghana,” Ghana Journal of English Studies 1 (2002): 73–82, et seq. 238 Dako passes in English and Mathematics, GhaPE no longer occupies the same important interethnic communicative role in the army and the police as used to be the case some decades ago. In addition, GhaPE in these speech communities might have been displaced by an SP variety, or by Akan. GhaPE is also not an important interethnic code in Ghana, for Akan, as the main lingua franca, has infringed on the limited domains formerly occupied by GhaPE. SP is not listed as an indigenous language in Ghana, even though it is fully ‘homegrown’, or possibly ‘home second hand’,59 in that it is structurally a variety of GhaPE, a West African Pidgin, that has its roots in Liberian and Nigerian pidgins and is thus not of Ghanaian origin.60 I shall define Student Pidgin (SP) as a Ghanaian pidgin-sound-alike youth language,61 by which I refer to young people’s use of their bilingualism and contact with other languages to create a new mode of speech. So far as can be ascertained, SP started out as an argot62 or antilanguage63 among the students in the prestigious male secondary schools64 of Cape Coast in the late 1950s. The inception of SP can be imagined to be in a clique of ‘Accra boys’, the sons of the emerging urban professional and political middle class in Ghana’s capital, forming themselves into a community of practice.65 We can consider the timing of the emergence of this phenomenon as part of the nationwide expression of euphoria in anticipation of and in the wake of Ghana’s independence in 1957, for initial findings suggest that schoolboys opting to copy pidgin speakers started in the late 1950s. But it was between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, after the military and the police had set their imprint on Ghana through coups d’état, that SP really spread to other schools throughout southern Ghana. We

59 ‘Home second hand’ in Ghanaian English refers to imported second-hand goods. 60 Tom Spencer-Walters, “Pidgin English of West Cameroon” (doctoral dissertation, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1969); Sey, Ghanaian English: An Exploratory Survey; Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, Korle Meets the Sea: A Sociolinguistic History of Accra (New York: Oxford UP, 1997); Huber, Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context. 61 Kari Dako & Richard Bonnie, “ ‘I go SS; I go Vas’: Student Pidgin: A Ghanaian youth language of secondary and tertiary institutions,” in Jugendsprachen: Stilisierungen, Identitäten, mediale Ressourcen, ed. Helga Kotthoff & Christine Mertzlufft (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013): 113–124. 62 Forson, “An investigation into the argot (pidgin) as a means of communication among students in Ghanaian secondary schools.” 63 M. A. K. Halliday, “Antilanguages,” in Halliday, Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning (London: Edward Arnold, 1978): 164–182. 64 ‘Secondary school’ was the designation used until 2007, ‘senior/junior high school’ are therefore recent terms. 65 Penelope Eckert, Linguistic Variation as Social Practice (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). About the English Language in Ghana Today 239 know from earlier studies66 that speaking pidgin in school was a means to be accepted by and counted among the ‘big’ boys. Everybody tried to learn to speak pidgin to be recognized. The emergence of the phenomenon also has the element of protest: against a rigid schools system that was very much an extension and symbol of the former colonial power and of the domination of British culture in these schools; it was also a subversion of the regulation that only English was to be spoken in school. In various data, we hear the argument ‘they (the school authority) did not say which type of English, so we spoke our own brͻfͻ’.67 SP can therefore be seen as a rejection of the imposition of a foreign identity and the constraints of a foreign language, a language these youngsters felt incompetent in. This situates SP within the theoretical framework of identity construction68 but also within the theory of resistance identities,69 which proposes that groups who feel marginalized create an identity that signals defiance of commonly held beliefs and norms. In consonance with Halliday’s views on antilanguage, Manuel Castells also argues that resistance identity formation is attained through linguistic nonconformity. We also note Scott Kiesling’s work on the American university fraternity as a speech community which echoes the male speech communities in Ghanaian universities and high schools. His study argues that power is central to male identity:

the fraternity’s ideology and the immediate speech situation work together to constrain the members’ identities […] because identity construction is […] a creative endeavor.70

It is clear that, from the beginning, this new mode of speech was connected to Accra, as mentioned above and as noted by Dako and Bonnie and voiced there by a respondent: I think pidgin is an Accra language and when you realize it spoken somewhere else, then it was transported by people who once lived in Accra.71 We therefore place this code within the increasing number of studies on urban languaging in Africa which calls attention to the various strategies cultivated in constructing identities in multilingual and multiethnic urban

66 See the survey in Kari Dako & Richard Bonnie, “ ‘I go SS; I go Vas’: Student Pidgin.” 67 Brͻfͻ is the Akan term for English. 68 Le Page & Tabouret-Keller, Acts of Identity. 69 Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, vol. 2: The Power of Identity (Oxford & Malden MA: Blackwell, 1997): 8. 70 Scott F. Kiesling, “Power and the language of men,” in Language and Masculinity, ed. Ulrike Hanna Meinhof & Sally Johnson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997): 66. 71 Dako & Bonnie, “ ‘I go SS; I go Vas’: Student Pidgin,” 119. 240 Dako conglomerates.72 Though essentially an argot, SP is continually re-creating and relexicalizing itself and expanding its structural and lexical possibilities; there is no evidence whatsoever that this language will go away. No parallel to this phenomenon has been observed among other document- ed African youth languages anywhere else in Africa—SP differs from youth languages such as Indoubil of the eastern Congo,73 or Tsotsi Taal from the South African townships,74 or Nouchi.75 What makes SP unique is that it has assumed most of the structural features of Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhaPE), a variety of West African Pidgin, and that, in consonance with GhaPE, it was a ‘male’ language from its inception and a prestigious sociolect of the highly educated Ghanaian. We can, however, recognize that Sheng, a Kenyan youth language with a Swahili substrate and spoken mainly in Nairobi,76 has some sociolectal similarities to SP. SP has, in common with Sheng, become “an urban language of wider communication.”77 But in so doing it will be a more stabi- lized version of the languaging taking place in the educational establishments today, while at the same time not being orthogonal to its precursor. From the secondary schools SP has followed its practitioners into the universities. In the 1990s, surveys showed that some female university students had learnt the code from their brothers or their boyfriends. They used the

72 Language in African Urban Contexts: A Contribution to the Study of Indirect Globalisation, ed. Gudrun Miehe, Jonathan Owens & Manfred von Roncador (Berlin: LIT, 2007); Language and National Identity in Africa, ed. Andrew Simpson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008); The Languages of Urban Africa, ed. Fiona McLaughlin (London & New York: Continuum International, 2009). 73 Didier L. Goyvaerts, “Indoubil: A Swahili hybrid in Bukavu,” Language in Society 17 (1988): 231–241. 74 Dumisani Krushchev Ntshangase, “Language and language practices in Soweto,” in Language in South Africa, ed. Rajend Mesthrie (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge UP, 2002): 407–418; Sarah Slabbert & Carol Myers-Scotton, “The structure of Tsotsitaal and Isicamtho: code-switching and in-group identity in South African townships,” Linguistics 34 (1996): 317–342; Lebo Mothsegoa, Township Talks: The Language, the Culture, the People (Lansdowne, South Africa: Double Storey, 2005). 75 Roland Kiessling & Maarten Mous, “Urban Youth Languages in Africa,” Anthropological Linguistics 46.3 (2004): 303–341; Sabine Kube-Barth, “The multiple facets of the urban language form, Nouchi,” in The Languages of Urban Africa, ed. Fiona McLaughlin (London & New York: Continuum International, 2009): 103–114. 76 Chege Githiora, “Sheng: peer language, Swahili dialect or emerging creole?” Journal of African Cultural Studies 15.2 (2002): 159–181; Kiessling & Mous, “Urban Youth Languages in Africa.” 77 Fiona McLaughlin, “Introduction to the languages of urban Africa,” in The Languages of Urban Africa, ed. Fiona McLaughlin (London & New York: Continuum International, 2009): 9. About the English Language in Ghana Today 241 code exclusively to converse with their boyfriends or brothers, never with their girlfriends.78 SP, contrary to GhaPE, is therefore an important language in Ghana and spoken primarily by male students in the secondary and tertiary institutions and also predominantly by the male products of these institutions. It is the code of choice in casual speech by the highly educated in most southern urban areas, as it signals + high school and + tertiary education. SP started out as a male code, as was the case with GhaPE, but is today widely spoken by younger educated women. The percentage of females speaking SP in the University of Ghana has changed drastically since the first survey was undertaken by Tawiah. Evidence from studies spanning the last twenty years tells us that females acquired the code to speak with their boyfriends and to gain popularity among males, and data from as recent as 2008 reveal very negative attitudes, with allusions to ‘indecent’ and ‘immoral’ behavior being leveled at females speaking SP.79 The use of this code by females was obviously a daring and rebellious act that called forth extreme disapproval from both fellow female and male students. The male-female binary has, on the other hand, shifted drastically in valency over the last twenty years. We now have evidence from a girls’ high school in the Volta Region, where the vast majority of students have Ewe as L1, that well above 30% of the girls speak SP—not with boyfriends, but among themselves.80 It is also clear that speakers of SP make a conscious decision to select it as an informal code in preference to a Ghanaian language or English, and that these speakers also consciously mark this code as distinct from GhaPE, both lexically and structurally. The speakers of SP clearly regard themselves as belonging to

78 Benjamin Tawiah, “Pidgin English in Ghana: an investigation into the gender predominance; A case study of students of the University of Ghana” (unpublished Long Essay, Department of English, University of Ghana, 1998); Abena Abrefi Frimpong, “The Growth of Pidgin Among the Female Students in the University of Ghana” (unpublished Long Essay, University of Ghana, 2008); Kari Dako, “Student Pidgin: a Ghanaian pidgin-sound- alike youth language,” in Ghanaian Voices on Topics of English Language and Literature, ed. A. N. Mensah et al. (Banbury: Ayebia Clarke & Legon: University of Ghana, 2013): 147–160, and “Student Pidgin: a masculine code encroached on by young women,” in Gender and Language in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tradition, Struggle and Change, ed. Lilian Lem Atanga et al. (Amsterdam & Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins, 2013): 217–232. 79 Dako, “Student Pidgin: a Ghanaian pidgin-sound-alike youth language,” and “Student Pidgin: a masculine code encroached on by young women.” 80 Amma Abrafi Adjei-Tuadzra, “Analysis of Subordination Errors in Students’ Writings: A Study of Selected Teacher Training Colleges in Ghana,” Journal of Education and Prac- tice 6.8 (2015): 62–77. 242 Dako a very different social class from the GhaPE speakers in high-density urban areas.

5 The Structure of SP

Structurally, SP is clearly an offspring or variety of GhaPE, as both mark themselves as distinct from other West African Pidgins (WAP) in a few features. GhaPE, as well as SP, for example, does not have the WAP completive don, nor the WAP anterior bin. The copula nà is also not a feature of GhaPE, but nà, as copula, focus marker, and intensifier, is a feature of SP. – The Verb Phrase (VP) in SP and GhaPE conforms to other WAPs in most TAM features. – The Noun Phrase (NP) in SP does not conform to that of GhaPE as it has incorporated some structural Akan and/or Ga features that are not found in GhaPE. – The noun in SP, in contrast to both GhaPE and WAP, tends to mark for plurality.

Dat gai ì stíl ma tú: trausàs no. [That chap he stole my two trousers the]

Which in GhaPE will be rendered as:

GhaPE 1: (Da) (tìf )mán ì tíf ma tú: trausa. [That thief he stole my two trousers]

Plurality can be signified not only by the English plural marker, but also by dem—a calqued item from the Akan suffix -nom that has the same function as –bii in Ga.81 -dem is added to a noun or name to indicate a group:

Kofi dem. ‘Kofi’s group’ / ‘Kofi and others’. As in the Akan Nananom, (chiefs) Teachers dem82 ‘teachers [as a group]’, And Ga: Tsatsu bii. (aunts)

81 Forson, “An investigation into the argot (pidgin) as a means of communication among students in Ghanaian secondary schools,” 237. 82 The NP has double plural markers: the English -s and the substrate dem. About the English Language in Ghana Today 243

5.1 Determiners In SP the noun also retains either the English determiners such as the, a, some, any, and these may co-occur with the Akan post-positioned determiners no or bi or both.

De messenger no [The messenger] A car bi [a car] Some man bi. [some man]

SP makes extensive use of the Akan topicalizers and focus markers: ‘oo’, ‘dié’,’aa’ ‘paa,’ and the emphatics ‘ankasa’, ‘saa’ and the negative emphatic ‘kuraa’, as well as the Ga topicalizers and demonstratives: ‘waa’, ‘nͻͻ’.

As fo mi dié a no go sit daun. [As for me die I neg will not sit down] I be kleva oo. [S/he is clever oo]. ‘s/he is very clever’ Dis weld i be laik dat nͻͻ. [This world it is like that nͻͻ] ‘This world is really like that’

5.2 Connectives Na has a long and multifaceted history in WAP.83 As mentioned above, nà is quite common in SP but not in GhaPE:

Nà my PC de wek well well … [And my PC is working very well]. Nà hu kill am? [But who killed him/her?]

SP has adopted the Akan connectives: ‘den’. ‘wei’, ‘abi’:

Kwesi den Kwadwo den Kofi [Kwesi and Kwadwo and Kofi] Books no den pepa den pen [books and paper and pen]

The Akan connective wei is used in linking longer structures; wei and abi are both used as ‘but’.

I ask am wei i de tel mi se de tin go bi ova su:n. [I asked them and s/he told me that the thing will be over soon.] Abi you know dada. [But you know already84] ‘I guess you know already’

83 Micah Corum, “On the origins of locative for in West African Pidgin English: A componen- tial approach,” Legon Journal of the Humanities (Special Edition with selected papers from the August 2011 SPCL Conference at the University of Ghana, Legon, 2012): 43–83. 84 Dada (already) is Akan. 244 Dako

5.3 Contrastives Use of the Akan contrastive se or also the cognate Ga contrastive be are used to introduce questions that require or expect an affirmative response. This use of se /be is not considered polite in either speech community, as it somehow anticipates disagreement:

Sɛ a tεk giv ju?’ [But I took gave you] ‘But I gave it to you, didn’t I?’ Be i be jᴐ padi? [But he is your pal?] ‘But he is your pal, isn’t he?’

5.4 Locative Constructions Another relatively recent feature of SP is its adaptation of Akan locatives.

SP: De pen dé dè desk top [the pen there the desk top] ‘The pen is on the desk’. Akan: Kyerεwdua no wo pono no so [writing stick the on table the top] ‘The pen is on top of the desk’ GhaPE: Pen dé fo desk SP: De machine dé de tree im body. [the machine there the tree its body] Akan: Afidie no wᴐ dua no ho [machine the tree the side] ‘The machine is by the (body/trunk of the) tree’ GhaPE: Masin (machin) dé (ste dé) fo tri.

5.5 Lexical Transfers GhaPE and SP are both ‘English Pidgins’ in that their superstrate is predominantly of English origin. Because SP speakers have English as L2, they can draw on the vocabulary resources of this language in a way that GhaPE speakers cannot, since English on the whole is not an available language to them. Consequently, SP speakers can draw on lexical items from English and play around with these, often masking the meaning of the novel acquisitions by semantic shifts,85 again suggesting the argot nature of the code as well as ex- hibiting considerable creativity. For example:

We de bell wana body. ‘We are phoning each other’ Bell ~ phone (i.e. a bell is ringing and so does the phone.) I woman de bed i body. [His girlfriend sleeps besides him (his body)] (‘bed’ used as verb to indicate sleep)

85 Osei-Tutu, “Exploring meaning in student pidgin.” About the English Language in Ghana Today 245

De gai boot sake-of koti86 de come. [The guy ran away because police is coming]. (‘boot’ used as verb to indicate run).

It is interesting that whereas Ghanaian English has extensively borrowed lexical items from Akan and continues to do so, SP does not. This is supported by Forson,87 who in his extensive data lists only 19 non-English lexical items in SP, and of these, only a mere five are from Akan; but of these, the first four are not lexical words, but function words. Only ahohy[ehye] is a content word, a noun:

Koraa ([not] at all), Kakra (a little), Papa (very well), Yiara (only), Ahohy[ehye] dressing

In the years since Forson’s work, our data show that SP has borrowed some verbs, some adjectives, and a few adverbs from Akan and Ga, yet we have been able to add only three nouns from Akan and from Ga.

Osof[o] (priest / pastor) (Akan): I flow me se e bi osofo. [He told me that he is priest / pastor]. Ahohy[ehye] (a pushy person [usually female]) (Akan): De girlie too, she de ti ahosh. [The girl too, she forces herself] ‘The girl actually forces herself (on me)’. Ofri[ jatu] (albino) (Ga and Akan): Shi de tink se she bi wait. Shi no now se she bi ofri. [She thinks that she is white. She neg knows that she is albino]. womaame/papa88 (your mother/father) (Akan): De paddy talk am se womaame, wey e bore. ‘The guy told him that your mother and he angry’. kwasea89 (fool)(Akan): Kofi die e bore pɛ go tell you kwasea. [Kofi die he angry only will call you fool] ‘As for Kofi, when he gets angry, he’ll call you fool’. aboa( fu) (animal/carcass)(Akan): What pain me pass be e call me aboafu. [What pained me most was he called me animal carcass]

However, as we have seen, SP tends to transfer topicalizers, emphasizers, and contrastives from Akan and Ga, and these are more functional than lexical in

86 Hausa for police(man). 87 Forson, “An investigation into the argot (pidgin) as a means of communication among students in Ghanaian secondary schools,” 263. 88 A very crude and obscene reference to a person’s parentage. 89 Words like ‘fool’, ‘foolish’, ‘stupid’, ‘nonsense’, ‘mad’, ‘silly’ are not to be used in Ghanaian English, as they are interpreted as translations of Akan and Ga taboo words. 246 Dako significance. Lexical items transferred from Akan are pronounced in a novel way, in that the final vowel sound is extended, as is heard in verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, whereas the nouns are clipped, as indicated in the examples above.

6 Final Remarks

In this chapter I have called English as spoken and used in Ghana ‘Ghanaian English’, and I argue that this is a Ghanaian language, distinct from other Eng- lishes, be they of whichever circle, in phonology, vocabulary, and idiomatic expressions. Structural differences can be observed, but these are not accepted by the generality of educated Ghanaian speakers of English. I have situated Ghanaian English within Kachru’s outer circle and Schneider‘s Nativisation Phase 3, but, as Huber suggests,90 there are indica- tions of endonormative stabilization in GhaE, thus moving the code into Schneider’s Phase 4. Evidence from research into English in Ghana in recent years suggests that English is crowding the local languages out, especially in the educational system. That GhaE will move further and further away from the targets of the center is clear, but as we listen to the acrolectal speech of Ghanaians who travel a lot internationally and might have studied abroad, we notice CS between the local mode of English and a more internationally adjusted mode of speech. This is a form of CS similar to Rampton’s findings of what he calls ‘crossing’ and Blom and Gumperz’s study of bi-dialectal language use in Rana. This type of CS is urban based, and in Ghana is especially Accra-based; and it might become more conspicuous in the years to come, thereby creating a sociolectal divide.

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M. E. Kropp Dakubu

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the ways in which variation has been accounted for in descriptions of several of the languages spoken in Ghana. It begins with a discussion of historical practice, with particular reference to grammars of Akan since 1849. It then considers the problems involved in developing polylectal grammars, that is, grammars that attempt to account for variety in a language whether geographical, social, or idiolectal, focusing mainly on languages the present author has personally worked on. In the south, Ga and Dangme are closely related and contiguous but clearly distinguished on linguistic grounds from their neighbors, principally Akan and Ewe, and from each other. Yet the problems of polylectal description are quite different for each. Ga has a great deal of variation that is difficult to define either linguistically or geographically, but no systematic dialect variation. Dangme, on the other hand, has dialect divisions for which linguistic, geographical, and political boundaries coincide quite well. In northern Ghana, however, Dagaare and Farefari, which are closely related but not contiguous, are internally complicated to varying degrees by fuzzy linguistic boundaries, wide gradations in inter-intelligibility, and political problems concerning what is to be included in a language. The problem is, on the whole, more severe in Dagaare than in Farefari. The organizers of the workshop for which this essay was originally written proposed a type scheme for polylectal grammars: the hierarchical model, the additive- sequential model, the additive-contrastive model, and the dynamic model. Reference is made to this scheme, in considering which type fits the various published grammars, and which (if any) seems preferable in a particular case. Overall, determination of lectal boundaries is seen as the defining problem.

1 Introduction

In this chapter I shall reconsider my own practice, but I shall introduce it by commenting briefly on the history of grammar writing in Ghana in light of polylectal (dialectal, ideolectal, register) inclusiveness, since Ghana has perhaps an

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_015 Polylectal Description 255 older and more extensive history of grammar writing than most countries or language areas of Africa. Probably the most influential and certainly the most comprehensive grammar of a Ghanaian language was Christaller’s Twi grammar of 1875.1 The title is worth quoting in full: “A Grammar of the Asante and Fante Language Called Tshi [Chwee, Twi]: based on the Akuapem dialect with reference to the other (Akan and Fante) dialects.” In the “Introductory Notes” (x) he gives an exhaustive inventory of the dialects, although not all of them are included in the Akan language in modern classifications,2 and even suggests that the name ‘Akan’ could be used for the whole, were it not for the fact that the Fante wouldn’t like it (xvi). Thus, he wrote his grammar in full awareness of the multidialectal nature of the language, and even considered a polylectal grammar to be scientifically most desirable (xviii). However, like the other missionary linguists who worked in the nineteenth century in what is now Ghana, he thought it obvious that a literary standard had to be established—as he says, if forty million Germans with a much more radical degree of dialect differentiation could “enjoy a common book language,” so could three and a half million Fantes and Akans (xvi). He chose the Akuapem dialect mainly because, as he says, it was already the “book language” in practice, due to the activities of his predecessors, and one feels that they (particularly H. N. Riis3) chose it mainly because it was the dialect of where they found themselves, but he rationalizes the choice by claiming that the Fante dialects are “deteriorated dialects of the same language” and “less agreeable to the ear” (xii).4 He thought, moreover, that Akuapem as an Akan dialect influenced by Fante was “best capable of being enriched from both sides.”5 In practice, his grammar is monolectal, with comments on other varieties being limited to segmental phonetics (6). The

1 Rev. Johannes Gottlieb Christaller, A Grammar of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi [Chwee, Twi]… (Basel, 1875; repr. Detroit MI: Gregg International, 1964). Page references are in the main text. 2 In particular, Ahanta, Nzema, and Aowin are now grouped separately in the Bia branch of Central Tano, a sister to Akan; John M. Stewart, “Kwa,” in The Niger-Congo Languages, ed. John Bendor-Samuel (Lanham MD & London: UP of America, 1989): 225. 3 H. N. Riis, Grammatical Outline and Vocabulary of the Oji Language with special reference to the Akwapim Dialect, together with a collection of proverbs of the Natives (Basel: Detloff, 1849). 4 He seems to have considered Fante to be the main rival to Akuapem, and disparages at some length the grammar of Carr and Brown, largely, it seems, because it used an orthography based on the practice in English, which he considered the worst possible choice of model. See Daniel L. Carr & Joseph P. Brown, Mfantsi Grammar (Cape Coast: T. F. Carr, 1868). 5 Today most Akan scholars would agree that Akuapem is not so much influenced by Fante as genetically closer to Fante than to the Asante and Akyem dialects—see Florence Abena Dolphyne & Mary E. Kropp Dakubu, “The Volta-Comoé Languages,” in The Languages of Ghana, ed. Kropp Dakubu (London: Kegan Paul, 1988): 56—but quite strongly influenced by Akyem. 256 Dakubu only exception I noticed is that he found it necessary to demonstrate the subject pronoun prefixes with parallel paradigms for Akan (non-Akuapem) and Fante (57). This grammar thus falls (like Westermann’s Ewe grammar of 1907) into the hierarchical category, a description of a single dialect that is the basis of the written language, with passing attention to other dialects. However, it is worth noting that this was very much a function of a felt need for a single standard, and a preference for basing the standard on a natural dialect (and not an artificial creation). These assumptions were no doubt based on attitudes to literary language, national language, and language purity that were current in Europe at the time, but they were also tied to the fact that they were Christian missionaries, who believed that they needed to reach the people they wished to convert in a language those people could understand and accept, but at the same time would reach as many people as possible, given the amount of labor involved. The irony of the situation is that since before Independence Akuapem and Fante have been recognized as different standards, and not long after Independence Asante was also established as a standard—the numerous, rich and powerful Ashanti were not delighted to have the dialect of a small and less powerful state taught in their schools. This is a political aspect of the matter that Christaller did not think of, perhaps because, at the time he wrote, Ashanti had not yet been subjugated by the British. More recently, several grammars have been explicitly monodialectal, often because the writer had only one speaker available to work with. Rapp’s Gurene grammar (1966) was based entirely on the speech of one person, Victor Aboya, who also wrote out all the proverbs contained in that book. This is not meant as a criticism; in Rapp’s case he probably had no alternative, and something is almost always better than nothing.6 Ghanaian linguists who became active in the 1960s and 1970s tended to write not just on their own language and specifically on their own dialect, but depended heavily on their own idiolect, particularly in their doctoral and postdoctoral work. Students are still inclined to do this if they can get away with it, but it is now recognized that although monodialectal and idiolectal studies had their value as starting points in languages that had been studied very little or not at all, they are no longer adequate. It can be argued that a really thorough analysis of a single dialect has a special value of its own. On the other hand, a grammar based on a narrow selection of speech types and speakers can be quite misleading, giving the impression that the variety represented is more autonomous than it really is. On

6 The lexicon was compiled by the missionary Eichholzer, who, unlike Rapp, worked in the field and presumably had more than one informant. Rapp apparently worked with Aboya at Akuapem, and did not visit the latter’s homeland. Polylectal Description 257 a practical level, not only is the existence of variation missed, so that a later investigator may have difficulty even recognizing that the language described is the same language met in the field, but idiolectal features may be given undue prominence because their atypicality is not recognized. A famous case of the latter is William Welmers’ grammar of Fante (1946). This was apparently based largely on the idiolect of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, when he was a student in the USA. Nkrumah was not an L1 speaker of Fante, although as an Nzema he must have spoken it well. At any rate, because of this, and perhaps for less scientific reasons as well, Welmers’ grammar was not highly regarded by Ghanaian linguists. I’m not sure that this criticism of Welmer’s Fante grammar was entirely justified, but it is related to another aspect of the topic. As far as linguists are concerned, the desirability of a polylectal grammar is fairly obvious—one wants as true and complete a picture of the language as possible. For grammarians working in Africa in an African institution and especially in an African university, however, this is not quite enough. We expect our students to read our descriptions, or at least parts of them, and we don’t want them to catch us out in bad mistakes. We also expect or at least hope that in some form our work will filter down into the school system. The nature of the description, then, takes on a political aspect. Members of the community may object to both exclusions and inclusions, depending on relations among speaker subgroups, and they may disagree among each other. These concerns have much to do with the fact that the boundaries between languages are notoriously difficult to draw, especially when languages are closely related or there is a dialect continuum over a considerable area— Christaller’s inclusion of the Bia languages (Nzema, Sehwi, Baule and others) in Akan, compared with the current attitude, is a case in point. Nationalist and subnationalist feelings also complicate the picture. Nonlinguistic criteria frequently decide what is regarded as one language and what is not, and decisions made can have extra-linguistic repercussions. I return to aspects of this problem later. I now compare and contrast problems of polylectal description with particular reference to several languages I have worked with. As it happens, they fall into two genetic groups: a closely related group consisting of Ga and Dangme, which are Kwa languages but not closely related to other Kwa languages, spoken on the coast of Ghana in the south; and Dagaare and Farefari, Gur languages of the northwest Oti-Volta group spoken on the northern border but not adjacent to each other. The two pairs of languages are thus about as far apart both geographically and culturally as they can be within Ghana. They also present very different demographic and sociolinguistic profiles. Between 258 Dakubu and within each pair they also present very different problems in terms of polylectal description, not least (but only partly) because one pair has a much longer history of description than the other. The differences among them thus provide a convenient frame on which to hang discussion of various problems of polylectal description as I have encountered them. I have to make a disclosure here: I have never actually written a comprehensive grammar of any language, polylectal or otherwise, although I have made descriptive studies of aspects of several and published outline grammars of two, Dangme and Dagaare.7 I have, however, directed fairly comprehensive dictionaries of the other two, which incorporate grammatical and phonological information, and I will refer to this experience. I shall also pay attention to diachronic variation. In little-studied languages it does not always exist, but when it does it can help clarify synchronic variation.

2 Ga and Dangme

2.1 Ga Ga is spoken in a very limited area, basically Accra, the capital of Ghana, and its immediate environs, not much more than 1,000 sq km.8 Throughout its autonomous existence it has been basically an urban language: indeed, I have argued elsewhere9 that the urban or perhaps proto-urban situation in which it found itself in the seventeenth or late sixteenth century is why, in the first place it became more than just another dialect of Dangme and ceased to be mutually intelligible with it. It is therefore a rather young language in terms of the time elapsed since it split from its closest relative. As these facts should lead one to expect, Ga has no geographical dialect differentiation that can be clearly defined in terms of bundles of isoglosses. Not only is its area small, it seems that until the second half of the nineteenth century it was even smaller, since Kpone and probably Tema, the easternmost Ga- speaking towns, were still Dangme-speaking. Its spread eastwards was related to the fact that Accra and Osu, where it essentially began its life, were major

7 Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, The Dangme Language: An Introductory Survey (Basingstoke & London: Macmillan & Accra: Unimax, 1987), and Dagaare Grammar (Collected Language Notes 26; Legon: Institute of African Studies, 2005). 8 The entire Greater Accra Region totals 3,245 sq. km., but Ga is the traditional language of less than half the area. The rest is occupied by Dangme. 9 Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, Korle Meets the Sea: A Sociolinguistic History of Accra (London & New York: Oxford UP, 1997). Polylectal Description 259 trade centers. Two studies that I know of10 discussed dialect variation among the seven major traditional Ga centers, strung from east to west along the coast (most of them now spread out to meet each other), a distance of about 30 km. I summarized the results in 200211—they are very slim. The table below indicates the sort of variation, and in fact includes most examples found. The places given from left to right are distributed from west to east. (Osu is omitted because it did not differ from Accra.) A few relatively recent innovations, such as the plural -i ending on many reduplicated (distributive) verbs—for example, kã́kã̀ã́-i ‘turn fufu in a mortar’ (from the stem kã́)—seem to have spread from Accra. It is difficult to find any pattern in these variants, or to generalize to what characterizes the speech of a given town, but it seems that Accra has continued to be the focus from which innovations are diffused. If the traditional geographical divisions from east to west show very little variation, there is perhaps more variation from north to south, even though the distance is nowhere more than about 35 km. In the 1960s and 1970s I worked with illiterate farming people about 15 km. north of Accra. These people

Table 13.1 Variation in the pronunciation of some Ga words

Accra La Teshie Nungua Kpone ònṹfṹ ònũ̀ṹfṹ ònṹ!fṹ ònũ̀ṹfṹ ònũ̀ṹfṹ snake gbèsàŋè gbòsàŋè gbòsàŋè gbòsàŋè gbòsàŋè leathery turtle òdáàklɔ̀̀ òdáàklɔ́̀ òdáá!klɔ́́ òdáàklɔ̀́ òdáàklɔ́́ lizard tɔ̃́trɔ̃́ŋ tɔ̃́ŋtɔ̃́ŋ tɔ̃́ŋtɔ̃́ŋ tɔ̃́ŋtɔ̃́ŋ tɔ̃́ŋtɔ̃́ŋ mosquito àklòntĩ̀ ã́ ̀ àkɔ̀ntĩã́ ̀ àklòtĩ̀ ã́ ̀ àklòtĩ̀ ã́ ̀ àklòtĩ̀ ã́ ̀ pin bòe!bóe bòe!bóe mòe!móe mòe mòemòe fish, burrito àmɛ̀dɛ̀ɛ́ àmɛ̀dɛ̀ɛ́ àbɛ̀dɛ̀ɛ́ ámɛ̀dɛ̀ɛ́ àmɛ̀dɛ̀ɛ́ fish, hairy blenny m̀fl!ábɛ́!dí m̀pl!abɛ́!dí́ m̀fl!ábɛ́!dí́ ḿpŕáábɛ́!di a fresh water fish kɔ̀kɔ̀ kɔ̀kɔ̀ kwɔ̀kwɔ̀ kɔ̀kɔ̀ kwɔ̀kwɔ̀ a fish, burro.

10 Nii Amon Kotei, “A description of modern spoken Ga with particular reference to tone and intonation” (doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston IL, 1969); A. Amu Mante, “Comparative study of the Gã spoken by the older generation of Tɛʃi, Labadi and Central Accra, particularly the fishermen, with special interest in lexis” (BA Long Essay, Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, 1971). 11 Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, Ga Phonology (Language Monograph series; Legon: Institute of African Studies, 2002). 260 Dakubu frequently used an English loanword bìjín, ‘begin’, in place of the original bɔ̃́i. I assumed it had spread from Accra, because although the people were farmers they had close relations with city people, moved back and forth, and usually lived in both places at different times of their lives. I was quite surprised, then, that a Ga graduate student who had grown up in a strictly urban environment was surprised to hear it—he claimed never to have heard it before. In general, variation in Ga is difficult to rationalize dialectally. Another type is the pronunciation of intervocalic r. In some words l in this position contrasts with r, and can never be pronounced differently, (eg. hàla a kind of turtle, *hàra; fĺɔ̀ ‘hole’, * fŕɔ̀) but in many words either l or r can be used, e.g., tére ~ téle ‘carry’, fr̀ɔ̃̀fr̀ɔ̃̀ ~ flɔ̃̀ ̀flɔ̃̀ ̀ ‘fresh’, píriu ~ pílíú ‘oath’ (from Akan piriw). However, the variation does not have the same status for everybody. All Ga speakers agree on a core body of words that must have l, but they are apt to disagree on the others. Some people, including my rural acquaintances of forty years ago, rarely use r when they can use l instead (which in fact is always, since no Ga word has obligatory intervocalic r). Recently, however, I have met students who insist they always used r, and that l was old-fashioned, although I know from observation and from other students that this is not true. It means that for some people r is an intervocalic allophone of d, but that this phoneme does not contrast with l intervocalically, while for others there is simply no r sound and d does not occur intervocalically in phonologically simple words.12 At the moment the easiest way out is to call this intervocalic variation idiolectal, but I suspect there is a principle underlying it if one looks hard enough. Another kind of variation that is quite typical of Ga is slang. A kind of slang used by Ga youth has been recognized for a long time, even by normatively inclined Ga grammarians, and it has a sort of traditional status and a name in the language, pĺàshéelì,13 probably from English ‘pleasure’. A number of expressions that fifty years ago were considered to belong to this register and were frowned upon by the respectable are now regarded as ‘proverbial’ or classical language, e.g., Etsuɔ fe nɛkɛ ‘it ripens more than that (but it will do)’. Another is òkɛ̀sé ‘fashion, chic’, from an Akan word meaning ‘great’. However, new slang continually arises, and I am not sure that it always can be included in the same register—for example, àmàí ‘I don’t care’, from English ‘I don’t mind’, which unlike some slang expressions is often used by women. Slang as a whole

12 It does occur intervocalically in phonologically compound words, where it also contrasts with l, see Kropp Dakubu, Ga Phonology (Language Monograph series; Legon: Institute of African Studies, 2002), part 2 1.3. 13 See J. R. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ga Wiemɔ lɛ Hesusumɔ, Thinking about Ga (London: Macmillan, 1961): 65. Polylectal Description 261 raises a problem of variation in idiolect; not everyone uses such expressions, and some people positively disapprove of them but others do not. Another example is the verb blô, from English ‘blow’, which can mean ‘sing’, ‘spend money’, or ‘enjoy oneself’: Wɔbaablo taim fioo ‘we will enjoy ourselves a little’. Apparently it is only considered slang in this last usage, which is peculiar to the young, and is also the most deviant from English usage. To what extent are the syntactic properties of a verb like blồ to be included in a grammar of Ga? They may be ephemeral, and instead of being incorporated into the ‘mainstream’ they may go out of use altogether in ten years or so. A closely related problem is that of recent loanwords, on whose status speakers may disagree. The solution adopted in the second edition of the Ga dictionary was to include everything that a committee of speakers considered to be Ga, give its entry a register label as slang or colloquial, and state in the Introduction that the dictionary is intended to reflect the language as spoken over the past fifty years, more or less. Nevertheless, I foresee disapproval in a few cases. For example, the word píɔ́!wɔ́tà was included, meaning drinking water sold in small plastic sachets, from English ‘pure water’. It sounds odd, and the order Adjective+Noun is wrong for Ga, although apparently many speakers use it as a monomorphe- mic word. It will be interesting to see how long it lasts—even if the referent is not a transitory phenomenon (which is by no means assured), it is interesting that many loanwords from Akan that appear in Zimmermann (1858) have gone completely out of use, even though Ga still has many well-established Akan loans and continues to borrow from that source. Another kind of variation complicates the situation but can also help to clarify it: namely, diachronic. Ga may not have been an autonomous language for long, but for a sub-Saharan language and particularly a Niger-Congo language it has an unusually long written history, sufficiently so that the historical record and even the current orthography preserve forms that are now archaic. There is a very good although short description from 1764, written, moreover, by a native speaker (Protten), who basically got the phonemic contrasts right. He also left a short manuscript text from about 1746. Several Danish officers who had been stationed at Christiansborg in Osu, especially Schønning and Wrisberg, produced scripture translations, which are less dependable but still revealing, and were followed by Rasmus Rask’s attempt at a description with a lengthy lexicon, of 1828. The most comprehensive description is Johannes Zimmermann’s grammar and lexicon of 1858. Zimmermann was the leading Basel missionary among the Ga, and he also oversaw extensive translations, including the whole Bible, but other things as well. As a result, we are in a position to say that some kinds of grammatical variation are in fact old, and not due to recent ‘corruption’, as popular opinion would have it. For example, most 262 Dakubu

Ga words form their plural with the suffix -i, as in bú ‘well’, bú-i ‘wells’, but some change the final syllable to ji [ʤĩĩ],̀ e.g.,nàne pl. nàji ‘leg’, lɛ̀lɛ pl. lɛ̀ji ‘boat’, fĺɔ̀ pl. fɔ́jì ‘hole’. A few words can take either kind of plural: for example, tsɔ̀ne ‘vehicle, trap, mechanical device’ can be pluralized as either tsɔnei or tsɔji. Most Ga are firmly convinced that -ji plurals are a modern innovation, especially in words that are observed to be used with both types; moreover, the belief is that they are especially used by people who speak Ga as a second language, and immigrants to Accra who have become acculturated to the Ga-speaking community. However, these documents allow us to say that this is simply not true. -ji plurals are old, and indeed in the eighteenth century Protten gave a -ji plural for at least one monosyllabic word, tsũ ‘room’, that nobody would use with a -ji plural today.14 Another example is phonological. The current Ga word for ‘vulture’ is ákpáŋà. There is a Ga clan called Akanmaje [akaŋmaʤe], which puzzles many speakers because they are aware that there is supposed to be some kind of connection with vultures. Protten, however, spelled the word in such a way that he clearly pronounced it [akaŋma], so that this name is evidently to be reconstructed as ákáŋmàiaje ‘place of vultures’. Zimmermann (1858) gives both versions. In the dictionary we gave akpaŋa the main entry, but included an entry for akaŋma cross-referenced to the other with an indication that it is found in Protten and Zimmermann. Accounting for the change in pronunciation, though, is a puzzle, since I have found no other example of a feature (in this case co-articulated bilabiality) migrating from the C of the second CV syllable to that of the first. There are a few other pronunciation variants. For example, the verb kurá/ kulá ‘preserve, manage’ is alternatively pronounced korá/kolá. A likely explanation for this is that the word is borrowed from Akan kʋrá, and Ga does not have the -ATR high vowels. But classical systematic dialectal variation seems not to exist. The only problem is to decide when a variant or a new usage is sufficiently widespread to warrant inclusion, and this depends in the end on how inclusive you want the work to be. Overall, probably the most interesting way to include variation in the grammar of a language like Ga is to take the dynamic approach, which includes historical, environmental, and social factors as far as they can be determined.

14 The history of Ga plurals is examined in more detail in Kropp Dakubu, “Explaining Ga plurals,” Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 7.2 (1996): 153–181. Polylectal Description 263

2.2 Dangme There is a clear boundary between Ga and Dangme, which includes phonological differences (regular change of *p to f in Ga but not Dangme, reduction of the three tone system preserved in Dangme to two tones in Ga, shortening of long vowels in Dangme but not in Ga), profound grammatical differences (particularly in the verb aspect system), and lexical differences. We may also note that there is no difficulty in distinguishing Ga and Dangme from their neighbors, Akan and Ewe, to which they are not closely related. Dangme presents an interesting contrast because, unlike Ga, it is divided into two major dialect areas, within which are recognized and recognizable subdialects, although there is no question that all dialects are mutually comprehensible. Bundles of isoglosses can be determined and mapped, although there are inevitably fuzzy areas.15 The dialect divisions coincide reasonably closely with the ethnic-political divisions, and are recognized by speakers. A standard orthography was devised in the 1970s when the Education Service agreed to recognize Dangme as the local language for school purposes—previously Ga had been used, not because many people thought of them as a single language, although a close relationship was recognized, but because it had been considered convenient to do so ever since Zimmermann’s time. For my introductory description published in 1987, information on dialect variation collected through a large-scale dialect survey, carried out by students employed to administer a questionnaire as part of a project of the Institute of African Studies, was amplified and corrected through additional fieldwork but mainly through my experience in teaching the linguistics of Dangme to small classes of Dangme-speaking university students who represented the dialect areas, especially Krobo, the largest and most influential inland dialect, and Ada, the most distinctive coastal dialect.16 Without giving the matter a great deal of thought, the book was constructed along fairly standard lines, beginning with a general introduction followed by chapters on phonology, sentence and clause, verbs, nominals. In each case a description is given that is intended to be generalizable for all dialects, but

15 See Kropp Dakubu, The Dangme Language: An Introductory Survey, for maps and details. 16 I strongly recommend teaching native speakers the linguistics of their own language as a method of doing fieldwork, although unfortunately nowadays the classes are much too large for it to be practicable. It helps to correct many mistakes, although it is not foolproof—the analysis of habitual forms given in Dakubu, The Dangme Language: An Introductory Survey, 63, is wrong. It is corrected, also on the basis of information acquired from students, in , Felix Ameka & Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, “Imperfective constructions: progressive and prospective in Ewe and Dangme,” in Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages, ed. Ameka & Dakubu (Amsterdam & Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins, 2008): 215–289. 264 Dakubu comments on dialect variation are introduced at each point as they arise. The final chapter consists of a more detailed discussion of dialect variation. The maps showing selected isoglosses come at the beginning of the book, but that was the publisher’s decision, not mine. This kind of organization more or less corresponds to an Additive-Contrastive model, in which data from different dialects are discussed and contrasted in a single chapter on a grammatical topic, although contrast among dialects was not its primary focus. As a descriptive method I think it worked quite well, but it is not suited to every case. It works for Dangme because the major kinds of variation are systematic and follow relatively clear boundaries, and also because overall intelligibility is high and because speakers recognize the variation as part of their linguistic heritage. It must be said that another factor was that this description was, as the subtitle says, an introductory survey—in a truly exhaustive description it might have become more difficult, and in a less clearly defined dialect situation, as will be described for Dagaare, it would probably be unwieldy. Occasionally, someone makes a call for Ga–Dangme unity, including recognizing Ga–Dangme as a single language. If the decision to make Dangme an ‘official’ language were thus reversed, which I don’t think is likely, the problem of polylectal description would become more complicated, since it would now include Ga. Probably the best solution would be Additive-Sequential organization, with each dialect being presented in a different chapter, but this would de facto amount to writing two grammars in alternating chapters.

3 Farefari and Dagaare

I now leave the south coast of Ghana and move about 800 km north. As mentioned, Farefari and Dagaare belong to the same northwestern branch of Oti- Volta, although they are not adjacent, because Grusi languages intervene. Farefari shares a border with Moore to the north. Moore also belongs to this subgroup, and they are sufficiently similar that in the right historical circumstances Farefari dialects would probably have been included within Moore. There are certainly strong differences—for example, the nominal class and concord system is far more conservative in Farefari than in Moshi and there are clear phonological differences—but that they have never been considered part of the same language is probably due mainly to the fact that the Farefari- speaking area was never politically subjugated by the Moshi, never (or to a very slight extent) had the Moshi-Dagomba style of chieftaincy, and was on the English side of the colonial border. The Dagaare complex of dialects has undergone a change of intervocalic s to r, together with other changes that make Polylectal Description 265 it quite obviously a different language, but again, the fact of geographical dis- continuity with the other two members of the subgroup is probably at least as responsible for the assumption that it is autonomous as the linguistic features.

3.1 Farefari Farefari has several geographically definable dialects, although these are not without their problems. It has a very short written history, and the literate community is still much smaller than those for Ga and Dangme. Oddly enough, its first written text, three tales included in Rattray,17 were written out for him by the same man, Victor Aboya, who was Dr Rapp’s sole informant for the first published study.18 Thus, the first thirty years of scholarship in this language were based on a single idiolect!19 Luckily, it is clear that he was a very good informant; but he was still only one person. He hailed originally from Winkogo, south of Bolgatanga, but as far as I know, no one has since checked his texts against the language as it is now spoken there.20 Apart from these publications, which were definitely intended for scholars, not the speaker population, and a few religious translations, there has been no established orthography or publication in the language until quite recently, and indeed within the context of Ghanaian language policy and politics it still counts as underprivileged, because up to today it is the only language of a regional capital that is not one of the country’s ‘official’ languages.21 To a large extent, definition of the three major dialects is straightforward. The varieties typical of Bolgatanga, the capital of the Upper East administrative region, its surroundings, and areas to the south are known to the speakers as Gurenɛ. There is a considerable amount of internal variation. The very small traditional state of Bongo, close to the Burkina Faso border, is considered to have its own dialect, known as Booni. It is spoken only in the town called Bongo and a part of the surrounding district—the rest of the Bongo district speaks Gurene varieties. The third type, to the east, is known as Nankani

17 Robert Sutherland Rattray, The Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland, 2 vols. (1932; Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), vol. 1: 222–228. 18 Eugen Ludwig Rapp, Die Gurenne-Sprache in NordGhana (Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, 1966). 19 There were also religious translations and a draft grammar by members of the White Fathers, but these seem to have been done mainly after Rapp’s time. 20 Rattray referred to this language as Nankani, and the people as Nankanse, but it is clear that Aboya’s language was a variety of Gurene, and not what we now call Nankani or Ninkarɛ (as explained below). 21 Ghana has ten administrative regions. The languages counted as official for education purposes are Asante Twi, Akuapem Twi, Fante (all mutually intelligible varieties of Akan), Ga, Dangme, Ewe, Nzema, Gonja, Dagbani, Dagaare, Wali, and Kasem. 266 Dakubu

[nɩŋkãrɛ̃]. One of its villages, Yeliwongo, which is also where the smocks sold on Bolgatanga market are woven, is the only Gurene-speaking village across the border in Burkina Faso. A potential source of confusion is that the name anglice ‘Nankani’ (‘Nankanse’ for the people) seems to have changed its scope over the past century. What Rattray (and Aboya) called Nankani is definitely what is now known as Gurene. My initial research on this language consisted of teaching a class of linguistics students who spoke Gurene varieties, not identical by any means, and wanted it. (My role was really that of discussion leader and rapporteur, rather than teacher, because there was far less material available than for Ga or Dangme, or even Dagaare.) This eventually resulted in a draft grammar outline which has yet to be properly corrected, revised, and completed.22 It is essentially monodialectal, because the students did not happen to speak Booni or Nankani. Only a few features seem to distinguish Booni from Gurene. Probably the most notable is that Booni has a pre-verbal particle na, used to mark future tense. The other dialects also have this particle, but at least in Gurene it does not mark future tense but a durative incompletive. It can be used with a negative to indicate that an event has not yet occurred, or for a habitual or progressive. In Gurene it is the ingressive pre-verb particle wa with tone alteration that is used to mark future tense. For example:

“He will come today”: Booni: À nà wà’am béere 3S FUT come tomorrow Gurene: À wá wà’am béere. 3S INGR.IRR come tomorrow Uses of na in Gurene: À nà-n kà kìŋɛ “He has not yet gone” 3S DUR-FOC NEG go Tùma nà sìna pí’isa tà’amadìta “We always go pick shea fruits and eat them.” 1PL DUR going plucking shea-fruits eating

(The habitual reading in the last sentence is related to the combination of the particle with imperfective verb forms.) This sort of variation can become a serious problem for the grammar writer, if there are further syntactic operations

22 Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, A Grammar of Gurune [corrected trial edition] (Legon: Language Centre, 1996). Polylectal Description 267 that depend on the presence of one of the particles. It looks as though, in this case, the difference indeed goes beyond the expression of the future and involves a considerable ‘deviation’ from the common core. For example, in Bongo the same particle marks a condition, while in Gurene a different particle is used:

“If it doesn’t rain tomorrow I will go to farm”: Gurene: Sáa bée sán kà nì ǹ wá kìŋɛ va’am rain tomorrow CONDIT NEG fall 1S INGR.IRR go farm Booni: Sáa bée ná kà nì ǹ nà kíŋɛ va’am rain tomorrow FUT.CONDIT NEG fall 1S FUT go farm

(The conditional in the Booni sentence is expressed by giving the particle High tone.) The particle na is also used for an indirect imperative, where Gurene uses the ingressive:

“They should go”: Booni: Báma nà kíŋɛ 3PL.IMPER FUT go Gurene: Báma wà-n kíŋɛ 3PL.IMPER INGR-FOC go The wa ingressive also exists in Booni, as in the following example: “The women then gave birth to our ancestors” Booni: Pɔ́ka lá pá’a wá dɔ́gɛ̀ tʊ́ma yáabèdʊ̀ma lá woman DEF then INGR give.birth 1PL.POSS ancestors DEF

In a polylectal grammar, futures and conditionals will have to be described separately for these dialects, but with a discussion of the overlap and deviation in usage of the elements na, wa, and sa. The obvious distinguishing feature of Nankani is that it has affricates, [ʧ] [ʤ] and [ʃ], especially before front vowels. Gurene and Booni do not have them at all, except in a few recent loanwords. However, there are other phonological variations that are more puzzling and do not seem to follow the recognized dialect boundaries. A number of words have [ʧ] in Nankani and either [k] or [s] in Gurene: for example, the verb ‘go’ is pronounced ʧɩŋɛ, kɩŋɛ or sɩŋɛ. Clearly the first is Nankani, but the distribution of the other two has yet to be determined. A similar case is the variation between w and y in words like wɩnɛ ~ yɩnɛ ‘sun’, also the root for ‘God’, except that evidently pronun- ciations with y are typical of Bolgatanga town. No two villages speak exactly the same. 268 Dakubu

Some of the problems as far as polylectal grammar writing is concerned are basically political. One is the problem of standardization. Obviously there is no standard at the moment, but both myself and Bob and Nancy Schaefer before me were conscious of the possibility that we were contributing to the formation of one. The Schaefers worked on Gurene with SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) and the Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation, a branch of SIL incorporated in Ghana. They chose to work in Zuarungu, and I believe most of their language assistants came from that town, which is close to the eastern border of the language with Kusaal, another western Oti-Volta language. They did this because Zuarungu to some extent is a traditional center, and in colonial times it was the government headquarters in the region. They felt, therefore, that it was a natural candidate for the kernel of a standard. I was not aware of this when I started, and chose to concentrate on Bolgatanga because I felt that as the modern capital of the Region it was likely to eventually acquire the most speakers and the most prestige. It is also geographically more central. In fact, the grammatical differences do not seem to be serious, and in recent years I have not stuck to a strict focus on Bolgatanga, because the graduate students I have worked with mostly spoke the Gurene dialect of Zorkor, which is a group of villages in the Bongo district. Only time will tell whether a standard will indeed emerge, but for descriptive and lexico- graphic purposes my own approach, and I think that of most Gurene-speaking scholars and teachers of the language, is to allow dialect variants in writing. I have already alluded to the problem of the scope of the language name, and therefore what is expected to be included in a polylectal description. The three major dialects I have referred to constitute the undoubted core of the language, which has not had a single name within the language until recently. The name ‘Farefari’ was chosen because in the south the speakers are known as the ‘Frafra’, derived from a common greeting fàráfàrá. The spelling ‘Farefari’ was adopted as more acceptable to the speakers on both linguistic and social grounds. However, ‘Frafra’ does not refer solely to speakers of the Gurene, Bongo, and Nankani dialects. It has always included the Nabdam, speakers of Nabt, and the Talensi, speakers of Talni. These are small communities living just south and east of Gurene speakers. When I first started working on the language, I was asked by the Bolgatanga and Bongo District Assemblies to help with the construction of a standard orthography. At that time the Nabdam and Talensi districts were included in the Bolgatanga District Assembly, and it was felt that speakers of these varieties could not be left out, and so they were included in our definition of the Farefari language. It is difficult to justify this from a strictly linguistic point of view, although they are all certainly closely related and the speakers recognize a degree of ethnic kinship. One important feature is that in all these dialects there is a diachronic tendency to weakening Polylectal Description 269 and loss of non-initial syllables, which affects the noun class system, since these are basically suffixing languages. However, they do it differently: in Gurene, Booni, and Nankani, in a three-syllable word the middle vowel weakens to a non-contrastive vocalization, often the centralized vowel [ə],23 sometimes followed by loss of the middle consonant. In a disyllabic word, the medial consonant weakens and may be lost. For example, the Gurene verb daɛ ‘make a mark on somebody’ has a variant da:gɛ, which is evidently closer to its earlier form—in most speech it has completely lost its middle syllable (represented by lengthening on a) and the third and final consonant. In Nabt and Talni, however, weakening starts from the right margin, so that the first thing to be lost is the final vowel. Words in these dialects therefore may end in a consonant, which is not true in the others. This aligns them with Kusaal further east, in opposition to Gurene. On the other hand, Gurene dialects sometimes resemble Talni and Nabt in ways that cannot be ignored. Another phonological variation that is difficult to map completely is the use in Bolgatanga of the labial velar stops kp, gb, in words that some others, including Booni speakers, pronounce with plain ve- lars, k or g. Thus, the word for ‘lion’ is gìgenɛ in Booni and some other lects but gbìgenɛ in Bolgatanga. A chief’s spokesman is kána in Booni and Nankani but kpána in Bolgatanga (but not all Gurene). The traditional men’s loincloth is called kpàláŋa in Talni and also in the Gurene spoken in Zuarungu, but kàláŋa in other Gurene varieties. It seems that the people of Zuarungu have particularly close ties with the Talensi, but since the languages are so closely related it is difficult to determine whether this sort of similarity is to be treated as borrowing from another language, or as a spread of features among lects that have a fairly high degree of mutual intelligibility. Recently the Talni- and Nabt- speaking communities have acquired their own District Assemblies, which somewhat relieves the pressure to include their speech in a polylectal description. In practice, the orthography and the dictionary that uses it have taken very little account of them.

3.2 Dagaare I would now like to examine another case in which there is a strong degree of dialect divergence, and which is also complicated by a political situation. In Ghana, the complex of dialects that includes Dagaare and Dagara are ‘officially’ considered to be a single language, together with Birifor to the west across the Black Volta and south of Wa, and Wali, the speech of Wa town. Some years ago I taught the linguistics of Dagaare for the Linguistics Department in Legon,

23 This is why ‘Gurene‘ is often spelled ‘Gurune’—it actually does not matter which vowel is used in the middle and it tends to be influenced by the root vowel. 270 Dakubu and it soon became clear to me that the differences were very considerable. The class included speakers of Dagaare, Dagara, and occasionally Wali, which I shall not consider here, because it involves special problems. The standard in Ghana, meaning the variety taught in schools and training colleges and printed, is Dagaare, specifically the Dagaare of the area around Jirapa where the Catholic Mission first established itself, devised an orthography, and started schools. However, I did not wish to teach strictly from the standard point of view, because I thought it was unfair to the speakers of other dialects, and I also wanted to use the class to expand my own knowledge. I soon found that on several topics I was teaching two parallel classes. In the first place, the phonetic character of Dagara is very different. For example, the Dagara dialects have glottalized consonants: Nandom has three, Lawra (slightly farther south) has two, the Ghana varieties of Birifor have two, but Dagaare does not have them at all. There are also differences in lexical tone, and in nominal classification.24 Mutual intelligibility between Dagaare and Dagara is rather low, and decreases considerably as one moves from south to north, to the extent that it is reported that people from a place such as Kaleo a few miles north of Wa cannot really understand people from Nandom and further north. Syntactic differences between Dagaare and Dagara are particularly striking. Consider the following pairs of sentences that each have two clauses joined by a coordinate conjunction:

“Der came and Adamu also came.” Dagaare Dɛr waɩ la kà Adamu mɩŋ wa Dagara Dɛr wa na ɛ́ Adamu mɩŋ wa “He came but [he] went back.” Dagaare ʋ waɩ lá kyɛ́ lɩɛ̀ ga Dagara ʋ wá nà ɛ́ lɛb kyen

In Dagaare the subjects of the clauses joined by kà must have different referents, but they may have different referents if they are joined by kyɛ́. The contrast expressed in the difference between kà and kyɛ́ in the Dagaare dialects does not exist in the Dagara dialects, which use ɛ́ for both. The conjunction kyɛ does exist in northern, Dagara dialects, but its usage is different. Both dialect groups express a stronger contrastive conjunction: ie a more emphatic ‘but’, by combining kyɛ with kà or ɛ́, but they combine them in a different order:

24 For an account, see Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, Dagaare Grammar (Collected Language Notes 26; Legon: Institute of African Studies, 2005). Polylectal Description 271

Dagaare Dɛr waɩ la kyɛ́ kà Adamu bá wa Dagara Dɛr wa na ɛ́ !kyɛ́ Adamu bɛ waɩ Der came but on the other hand Adamu didn’t come.

The different use of the suffix on the verb wa also suggests that the constructions are really very different. A more elaborate sentence indicates further the range of differences in clause structure. The Dagaare complementizer and coordinating conjunction differ only in tone, which itself, of course, needs explanation, while Dagara uses a conditional marker (â) that does not exist in Dagaare. There are also lexical and phonological differences:

“When God gave his spokesmen permission to go home and they were going home …” Dagaare: Ŋmɩnɩ naŋ wa bar ʋ kpambɩɛ ká ba Ɂiri gaa die kà ba Ɂiri kulo God COND ITER permit his spokesmen COMP they go go house and they go go.home Dagara: Naaŋmɩn na wa kʋ ʋ kpambiir sɔr ɛ́ bɛ Ɂir kul â bɛ Ɂira kule God COND ITER give his spokesmen road COMP they go go.home COND they go go.home

In my very modest compilation,25 I described these constructions by compar- ing them, more or less as I have just done but in more detail, according to functional type. However, to write a more comprehensive grammar that gave equal weight to both dialect types (never mind the subdialects) would present a challenge. As suggested with reference to the simpler case of Gurene and Booni, a detailed comparison of particles with overlapping functions and overlapping phonetic form quickly becomes rather confusing to read. One minimal solution might be that the description be accompanied by a glossary of grammatical forms, listing the functions of each and cross-referencing to where they are discussed in the text. Another would be to organize the grammar according to the Additive-Sequential model, with different chapters or different sections in each chapter for each dialect. This could be useful if the main purpose of the grammar was to compare the dialects. However, given that the overall situation is one of a dialect continuum, with very many variants and no clear boundary between Dagaare, on the one hand, and Dagara, on the other: i.e. with a very fuzzy dialect hierarchy, I doubt that this would be practicable unless just a few

25 Dagaare Grammar (Collected Language Notes 26). 272 Dakubu dialect types were chosen for purposes of the description, and other varieties assumed to resemble one or the other. I stated that this particular pair of dialects, or dialect groups, is a political problem as well as a descriptive one. This has to do with the status of Dagaare as the standard for teaching and publication. Some Dagara speakers resent this. Dagaare speakers, as might be expected, think they are making a problem out of nothing. Some Dagara speakers would like to see their varieties recognized as a different language, with a different orthography. Most Dagaare speakers see no need for this. Given the level of official inertia, lack of understanding of the issues, and the bureaucratic tendency to avoid increasing the number of units that must be dealt with, it is unlikely that two languages will be recognized in place of one any time soon; but this is not the point. If they were, the problems of polylectal description would be reduced to what are now problems of description within each of these ‘dialects’. Like the problem of what to include in Farefari, it reminds us that the boundaries between languages, and therefore what is thought of as part of a single language, is not simply linguistic, a matter of measuring mutual intelligibility. It is also and always political. Nationalist sentiments, perceptions of ethnic identity or differentness, political boundaries, past and present enmities—all play a part. Another instance within northern Ghana that comes to mind is Sisaala. Linguistically, according to those who have studied it, this name covers several languages that are mutually unintelligible, but apparently ethnic identification among the speakers is such that they prefer to use one name. Linguists (who were clearly not attempting polylectal descriptions) have then identified the language with a hyphenated form, as Sisaala-Pasaale, Sisaala-Tumuli etc.26

4 Conclusion

If it is possible to come to a conclusion in this matter, mine is that the strategy for writing a polylectal grammar must be tailored to the circumstances of the particular language. If dialect variation does not seriously inhibit intelligibility and the systems governing variation are reasonably clear, a version of the Additive-Contrastive model, with a particular topic covered in one chapter in which all the varieties are compared, should be feasible. Despite its extent as the largest language in Ghana in both geographical extent and numbers of speakers, Akan, I think, falls into this class, as does Dangme. On

26 See, for example, Stuart McGill, Samuel Fembeti & Mike Toupin, A Grammar of Sisaala- Pasaale (Legon: Institute of African Studies. 1999). Polylectal Description 273 the other hand, if the community has an acknowledged standard I see nothing inherently wrong with using the Hierarchical model. This is the model implied by the practice of the current Akan dictionary project of the Linguistics department at the University of Ghana (Legon-Zurich-Trondheim Project 2006) which uses the unified Akan orthography and then provides the three standard dialect forms. However, if the situation is really complicated, as in Dagaare- Dagara, or in Sisaala, where mutual intelligibility is less frequent than its absence, and variation is correspondingly large and complex, it seems to me that a different approach might be more useful, something combining aspects of the Additive-Sequential (a separate chapter on a topic for each variety) and Additive-Contrastive models, with extensive cross-referencing. Such a work could become very voluminous, and amount to a grammatical encyclopedia of the language. For many purposes, shorter articles on particular aspects of the language and their variants might be more useful. In the end, it depends on what will suit the purposes of the author and the intended readership.

Works Cited

Ablorh-Odjidja, J. R. Ga Wiemɔ lɛ Hesusumɔ, Thinking about Ga (London: Macmillan, 1961). Ameka, Felix, & Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu. “Imperfective constructions: progressive and prospective in Ewe and Dangme,” in Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages, ed. Ameka & Dakubu (Amsterdam & Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins, 2008): 215–289. Carr, Daniel L., & Joseph P. Brown. Mfantsi Grammar (Cape Coast: T. F. Carr, 1868). Christaller, Rev. Johannes Gottlieb. A Grammar of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi [Chwee, Twi] … (Basel, 1875; repr. Detroit MI: Gregg International, 1964). Dolphyne, Florence Abena, & Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu. “The Volta-Comoé Languages,” in The Languages of Ghana, ed. Mary E. Kropp Dakubu (London: Kegan Paul, 1988): 50–90. Kotei, Nii Amon. “A description of modern spoken Ga with particular reference to tone and intonation” (doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston IL, 1969). Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther. The Dangme Language: An Introductory Survey (Basingstoke & London: Macmillan & Accra: Unimax, 1987). Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther, ed. The Languages of Ghana (London: Kegan Paul International/ International African Institute, 1988). Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther. “Explaining Ga plurals,” Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 7.2 (1996): 153–181. Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther. A Grammar of Gurune [corrected trial edition] (Legon: Language Centre, 1996). 274 Dakubu

Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther. Korle Meets the Sea: A Sociolinguistic History of Accra (London & New York: Oxford UP, 1997). Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther. Ga Phonology (Language Monograph series; Legon: Institute of African Studies, 2002). Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther. Dagaare Grammar (Collected Language Notes 26; Legon: Institute of African Studies, 2005). Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther, S. Awinkene Atintono & E. Avea Nsoh. Gurenɛ-English Dictionary with English-Gurenɛ Glossary (Legon: Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, 2007). Legon–Zürich-Trondheim Computation Lexicography Project. Akan Dictionary, pilot project 1530 words (Legon: Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, 2006). Mante, A. Amu. “Comparative study of the Gã spoken by the older generation of Tɛʃi, Labadi and Central Accra, particularly the fishermen, with special interest in lexis” (BA Long Essay, Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, 1971). McGill, Stuart, Samuel Fembeti & Mike Toupin. A Grammar of Sisaala-Pasaale (Legon: Institute of African Studies, 1999). Mühlhäusler, Peter. “Polylectal grammar,” in International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, ed. William Bright (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992), vol. 3: 243–245. Protten, Christian. En nyttig indeledelse til tvende hidindtil ubekiendte Sprog, Acraisk og Fanteisk … (Copenhagen, 1764). Rapp, Eugen Ludwig. Die Gurenne-Sprache in NordGhana (Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, 1966). Rask, Rasmus. Vejledning til Akra Sproget, med et Tillæg om Aqvambuisk (Copenhagen: Møller, 1828). Rattray, Robert Sutherland. The Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland, 2 vols. (1932; Oxford: Clarendon, 1969). Riis, H. N. Grammatical Outline and Vocabulary of the Oji Language with special reference to the Akwapim Dialect, together with a collection of proverbs of the Natives (Basel: Detloff, 1849). Schønning, Christoffer. De ti Bud, det apostoliske Symbolum og Fader Vor, oversatte i det accraiske Sprog (Copenhagen: Schubart, 1805). Stewart, John M. “Kwa,” in The Niger-Congo Languages, ed. John Bendor-Samuel (Lanham MD & London: UP of America, 1989): 216–245. Welmers, William. A Descriptive Grammar of Fanti (Supplement to Language 22.3, 1946). Wrisberg, Philip Wilhelm von. Jesu Bjærgprediken oversat i den akraiske Sprog … (Copenhagen: Schubart, 1826). Zimmermann, Johannes. A Grammatical Sketch of the Akra or Ga Language including Vocabulary of the Akra or Ga Language with an Adanme Appendix, and Specimens from the Mouth of the Natives (Stuttgart, 1858). Part 4 Afterwords

⸪

CHAPTER 14 Nii: A Recollection on Obits

James Gibbs

I was very moved to be invited to write an afterword for this publication dedicated to Francis Nii-Yartey. There are many people who knew Nii very much better than I did, and all I can hope is that they will find here words that unlock their own recollections of him. For those who did not know him, I hope I can make them wish they had. News of Nii’s death sent me riffling through my files in an attempt to as- semble something approaching a curriculum vitae. I wanted to know how the glimpses I had caught of him over the years fit into the life in which he accomplished so much in so many places. Most of my glimpses were, I realized, of a man with tremendous energy who was overwhelmingly positive—but, like all of us, was occasionally rocked back by the pressures of the world. I first met Nii—then ‘Francis Yartey’—when he was a student of dance at the University of Ghana in 1968/9. I was an Instructor in the English Department living in a tutor’s flat in Mensah Sarbah Hall and keen to contribute to the theatre culture at Legon. I had already directed two productions when I put up a notice inviting students to audition for a production of work by Bertolt Brecht: I intended to present dramatic readings of some poems, and follow them with shortened versions of The Trial of Lucullus and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Nii came forward and I asked him to take the role of Cook in the first play, a didactic radio drama in which the ‘great commander’ (Lucullus 118–57/56 BC) is condemned to be cast into oblivion by a jury of ‘ordinary’—that is to say, of ‘thinking’—working people for his destructive, ‘all-conquering’ military cam- paigns. The jury agree that Lucullus’ only worthwhile contributions to the lives of ordinary people were the introduction of cherry trees into Europe and—as the Cook attests—a brief intervention in the kitchen. In the role of Cook, Nii’s testimony in favor of Lucullus, delivered with clarity in a down-to-earth manner, included the lines “even while waging war / He found time to discover a recipe for cooking fish […] gave me a word of praise / And himself mixed a dish. / Lamb à la Lucullus/ Made our kitchen famous.” The condemnation of Lucullus—despite the recognition that he contributed in small ways to the arts of peace and the betterment of existence—was followed by the thought- provoking Chalk Circle, which, partly through the ‘natural justice’ administered by the maverick ‘accidental judge’ Azdak, presents a radical argument about

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392946_016 278 Gibbs ownership: viz. that “what there is should belong to those that are good for it.” A company of eleven put on that play and the hard-working Nii trebled as a Doctor, a Soldier, and a Lawyer! That meant a lot of ‘running around’, but Nii was good at movement, and he had, even then and in abundance, the qualities embodied by the Legon 7’s adinkra emblem of choice—Nkyin-Kyin, a symbol of versatility, of the ability to undertake many functions and play many parts. The production Chalk Circle was part of a program that was taken to Winneba, Cape Coast, and Kumasi, and Nii, an ever-positive, always helpful member of the company, was part of that tour. Eager to be involved with creative endeavors, he had additional experience of taking theatre off-campus as a member of the Legon Road Theatre that Mohammed Ben-Abdallah had founded. Thanks to photographs, I have distinct images of Nii’s performance as ‘An Admirer’ in the production that followed the Brecht evening: The Leader, by Eugène Ionesco. In selecting that play, I was picking up a text that had caused controversy when it had been put on at Legon during the early 1960s. The first time round, Ionesco’s take on leadership cults had made audiences feel un- easy and people had walked out of performances in case their tolerance of a subversive approach was interpreted to suggest they were not loyal to Kwame Nkrumah. At the end of the 1960s, the national mood/security situation/political atmosphere was different: in Kofi Busia’s Ghana there was not only freedom of expression but also liberty to watch—and be seen to watch—a brisk, absurdist piece that mocked a personality cult. The Leader defiantly inverts expectations, and makes use of choreographed gestures that were, as might be expected, Nii’s forte. When the Leader—a role taken by Ben-Abdallah— eventually puts in an appearance, he has no head. However, the absence of a head does not inhibit adulation in Ionesco’s wild world, and any shortcomings that might accompany headlessness are brushed aside with the question “who needs a head when you have genius?” Ionesco’s short and jaunty piece had local relevance—as the walk-out by audience members had indicated—and the Legon 7 production emphasized this by establishing links with the tradition of the Concert Party through the style of makeup used. Mohammed Ben-Abdallah wore a jacket to play the Leader! I have added an exclamation mark there because he is famous for favoring a Ghana-inspired wardrobe. In this, and quite a lot else, Mohammed and Nii—still known as ‘Francis’ at that time but on the way to letting that alien prénom shrivel into an initial—both made Africanist points. Incidentally, I am happy to mention Nii and Mohammed in the same breath once again because I think their collaboration as students proved important for the way they worked together in Nii: A Recollection on Obits 279 subsequent decades. Looking back, I like to think the dialogue about leadership initiated by Brecht and Ionesco contributed to the way they accepted the responsibilities of leadership that settled on their shoulders. The cast of Chalk Circle also included Cecilia Amponsah—who became Mrs Abdallah—and Patience Addo, the invaluable stage manager for the Legon 7, whom I married and who is still by my side more than ‘forty years on’. It is appropriate to mention at this point that Patience had been recruited as a Research Assistant in 1962 when the Ghana Dance Ensemble (GDE) started. She shared the excitement of the creation of the Ensemble and worked with the people charged with building the nation through the arts. By the end of the 1960s, she had moved from a research role to complete qualifications in the School of Drama, and had gone from there into school teaching. As can be imagined, she has shared and shaped my apprehension of the world of Ghanaian dance. Seen from a distance, the Ensemble and the School of Music and Drama (later ‘School of Performing Arts’, SPA) may have given the impression of being tranquil places, but a closer view reveals that they were turbulent environments inhabited by strong characters with basic differences of background, and with different agendas. These differences have sometimes been glossed over. For example, I note that when Nii was interviewed about his student days, he mentioned the influence of both Mawere Opoku and Drid Williams. He did not draw attention—why should he?—to the strongly contrasted approaches of those two scholars and choreographers as to how Ghana’s dance culture should be staged. Nii’s abilities were recognized early on. While a student doing the Certificate in Dance, he was identified as a suitable successor to Opoku as Artistic Director of the Ensemble, and awarded a scholarship to do postgraduate work at the University of Illinois. After completing a Master’s degree there, he returned to Legon, where promotion was so rapid that just about a year later he succeeded Opoku! Nii justified the confidence of those who had appointed him and showed he was capable of succeeding the man he referred to as ‘The Master’. (Incidentally, the respect implied by this term should not be taken to suggest that Nii was a clone of the older man. Indeed, there were very significant aesthetic differences between them, and these found expression in the way the Ensemble, and later the National Dance Company, performed for Nii.) This is not the place—and I am not the person—to write the history of drama, dance, and dance-drama at Legon but, even in the late 1960s, there were signs of tension, or ‘creative differences’, at Legon. One only has to look at what happened in the School to realize that titans were clashing. As an 280 Gibbs

Instructor at Legon in 1968, I had wondered why students from the School of Music and Drama found their way to a group run by a British bloke in Mensah Sarbah Hall, and a little later I wondered why Joe de Graft left the School he was dedicated to in order to work in Kenya. During the 1970s, I suspected that Nii’s choice of career had pitched him into shark-infested waters. However, I only watched from a distance; I dropped in at Legon on brief family visits to Ghana, and saw Nii as a wonderfully creative and positive presence. In 1994, on a longer visit to Ghana during which I taught at what had become the School of Performing Arts (SPA), I visited Nii in his office at the newly built National Theatre. The fact that there was a National Theatre building and that Nii had an office there was the result of major developments that had involved both Mohammed and Nii. The developments had included the bifurcation of the Dance Ensemble, and, from our conversations, I recognized how traumatic the division of the Ensemble had been, how firmly the separation had been driven through, and how many lives had been affected. I also got a sense of the hard decisions Nii had had to take: with me he could be relaxed and easy-going, but there were more difficult relationships, and sometimes he had to impose strict discipline. He told me about the problems created by dancers absconding while on overseas tours, speaking particularly about those who had stayed on in Canada. This issue opened up a vast topic and brought home to me the very limited opportunities for creative people in Ghana. Artists who had been selected to dance with a national company and traveled abroad were sorely tempted to ‘take a chance’ or ‘seize an opportunity’ to ‘disappear’ into the black economies of countries where ‘pastures were greener’. When, in the course of going through his CV, I learned that Nii had been responsible for ceremonies linked with international sporting events in Ghana, I was reminded of these conversations and of the importance of versatility— or, for some, of a willingness to moonlight. In Ghana, even ‘a whole artistic director’ had to be willing to operate in different contexts, rise to unexpected challenges, and turn his hand to new tasks. The involvement with sporting events—and the often critical response to the ceremonies he directed—also reminded me of what a political minefield a choreographer enters when creating a celebration in which a variety of conventions are employed. One person’s Opening Ceremony is another’s ‘glorification’ of one part or other of the Ghanaian mosaic; one person’s National Celebration is another’s statement of ‘tribalistic cultural hegemony’. It takes the wisdom of Solomon—or Azdak from The Caucasian Chalk Circle—to be ‘fair to all’ and to convince bystanders that “what there is belongs to those that are good for it.” Those involved in the Nii: A Recollection on Obits 281 creation of ‘statements’ of Ghanaian culture have repeatedly been criticized, and have had to grow thick skins in order to survive. While my main contacts with Nii over the years were on visits to Ghana, I was aware of his work outside the country. For example, I caught a glimpse of him as a choreographer when he took a program to Cardiff, near the town in which my parents lived. I was delighted to see that he had forged a distinctive language of dance in which he could contribute to debates on contemporary issues, and I was impressed by the confidence with which he directed: the Ensemble simply took control of the stage in St David’s Hall. I was also aware that he had worked in the UK on a very different level—one that had also involved my wife. This came about because the response to riots that shook a number of British cities during 1980 included reaching out to frustrated youth through African dance. In Bristol this meant the creation of Ekomé and the employment of dance teachers including Patience Addo Gibbs, and in Birmingham Nii was involved with somewhat similar projects. While working there, and in London, sometimes in collaborative ventures, he made contributions to the promotion of African dance in the UK that have been recognized—but have yet to be assessed. I last saw Nii in 2012 when we were both attending an event at Legon where he was once again working. I found he was as positive as usual, but, I now realize, he must have found it difficult to move back to the University and to the Ensemble. Considerable acrimony had been generated by the bifurcation of the Ensemble and by what some saw as his ‘desertion’ to the National Theatre: his return to Legon to work with ‘the rump’ of the Ensemble must have created many tense situations. By that time, I had heard about Noyam, the African Dance Institute Nii had established in Dodowa in 1998. It had been built, I understood, with money earned abroad and had grown partly because of Nii’s charisma and his links with overseas universities. It is a remarkable example of what can be achieved with ability, determination, and vision, and a notable contribution to the cultivation of the arts of peace. My wife, whose home town is on the Akuapem Ridge, was keen to expose the young people there to Nii’s work and wanted Noyam to conduct workshops in the town. When I mentioned this to Nii, he was enthusiastic, and when I asked how much money would be involved, he waved me aside, saying that Noyam would not charge. He did not explain why, but I felt he was looking back to the friendship forged—and the work undertaken—at Legon in the late 1960s. In fact, the initial attempts to establish a link between Noyam and Abiriw were overtaken by events—or, rather, they were overtaken by one decisive 282 Gibbs event, for when Nii traveled to India with members of the Ensemble toward the end of 2015 he was summoned to continue his journey to that “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.” Nii has joined the ancestors, but it is to be hoped that the custodians of his legacy at Dodowa and elsewhere will ensure that he will not follow Lucullus into oblivion; his many contributions to the arts of peace should continue to be recognized and celebrated. CHAPTER 15 Memories of Kofi Awoonor in Texas

Bernth Lindfors

I first met Kofi Awoonor through his poetry, the first volume of which— Rediscovery, and Other Poems—had been published by Mbari in Nigeria in 1964. He came to the USA several years later to work on a doctorate at SUNY Stony Brook, and I vaguely recall having had a chance to chat with him at an African Studies Association conference in 1969 or 1970. However, I didn’t really get to know him better until he came to the University of Texas at Austin in November 1971 to deliver a public lecture on “The Relationship between Oral and Written Literatures in Africa,” the topic of his dissertation. By then he had published, with Doubleday in New York, his second volume of verse, Night of My Blood, and an experimental novel, This Earth, My Brother, and he was beginning to attract international critical attention. He was staying at my house, so we had plenty of time to talk, and when he agreed to put some of his thoughts on tape, I assembled a small group of graduate students so we could grill him as a team. He spoke eloquently and at length not only about his own works in English and Ewe but also about writings by a wide range of African, British, Caribbean, and Indian authors. He also tackled several questions on negritude, art for art’s sake, social and political commitment, and writing in exile. He had strong views on all these matters, and he spoke with convincing authority.1 He returned to Austin the following spring to participate in a meeting of the African Literature Committee of the African Studies Association, whose members included Daniel Kunene (Chair), Dennis Brutus, Sunday Anozie, Joseph Okpaku, Nancy Schmidt, Kofi, and myself. Several graduate students—Richard Priebe, Reinhard Sander, and Ian Munro—attended the sessions as well. The minutes of that meeting stated:

The Committee also discussed the possibility of establishing an African Literature Association which would hold its own annual conference on a different university campus each year. Though there was support for the

1 The full interview is included in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. Bernth Lindfors, Ian Munro, Richard Priebe, and Reinhard Sander (Austin: African and Afro- American Research Institute, University of Texas at Austin, 1972): 42–64.

idea of forming such an association, there was a general feeling that the suggestion was perhaps premature. The potential interest in such an association could be tested at annual NDEA-sponsored conferences, if such could be organized.2

A month later, when Kunene reported to the ASA Board of Directors that his Committee had considered the question of forming a separate African Literature Association, several members of the Board expressed concern that a new, specialized organization would draw members away from the ASA by forcing them to choose between attending ASA or ALA conferences. The Board clearly did not relish the prospect. Members of the Literature Committee, however, continued to entertain the idea as a viable possibility. They had been energized by their discussions and camaraderie at their meeting, one extracurricular highlight of which was an epic ping-pong battle between Awoonor and Brutus, both of whom were adept, exuberant players. The following year I went off to conduct research in Nigeria, and the English Department at UT agreed to hire Kofi as my replacement. There he and Priebe formed a strong bond of friendship that continued throughout the years that followed, in Ghana as well as in the United States. During their time together in Austin, they fished, feasted, and continued talking about the possibility of forming an ALA. When I returned from Nigeria, I learned that Kofi, at a fare- well party held on the grounds of his apartment complex, had slaughtered and roasted a goat, a traditional ritual that violated city ordinances but was greatly enjoyed by his guests, if not by some of his neighbors. In the fall of 1973 Priebe and Tom Hale, a colleague at Penn State, polled literary scholars attending the ASA conference in Syracuse to see if they fa- vored the idea of forming an African Literature Association. Encouraged by the results of their survey, they scheduled an organizational meeting at the next ASA conference in Chicago that culminated in the formation of a Steering Committee, led by Brutus, to draft a constitution that could be debated and ratified at an inaugural conference in Austin scheduled for March 1975 to coincide with a Symposium on Contemporary Black South African Literature. Kofi heartily applauded these developments and readily accepted an invitation to respond to keynote addresses on African oral literatures by Mazisi Kunene and Dan Kunene at the opening panel of the Symposium. When he spoke, he again took up the issue of the relationship between oral and written literatures, noting first that there are terminological difficulties that arise when

2 ASA Newsletter (June 1972): 20–22. Memories of Kofi Awoonor in Texas 285 discussing traditional oral genres in different parts of Africa because each is influenced by its own specific social context, by the immediate political and historical conditions under which it exists. He went on to ask:

What do we do with these so-called oral traditions in the process of forg- ing a new social and political consciousness? My suggestion is that we look, for example, at the dramatic modes employed in the oral narrative style, at how a performer in a community dramatizes his presentation and thereby underscores the argument that he is making. One can also examine his poetic techniques. The oral poet can talk. Why can’t we make use of his talents on the radio or on the stage?

He also confirmed a point made by Mazisi Kunene, that oral literature is dynamic, not static, and that it requires a deep understanding of the language in which it was originally uttered, not just the language into which it has been translated. He concluded by emphasizing that “as our poets and writers develop, they must remain aware of the community’s needs, even while striving to retain their own individuality. […] That’s partly why they are poets; they are at times like diviners or priests who go before the community and explore and explode its personality.”3 This was a fine contribution, complementing the views expressed by the Kunenes, and adding a West African dimension to the discussion. In the question session that followed, Kofi expanded on some of his remarks and addressed a number of other matters raised by the audience. One of the friends Kofi made at UT was the distinguished poet Christopher Middleton, who subsequently invited him back to campus to participate in an international poetry festival, at which he read some of his poems in both English and Ewe. I remember one Ewe poem in particular in which there were effective onomatopoietic renderings of drum rhythms which contrasted sharply with the weak “boom, boom, boom” equivalents offered in the English translation. Nothing illustrated better the enhanced resources available in the oral poetry of an indigenous African language. When Kofi returned to Ghana in 1975, he became involved in national politics, which almost immediately earned him a ten-month term in prison, initially on unspecified charges. His friends and associates in Austin sent a petition

3 A full transcript of the proceedings of the Symposium was published in the ASA’s journal Issue 6.1 (Winter 1976) and later was reissued in a revised and augmented form in Contem- porary Black South African Literature: A Symposium, ed. Bernth Lindfors (Washington DC: Three Continents Press, 1985), in which Awoonor’s contribution appears on pp. 10–12. 286 Lindfors to Ghanaian authorities protesting his imprisonment, but to no avail. A few years after his release, he published another volume of poetry, The House by the Sea (1978), which included lyrics inspired by his detention, and he later brought out a memoir, The Ghana Revolution: A Background Account from a Personal Perspective (1984), as well as a book of his reflections on Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times (1990).4 From 1990 to 1994 Kofi served as Ghana’s Ambassador to the United Nations. It was during this period that I held a fellowship for a term at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, an archive in Harlem. To save on living expenses I rented a room in a house in New Rochelle and commuted to New York almost daily to carry out my research. I knew Kofi was then in the UN, and I longed to get in touch with him, but I thought he would be far too busy with affairs of state to see me, so I resisted the impulse to seek him out in his office. It was only after I left to return to Austin that I learned that the Ghanaian Embassy was located in New Rochelle, only a few blocks from where I was staying! I probably could have called upon him there and been able to spend some time with him again. It is one of those heartbreaking lost opportunities that I continue to regret, especially now when it is no longer possible to enjoy his convivial company. Kofi was a great friend, an excellent poet, and an articulate spokesman for his country and continent. He also should be remembered and honored for having played an important role as one of the founders and supporters of the African Literature Association, especially in its earliest stages of evolution.

4 For an excellent survey of Awoonor’s life and writings, see Kofi Anyidoho, “Kofi Awoonor,” in Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers, First Series, vol. 117, ed. Bernth Lindfors & Reinhard Sander (Detroit MI & London: Gale Research, 1992): 77–92. CHAPTER 16 Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu: A Tribute

Helen Lauer

Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu (1938–2016) was a leading expert in the morphology, phonology, syntax, and semantic history of several West African languages as a group. In particular she was an authority on Ga/Dangme and Gurene, and a seminal contributor to analysis of Dagomba, Farifari, Klana, Twi, Ewe, and Lomé. Yet, despite her rigor and influence in the technical literature of linguistics, she was just as much a cultural historian, a sociolinguist, a hermeneutic anthropologist, and a literary theorist. Hers was the first, and remains for some specialists the definitive, interpretation of the twentieth century’s celebrated novelist Kojo Laing—whose prose works are so enigmatic he was once dubbed West Africa’s James Joyce. In her private life, Mary Esther expressed her creativity in pencil and watercolor, and she enjoyed contributing on the piano to informal Baroque ensembles for regular private recitals throughout her life in Accra. Influenced by her early tutelage with the famous American anthropologist Marvin Harris, she wrote essays in the same narrative style as the one contributed to this volume, addressing cultural motifs, social and political concerns emerging in the folk tales, oratory, proverbial speech, religious performance canons, and social histories of those communities whose languages she analyzed and depicted with scientific precision. Her corpus comprises premier dictionaries, definitive grammars, and language fact sheets, on the one hand, and reflective social commentaries, on the other. One of these unique narratives expanded into a seminal book about the sociological and linguistic history of Accra, Korle Meets the Sea (Oxford University Press, 1997). But this is only one of her several seminal books that remain must-read primary texts on both sides of the linguist/literary theoretical divide. As well as being a regular figure in the rarefied atmosphere of cross-cultural specialization in African languages, Professor Kropp Dakubu was so essential to more than one faculty over her forty-four years at the University of Ghana that shortly after her retirement she was appointed to Emerita status, in 2010. Professor Kropp Dakubu began her appointments at the University of Ghana in 1964 as a Research Fellow in the renowned Institute of African Studies (IAS), the first of its kind on the continent, four years before receiving her

PhD in African languages from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. She remained a pillar of the Institute and most influen- tially served as the editor in chief of all its publications, and transformed the Research Review into a journal which raised the standard of Africana literature internationally. She continued to serve as chief editor of this and other linguistics journals in West Africa, as well as directing the publications unit of the IAS for years after her retirement, when she was also appointed by the Vice-Chancellor in 2012 to be chief editor of the University of Ghana’s flag- ship Departmental Reader series, which included volumes from across all the faculties. As well as directing the Language Centre of the University, she wrote a wide range of modules for academic writing; these remain a template for remedial coaching of trainers in the genre. Her appointment by the American Council of Learned Societies to the African Humanities Programme was germane to the training of young doctoral graduates and ABD candidates across Africa to an international standard. She was the first female full professor to be inducted as a Fellow into the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1990. Index

Ablorh-Odjidja, J. R. 260 Akan belief system 105–108, 110–112 abolitionism 28 Akan culture 39–40 Aboriginals, Australian 30 Akan language 225, 246, 254, 273 Aboya, Victor 256, 265 Akan people, and language use 255 Abraham, William E. 111 Akosa, Badu A. 58 abstraction 23–24, 176, 189 Akuapem dialect 255–256, 265 academic discourse 3, 6, 53, 57, 74, 197–198, Albakry, Mohammed A., & Dominic M. 203, 209, 215–216 Ofori 231 academic writing 6, 197, 216 Al-Jazeera 149 acceptability conditions 197 alterity 1 Accra, and social deprivation 78 Aluede, Charles O., & Esther O. Oluede 128 Accra, as matrix for language situation 225 Amanor, Kojo 50, 57 Accra, social degradation in 79 Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji 28 acculturation 123–124, 133, 216 Ameka, Felix, & Mary Esther Kropp Achebe, Chinua 221, 223–224 Dakubu 263 acrolectal language use 228–229, 232–233, Amekor, Collins Kwabla 231 246 Amenga-Etego, Rose Mary 123 activism, imaginative 2, 14–15, 25, 142 American English, status of in Ghana 236 Ada dialect 263 American studies 144 Adams, Bodomo, Jemima A. Anderson & Amnesty International 149 Dzahene Quarshie 222 Amoako, Joseph K. Y. B. 237 Addae-Mensah, Ivan 48, 63 Amu, Ephraim 83, 89–90 Addo Gibbs, Patience 281 Amuzu, Evershed K. 230–231 Adeleke, Tunde 148 analytic philosophy 2, 14 adequacy conditions 197 Anderson, Elizabeth 51 Adika, Gordon S. K. 199, 213–214 Angelou, Maya 146 Adika, Gordon S. K. & G. Owusu- Anlo agriculture 40 Sekyere 198, 202 Annan, Kofi 141 Adjei-Tuadzra, Amma Abrafi 241 Anozie, Sunday 283 Adzei, Senyoh 128 anthropology 29, 40, 95–96, 103, 173–174, 192 Afful, Joseph Benjamin Archibald 199 Anyidoho, Akosua, & Mary Esther Kropp African crisis 39 Dakubu 222, 225 African Literature Association 283–284, Anyidoho, Kofi 20, 28, 286 286 Aowin language 255 African Music Research Party (Nigeria) 89 Arhin, Vera E. M. 199 African personality 34 Armah, Ayi Kwei 233 African studies 2, 11, 44, 46–48, 63, 66, Arthur-Shoba, Jo, Kari Dako & Elizabeth 69–71, 84, 87, 91, 93, 136, 138, 149, Quartey 231, 236 171–174, 192 Asante 87, 198, 218–220, 255, 265 African Studies Association 283 Asante language 256 African Union 28, 146 Asante, Mabel Yeboah 198 Agyeman, Fred 89 Ashanti 35, 44, 87, 110, 118, 121, 155, 158–159, Ahanta language 255 227, 231, 248, 250, 256 Ajayi, J. F. Ade, Lameck K. H. Goma & Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths & Helen G. Ampah Johnson 46 Tiffin 224 290 Index assimilation, cultural 8 British Empire 83, 221 Atiemo, George 224, 230 British Standard English 225–227 Auer, Peter 232 broken English 226, 228 autonomy 3, 32, 37, 43, 53, 65, 258, 261, Brown, John 27 265 Bruku, Beatrice Oforiwa 236 Avorgbedor, Daniel 130 Brutus, Dennis 283–284 Awoonor, Kofi 5, 8, 30, 139, 150, 283, 286 Burkina Faso 174, 177, 179–180, 265 Busia, K. A. 110 Bahá’u’lláh 19 Baiden, Alfred Ben 241 Cabral, Amilcar 142 Ballanta, George 90 Cape Coast 34, 37, 126, 128, 238 Balme, David 41 Caribbean Dance Company 75 banking, education as 20 Carnegie Foundation 216 Baran, Paul 122 Carter, Curtis 73 Bartolovich, Crystal 27 Casely Hayford, J. E. 3, 33–38 basilectal language use 228–229, 233 Castells, Manuel 239 Bauer, Henry H. 50, 57, 60 castes 11 Baule language 257 Catholicism 180, 231, 270 Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The (Brecht) (Armah) 233 277–280 Becquart, Pierre, Nadia Wanquier, Dieudonné Centre for National Culture (Tamale) 132 Nkoghe et al. 60 Checker, Chubby 130 Beloved (Morrison) 24 choreography 72, 75, 131–132, 278–279 Ben-Abdallah, Mohammed 278, 280 Christaller, Johannes Gottlieb 7, 255–257 Benzell, Seth G. et al. 45, 66 Christianity 6, 32–33, 35, 39, 42, 89, 103, Bia languages 255, 257 105–107, 113–114, 142, 148, 172, 175–177, bilingualism 229 180, 192, 256 Birifor dialect 269–270 christianization 6, 34, 177 Birla Institute for Technology and Christiansborg 261 Science 20 Chronic Poverty Research Project Birla, G. D. 20 (CPRC) 154 Black Nationalism 35 Cicero 22, 41 Black Studies 147 citation protocols 198, 205, 213–215 Black, Richard 61 Civil War, American 28 Blacking, John 92 class sizes 200, 215 Blinkards, The (Sekyi) 36–37 code-switching 229–231, 246 Blom, Jan-Petter, & John J. Gumperz 231 cognitive damage 20 Blyden, Edward Wilmot 34–35 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 16–17 Bognolo, Daniela 185 Collins, John 125–126, 128, 130, 132 Bolgatanga 265, 267–269 colonialism 2–6, 14, 19, 22, 32, 34–35, 37, 40, Bongo 265, 267–268 48, 73, 81, 83, 88–90, 103–104, 114–115, Bonnie, Richard 233 121, 127, 129, 141, 171–172, 174–175, 180, Booni dialect 265–267, 269, 271 221–223, 239, 264, 268 Bourdieu, Pierre 176 colonization 22, 32, 35, 103, 122, 175, 179 Brecht, Bertolt 277–279 colonization, cultural 175 Brew-Daniels, Josephine 231 communalism 108–109 Bridgstock, Ruth 46 communicative practices 6, 197, 202–203, Brint, Steven, Mark Riddle et al. 46 216 Index 291 communitarianism 109 Davis, Peter 154 Comte, Auguste 121 Davos 21 Confucianism 39 de Graft, Joe 280 conquest, European 2, 32–33, 221 decolonization 2–3, 7, 103–104, 115, 171–172, consensus 103, 106, 115–118 175, 223–224 Convention Peoples Party (Ghana) 129, democracy 1, 5, 12–13, 18, 20, 37, 47, 82, 103, 131 114, 141, 148 coping strategies, domestic, in Ghana 152, Devi, Mahasweta 11, 16 166 Devisch, René 189 Corum, Micah 243 Di Leo, Jeffrey 1 cosmopolitanism 21–22, 56, 62 dialect 7, 179, 225, 240, 250, 254–258, Côte d’Ivoire 179 263–265, 267–272 Council on Values 21 Dickson. Kwesi A. 110 Cox, Robert W. 51 dispossession 3 CPRC 154–155 Djebar, Assia 28 creative arts 88, 98; see also: dance, dogma 107, 110 ethnomusicology Dolphyne, Florence Abena, & Mary E. Kropp Criper, Lindsay 229 Dakubu 255 critical, intimacy 14 dominant culture 2–3, 25, 42, 57, 220, 224, Cudd, Ann E. 54 237 culturalism, unexamined 19, 22 Donoghue, Frank 1 culture, as dynamic phenomenon 29 Doss, Cheryl, Abena D. Oduro et al. 153 culture, as performance 30 Douglass, Frederick 27 culture, global 3, 237 drama 81, 84, 89–90, 96, 279 culture, Indian 16 drum dances 121, 132 Cutler, A. Claire 58 drumming 4 Du Bois, W. E. B. 28–29, 146 Dagaare language 254, 257–258, 264–266, Dumor, Komla 236 269–273 Durkheim, Émile 121 Dagara knowledge systems 171, 194 Dworkin, Ronald 49 Dagara language 6, 62–63, 70, 171–174, 177–187, 189, 193–194, 196, 269–273 Echevin, Damien, & Luis Tejerina 153 Dagara people 5–6 Eckert, Penelope 238 Dagara sacred art 171, 194 education 3, 14, 18–19, 37, 42, 72 Dagbani language 265 education, colonial 2, 34 Dagbon kingdom 128–129, 131–133 education, Indian 18, 38 Dako, Kari 232, 237, 241 education, in India 13 Dako, Kari, & Millicent Akosua education, university 197, 216 Quarcoo 224 education, Western 174–175 Dako, Kari, & Richard Bonnie 238–239 El Salvador 153 Dalits 28 Ellis, A. B. 33 dance 4, 72, 85, 277, 279 Enahoro, Peter 149 dance-drama 279 endogamy 28 Dangme language 254, 257–258, 263–266, English as a foreign language 227 272 English as a native language 227 Danish Development Agency 75 English as a second language 11, 18, 215 Danquah, John Boakye 110 English for Academic Purposes (EAP) 199 Davies, Brad 46 English language 16 292 Index

English language, status of 6 Ga language 61, 63, 77, 120, 124, 130–131, English, presence and status in Ghana 220, 133, 225, 230–232, 242–246, 251, 254, 225, 228, 233 257–266, 273 Enlightenment 20, 64 Gaba, Christian R. 177 epistemic identity 4, 103 Galbraith, John Kenneth 42–43 epistemology 5, 21, 96 Galtung, Johan 6, 171, 175, 221, 227 error analysis 199; by students 206, 208; Gandhi, Mahatma 28 by teachers 203, 205 Garvey, Marcus 35 essay form 140 Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 145 Etherton, Michael 89 gender 14, 19, 29, 224 ethical singularity 11–12, 22 Gensler, Harry J. 108 Ethiopia 153 gesture, physical, meaning of 79 Ethiopia Unbound (Casely Hayford) 33, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation 98 37–38 Ghana Dance Ensemble 80, 84, 279 Ethiopianism 35 Ghana Health Service 79 ethnography 6, 40, 94–95, 121, 171–174, 176, Ghana Living Standard Survey 222 179, 180, 193 Ghanaian English 6–7, 220, 246 ethnology 95–96, 173 Ghanaian English, American influence on ethnomusicology 88, 98, 121 237 Euro-Africans 34 Ghanaian Pidgin English 220, 224, 237–238, eurocentrism 120–121, 133–134 240–244 evaluative language 210 Ginsberg, Allen 147 evangelization 180 Giovanni, Nikki 147 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 177 Githiora, Chege 240 evidentiary perspective 15–16, 22, 24 Glaxo Smith Kline 59 Ewe 7, 33, 44, 120, 128–136, 230, 241, 254, Global Agenda Council 21 256, 263, 265 global citizenship 16 exoticism 173–174 globalization 48, 68, 70–71, 86, 124 experiential knowledge 4, 6, 8 glocalization 120, 124 Gluckman, Max 125 Fanon, Frantz 142, 223–224 Gold Coast (= Ghana) 32, 34–35, 37, 41, 83, Fante language 255–257 220 Fante people 35–36; and language Goldman, Alvin I., & James C. Cox 49 use 255 Goody, Jack 185–186 Farefari language 254, 257, 264–265, 268, Goody, Jack, & S. W. D. K. Gandah 186 272 Görlach, Manfred 226–227 Fenrich, Jeanmarie, Tracy E. Higgins 166 Gøtzsche, Peter 50, 60 Ferguson, Charles 229 Goyvaerts, Didier L. 240 Forson, Barnabas 230, 237–238, 242, 245 Grafton, Anthony 26 Fourah Bay College 34 grammar, polylectal 7, 254–255, 257–258, Frank, André Gunder 122 264, 267–269, 272 Freire, Paulo 20 Gramsci, Antonio 11–12 French Revolution 17 Grosjean, François 231 Fricker, Miranda 3, 8, 51, 54 Grusi languages 264 Friedman, Marilyn 62 Guinea, and dance 85 Frimpong, Abena Abrefi 241 Gumperz, John 231 Fuller, Steve 52 Gurene language 265–269, 271, 256 Index 293

Gur languages 257 Kachru, Braj B. 226–227, 246 Gyasi, Ibrahim Kwaku 227 Kagame, Alexis 176–177 Gyekye, Kwame 109, 115 Kant, Immanuel 20, 25, 108 Kayvu, Paul 125 habitus (Bourdieu) 175 Kenya 125, 137, 139, 221, 223, 240 Hakluyt, Richard 220 Kiesling, Scott 239 Hale, Tom 284 Kiessling, Roland, & Maarten Mous 240 Halliday, M. A. K. 238–239 Kilcullen, David 56 Hampton, Barbara 124 Kirby, John P. 232 Harris, Marvin 287 Kirstein, Lincoln 83 healing, Dagara 6, 62, 175, 178–180, 182, Klu, E. K. 198 185–186, 190–191 knowledge production 1, 3, 45, 48–49, Healy, David 50 53–54, 64, 181 Heller, Marius 231 knowledge systems, African 43, 171, 192–193 hermeneutical hegemony 3, 54 knowledge traditions 3, 39–40, 56 hermeneutical injustice 3, 54 Kodie, Frimpong 233, 236 highlife 125–126, 128–130, 133 Koranteng, Louisa 228, 233 history, as core discipline 38 Kotei, Nii Amon 259 homogenization 3 Krobo dialect 263 Hornbostel, Erich von 121 Kronman, Anthony T. 1 Horton, Robin 39, 177 Kropp Dakubu, Mary Esther 8, 220, 225, household strategies 5 227, 238, 258–260, 262–263, 266, 270 Huber, Magnus 220, 226, 236–238, 246 Kube-Barth, Sabine 240 human condition 1, 4, 7, 54, 72, 74, 148 Kubik, Gerhard 125 Human Development Index 12, 26 Kunene, Daniel 283–284 human rights 13, 57 Kunene, Mazisi 284–285 Human Rights Watch 149 Kuti, Fela 141 Hyde, Faustina B. 198 Kwapong, Alexander A. 41 Hyland, Ken 197, 202–203, 208, 210, 213, 215 Laban, Rudolf von 74 idiolect 7, 254, 256–257, 260–261, 265 language purity 7, 256 Idowu, Bolaji 177 language use 5 imperialism 121, 143, 227 language, and memory 16 Independence, Indian 17, 20 language, political dimension of 7 indigenization 7, 124–126, 224, 226 languages, Australian Aboriginal 30 inferiority complex, cultural 2, 32, 34 languages, indigenous 7, 19, 38–39 Institute of African Studies 40–41, 47, 58, languaging 5, 237, 239–240 63, 84, 128–129, 172, 263, 258 Lartey, Lawrencia Lamiley 231 intellectual property 63, 65–66, 215 Lauer, Helen 39–40 Intestate Succession Law 165 Le Page, Robert B., & Andrée Tabouret- intimacy, critical 2, 12–13, 15, 21, 24 Keller 237, 239 intimacy, cultural 2, 11 Leader, The (Ionesco) 278 Ionesco, Eugène 278 lecturing styles 201 isomorphism 19, 21 liberal arts 3, 53 life cycle, Dagara 191 Jaggar, Alison M. 62 life-cycle, Dagara 185 Jones, A. M. 121 Lincoln, Otoo 130 294 Index lingua franca 225 Morrison, Toni 24 linguistics 11, 14, 18, 185, 173, 203, 220, 246, Mothsegoa, Lebo 240 263, 266, 270 movement-thinking 74 literacy 12–13, 18, 26 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 41 Little, Kenneth 130 Mulago gwa Cikala, M. Vincent 176 Liu, Alan 54 Mulago, Vincent 177 Lloyd-Jones, Hughes 112 multilingualism 221, 239 multiple modernities 120, 123–124, 133 MacIntyre, Alisdair 51 Munro, Ian 283 Mailer, Norman 147 Musa, Adamu 199 Mante, A. Amu 259 music 4, 42 Marcus, George E., & Micheal M. J. music, neotraditional, in Ghana 120, 135 Fischer 94 Myers-Scotton, Carol 231 marginalization 1–2, 239 Martí, José 143 Nabdam people 268 Martin, John 83 Nabt language 268 Mbiti, John S. 176–177 Nandy, Ashis 48 McArthur, Tom 226–227 Nankani 265–269 McCoy, Remigius F. 177 Nankani language 265 McGill, Stuart, Samuel Fembeti & Mike National Dance Company (Guinea) 85 Toupin 272 National Dance Company of Ghana 75, 80, McLaughlin, Fiona 240 85, 279 medicine, African 5–6, 49, 58–59, 63, 70, 83, National Democratic Congress (Ghana) 123, 171, 173, 177, 181–182, 184, 190–191, 81 194 national identity 4, 5, 52, 132, 135 Mensah, J. H. 39 national language 7, 222, 256 mesolectal language use 228–229, 233 nationalism 7, 13–14, 132, 257, 272 Meyer, Piet, Isabelle Wettstein & Brigitte nativism 148 Kauf 185 neoliberalism 84 MiDA zone 155–156 neo-traditionalism 4, 134 Middle Passage 5 Nettey, R. C. 231 Middleton, Christopher 285 Neurath, Otto 62 Miehe, Gudrun, Jonathan Owens & Manfred New Englishes 224–226 von Roncador 240 New Patriotic Party (Ghana) 81 Millennium Development Authority 155 Newcomb, Horace 124 Millennium Development Goals 47, 51, Newcomb, Theodore 123 58 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 48, 221, 223 Ministry of Youth and Sports (Ghana) 81 Nicoletti, Giuseppe 122 Mireku-Gyimah, Patricia Beatrice 198 Nigeria 159 Mitchell, J. Clyde 125 Nii-Yartey, Francis 3–4, 8, 135, 277, 282 Modern Languages Association of Nketia, J. H. Kwabena 83, 89, 121, 125 America 27 Nkrumah, Kwame 35, 40–41, 128–129, modernization 35, 120, 122–123, 133, 178 131–132, 141–143, 146–147, 172, 175, 222, Modiano, Marko 226–227 257 Momoh, C. S. 107 Noyam Dance Institute 80 Monash University 210 Ntshangase, Dumisani Krishchev 240 monogamy 37 Nuatro, John 129 Moravec, Hans 46 numeracy 26 Index 295

Nussbaum, Martha 1, 3, 53 Pterodactyl (Devi) 11–13, 16–17 Nzema language 255, 257, 265 Pythagoras 42 Nzema people 257 Quagie, John Kumah 198 Oguah, Benjamin Ewuku 112 Quarcoo, Millicent 230–231 Ogunde, Herbert 89–90 Okpaku, Joseph 283 race 28 onto-phenomenology 14–16, 28 racism 29 Opoku, Albert Mawere 83, 279 racism, European 33, 39 Osei-Boateng, Clara, & Edward radio stations in Ghana, influence on Ampratwum 55 language usage 228, 236 Osei-Tutu, Kwaku 241, 244 Rampton, Sheldon, & John Stauber 50 othering 3 Ranger, Terence O. 125 Owusu-Ansah, L. K. 227 Rapp, Eugen Ludwig 256, 265 Rattray, Robert Sutherland 265 pan Africanism 146 Received Pronunciation 233–234, 236 Parker, Charlie 113 religion 4–5, 38, 62–63, 70, 82, 104–114, patrilinealism 19, 183 144, 171–173, 177, 179, 181–182, 185–186, performative, the 29–30, 95, 193 192–193 philosophy 3, 8, 11, 13, 17, 38–40, 54, 96, religions, African 6, 38, 106, 109–110 104–105, 116, 141, 144, 181–182, 203 religions, Western 109, 139 philosophy, Greek 111 religious ritual, Christian 79 pidgins, in Ghana 237, 246 rhetorical strategies 209, 212 Pittsburgh Society for Music Research 94 Richburg, Keith 148 plagiarism 200, 213–218 Riis, H. N. 255 Plato 22, 41, 73 Ripley, Colin 55 Platt, John T., Heidi Weber & Mian Lian Rodney, Walter 122 Ho 226 Romans, colonization of Britain 41 Pogge, Thomas 57 Rosow, Stephen J. 48 politics 3–4, 7, 11, 13, 17, 21, 27–28, 32, 34–37, Rostow, W. W. 122 39, 43, 48, 53, 62, 70–71, 77–78, 81–83, 91, 97, 103–104, 106, 114–115, 117–118, 120, Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel, & Stephen 129, 132–133, 141–142, 148, 172, 175, 184, Devereux 165 205, 220–223, 238, 254, 256–257, 263, Sachs, Curt 83 265, 268–269, 272 Sackey, John A. 222 Poplack, Shana 231 Sackey, Samuel 58, 63 postcolonialism 1–5, 7–8, 15–16, 22, 32, 47, Said, Edward W. 221, 223, 225 51, 62, 72, 82 Salm, Steve 130 posthumanism 8 Samoff, Joel, & Bidemi Carrol 46, 48 poverty 5, 39, 57, 60, 148, 154–155, 217 Sander, Reinhardt 283 Pratt, R. Cranford 48 satire 37, 140 pre-emergence 25 Sawyerr, Akilagpa 48, 61 Prelude, The (Wordsworth) 17 Schechner, Richard, & Mady Schuman 96 Press, Eyal, & Jennifer Washburn 47 Schieffelin, John S., Jeffrey G. Shaffer Price, Sara, Carey Jewitt & Barry Brown, et al. 59 ed. 54 Schlatter, Richard 91 Priebe, Richard 283–284 Schmidt, Nancy 283 Protten, Christian 261–262 Schneider, Edgar 225–226, 246 296 Index

Schomburg Center for Research in Black tangibility 23–24 Culture 286 Tanzania 221 School of Oriental and African Studies 288 Tawiah, Benjamin 241 School of Performing Arts 84, 279–280 teaching 6, 8, 11–13, 18, 20, 22–24, 30, 33, 43, Schüklenk, Udo, & Richard Ashcroft 57 47, 104, 108, 209, 211, 216, 228, 263, 266, science, African 178, 185 270, 272 science, Western paradigm of 175–176 Teaching of English as a Second Language second language 226–228, 244 (TESL) 18 Sehwi language 257 Teffo, Joe 115 Sekyi, Kobina 3, 36–37 Teilhard de Chardin 51 Senegal 61, 147 Tengan, Alexis B. 174, 177, 189 Senghor, Léopold Sédar 143 Tengan, Edward B. 174 Serequeberhan, Tsenay 3, 54 text, etymology of 12 Sey, Kofi A. 227, 229, 232–233, 238 textbooks 18, 41, 43, 211 Shah, Anup 58 Thales 42 Shakespeare, William 12, 41, 216 theatre 15, 37, 72–73, 75–76, 79, 96, 125–126, Shelley, Percy Bysshe 12 277–278, 282 Sheng (Kenyan youth language) 240 theorizing 23–24 Sierra Leone, music in 90 Thomas, Sarah, & Thomas P. Hawes 208 Simpson, Andrew 240 Thomason, Sarah G. 229 Slabbert, Sarah, & Carol Myers-Scotton Thompson, Geoff, & Yiyun Ye 208, 210 240 Thompson, Robert Farris 96 slave trade 42, 144–147 Tönnies, Ferdinand 121 slavery 27, 35, 75–76, 143–146 Toyama, Kentaro 56 Smock, David R. 222 Tracey, Hugh 121 socialism 5, 141, 143 traditional religion, African 106, 109, 111–114, Sophocles 41 175–176 specialized vocabulary 197, 209, 212 Trial of Lucullus, The (Brecht) 277 speech community vs discourse Turner, Harold 177 community 202 Turner, Victor 177 Spencer-Walters, Tom 238 Twi 7, 225, 230–231, 255, 265 spirituality, Indian 14 Twumasi, Patrick A. 123 spiritual journey 77–78 Sporre, J. Dennis 74 Uche, Luke 124 Stamp, Patricia 56 Uchi people (Nigeria) 107 Stewart, John M. 255 umbrella, ceremonial 81 Strumpf, Carl 121 United Negro Improvement Association Student Pidgin (Ghana) 220, 224, 237, 246 (UNIA) 35 subaltern 11, 13, 15, 28 United States Information Agency 144 Summer Institute of Linguistics 268 universalizability 2, 23, 25 survival strategies 5 universalization 2, 23, 25 Sutherland, Efua 83 universals 2 Swahili 221, 240 universities, African 45, 65 Swales, John 202–203, 209, 212 University of Illinois 279 University of Pittsburgh 94 Tagore, Rabindranath 38 University of Texas (Austin) 284–285 Talensi people 268 urbanization 7, 40, 121, 123–125, 133 Talni language 268 US Virgin Islands 75–76 Index 297

Venda, music of 92 Williams, Raymond 25 Vergano, Dan 61 Winch, Julie 177 Wiredu, Kwasi 104, 114–115, 178, 223 Wade, Abdoulaye 147 woman, African, portrayal of 76–77 Wali dialect 265, 269, 270 Wordsworth, William 17 Wallerstein, Immanuel 122 World Bank 46, 48, 55 Wallis, Roger, & Krister Malm 124 World Bank Group 57 Wamala, Edward 115 world culture 1, 3 Wandira, Asavia 48 World Economic Forum 21 Warlpiri people (Australia) 30 World Englishes 198, 218, 226, 231 Waterman, Chris 125 World Health Organization 59 Waterman, Christopher 128 Weber, Max 121 Yendi, music of 128 Weiler, Hans N. 48 Yilma et al. 156 Welmers, William 257 Yilma, Zelalem, Anagaw Mebratie et al. 153 West African National Congress 35 Yorùbá music 128 Western Australia 30 westernization 35, 120, 124, 134 Zan, Fr. Linus 180 Westgate Mall massacre (Nairobi) 139 Zelaza, Paul Tiyambe 48 Whitehead, Margaret 57 Zimmermann, Johannes 261–263 Widdowson, Henry G. 229 Zionism 35 Williams, Drid 279