WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Mediated encounters in diasporic space: exploring processes of transculturation syncretism and identity redefinition in the Ghanaian diaspora in London. Nii Anang Adjetey School of Media, Arts and Design This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © The Author, 2010. This is an exact reproduction of the paper copy held by the University of Westminster library. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Users are permitted to download and/or print one copy for non-commercial private study or research. Further distribution and any use of material from within this archive for profit-making enterprises or for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. 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In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] MEDIATED ENCOUNTERS IN DIASPORIC SPACE: EXPLORING PROCESSES OF TRANSCULTURATION SYNCRETISM AND IDENTITY REDEFINITION IN THE GHANAIAN DIASPORA IN LONDON NII ANANG ADJETEY A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY MARCH 2010 LONDON CONTENTS ABSTRACT 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 CHAPTER 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 6 1.0: INTRODUCTION 6 1.1: RATIONALE 6 1.2: AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 7 1.3: RESEARCH QUESTIONS 7 1.4: SOME WORKING HYPOTHESES 8 1.5: THESIS OUTLINE 8 CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 12 2.0: INTRODUCTION 12 2.1: CAPITALISM GLOBALIZATION AND THE INTEGRATION DYNAMIC 13 2.2: THE LOCAL/ GLOBAL RELATIONSHIP 15 2.3: MODERNITY AND MEDIATED EXPERIENCE 17 2.4: DIASPORAS 22 2.5: ISSUES OF HYBRIDISM / SYNCRETISM 35 2.6: CONCLUSION 40 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 41 3.0: INTRODUCTION 41 3.1: MEDIA/ AUDIENCE RESEARCH – A BRIEF OVERVIEW 41 3.2: DOCUMENTING CULTURE, CONCEPTUALISING THE AUDIENCE 43 3.3: METHOD SELECTION – THE QUALITATIVE APPROACH 45 3.4: UTILISING ETHNOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES 46 3.5: THE RESEARCH PROCESS 49 3.6: ANALYTICAL PROCEDURES 57 3.7: CONCLUSION 60 CHAPTER 4 THE BLACK DIASPORA 61 4.0: INTRODUCTION 61 4.1: THE ‘BLACK ATLANTIC’ 63 4.2: BLACK CULTURE IN THE NEW WORLD 64 4.3: CONCEPTS OF ‘HOME’ 67 4.4: SOME CONSEQUENCES OF RACIAL SUBJUGATION 68 4.5: BLACK RESISTANCE AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS 69 4.6: ANTIPODAL RACIAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION 71 4.7: BLACK IDENTITY 72 4.8: BLACK IDENTITY IN BRITAIN 75 4.9: BLACK CULTURE 77 4.10: SUMMARY & CONCLUSION 81 CHAPTER 5: IDENTITY MATRIX 83 5.0: INTRODUCTION 84 5.1: THE CONCEPT OF IDENTITY 84 5.2: INTERWOVEN GHANAIAN IDENTITIES 85 5.3: PARTICULARISING GHANAIAN IDENTITY IN LONDON 93 5.4: PAN-BLACK IDENTITY - ESSENTIALISING BLACKNESS 99 5.5: DIFFERENTIATING BLACK & WHITE THROUGH MEDIA STEREOTYPES 109 5.6: ENCOUNTERING RACISM AND RACIAL DISCOURSES 112 5.7: COLOUR-CODING OF CRIME 116 5.8: BLACK-ON-BLACK-CRIME 117 5.9: PERCEIVED MEDIA PORTRAYAL OF BLACKS 120 5.10: ARTICULATING A POSITIVE GHANAIAN (BLACK) IDENTITY 122 5.11: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 124 2 CHAPTER 6: THE GHANAIAN DIASPORA COMMUNITY IN LONDON 127 6.0: PICTORIAL NARRATIVES 128 6.0: INTRODUCTION 132 6.1: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW & DEMOGRAPHICS 132 6.2: STRUCTURING EXISTENTIAL SPACE - GHANAIAN ENTERPRISES 137 6.3: ADAPTING TO THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 140 6.4: ADAPTING FAMILY STRUCTURES TO CONSTRUCTED SPACES 144 6.5: SIGNIFICANCE OF OBJECTS 148 6.6: FESTIVALS 151 6.7: GHANAIAN CHURCHES IN LONDON 154 6.8: CULTURAL ADAPTATION 161 6.9: SCREEN CULTURES - USES AND SIGNIFICANCE OF TV 198 6.10: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 205 CHAPTER 7: A DIET OF SERIALS 206 7.0: INTRODUCTION 206 7.1: GHANAIAN-LONDONERS AND EASTENDERS 208 7.2: CRITICAL RECEPTION 211 7.3: REPRESENTATIONS 218 7.4: AMERICAN SITCOMS 234 7.5. COMPARATIVE CONSUMPTION 235 7.6: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 239 CHAPTER 8 AFRICAN PROGRAMMES 244 8.0: INTRODUCTION 244 8.1: GHANA ON MAINSTREAM BRITISH TV 245 8.2: IDENTITY AND NOSTALGIA-RELATED VIEWING 248 8.3: DIDACTIVE AND SOCIAL USES OF AFRICAN DRAMA 254 8.4: THE SUPERNATURAL ELEMENT: ART IMITATING LIFE 262 8.5: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 266 CHAPTER 9 NEWSWATCH 270 9.0: GENERAL INTRODUCTION 270 9.1: SIGNIFICANCE OF NEWS & CHANNELS OF RECEPTION 272 9.2: SOME SIGNIFICANT LOCAL AND GLOBAL NEWS EVENTS OF THE PERIOD 277 9.3: NEWS, A SENSE OF GEOGRAPHY, AND THE WORLD AS ONE 278 9.4: REACTIONS TO NEWS OF NATURAL DISASTERS (NON-MORAL EVIL) 279 9.5: FALL-OUTS OF TERRORISM (AFTERMATH OF 7/7) 282 9.6: A DIET OF BAD NEWS 287 9.7: NEWS TALK 292 9.8: GHANA (AFRICA) ON THE NEWS 300 9.9: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 306 CHAPTER 10 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 310 10.1: PERSPECTIVES ON BLACKNESS 311 10.2: PERSPECTIVES ON MEDIATED EXPERIENCES AND ENGAGEMENTS 312 10.3: PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURAL EXPRESSION AND CONSUMPTION 314 10.4: SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY & CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE 315 10.5: LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 317 REFERENCES / BIBLIOGRAPHY 318 APPENDIX A: PROFILES OF FAMILIES & INTERVIEWEES 337 APPENDIX B: DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF GHANAIAN-LONDONERS 342 APPENDIX C: GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS 344 APPENDIX D: BLACK RESISTANCE AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS & LEADERS 350 APPENDIX E: SOME GHANAIAN CHURCHES AND GHANAIAN DAY-NAMES 359 3 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the diasporic experiences of Ghanaians in London and assesses how Ghanaian identity is redefined and constructed in new contexts. The mediated experience dimension of this exploration considers the difference that the diverse menu of cultural resources offered by television is making to dispositions, cultural proclivities, and patterns of identification across intergenerational differences among Ghanaian-Londoners. The study qualitatively assembles and analyses empirical data from primary sources and integrates material from secondary sources to draw its conclusions. The thesis traces the development of the black diaspora as the historical antecedent or precursor to more recent black diasporic formations. The concept of the black diaspora provides a context for understanding or imagining the fledgling Ghanaian diaspora as another offshoot within the family of black identities in Britain. It is argued that the perceptions of blackness that Ghanaian-Londoners encountered in Britain were derived from the racial construction of blackness as the antithesis of whiteness and hence its construction as deviance. This was purveyed in discourses and reinforced in the public imagination through the media. Not only did it run counter to their self-perceptions, it impinged on their experiences as black people as they were confronted with unflattering stereotypes which they repudiated. In marginal spaces they endeavoured to reinstitute traditions from the homeland and to establish a distinctive presence in the ensemble of black identities in Britain, which in part challenges the monolithic imaginations of blackness from ‘othering’ perspectives, and also highlights an area of blackness underrepresented in academic discourses. Furthermore, the study finds that in their cultural consumption, a factor of their diasporic experience, they exhibited a critical edge and a comparative attitude to screen representations, reflecting the dual and sometimes multiple perspectives of their diasporic condition which enabled them to critique or valorise certain cultural practices from the different worlds of their experience, an indication of processes of cultural negotiation, synthesis, and hybridisation. Overall, this thesis contributes to current academic debates around mediated experience and cultural transformations, and the understanding of processes at the intersections between modernity, diaspora and culture in the era of globalization. 4 ACKNOWLEGEMENTS This academic odyssey was made possible by the assistance and inspiration from the fraternity of the great minds and endearing personalities at the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster, colleagues, friends and family, to whom I am indebted for their encouragement and support. I am especially grateful to my director of studies, Dr. Roza Tsagarousianou, who scrutinised the thesis, and whose critical reviews and suggestions were invaluable to the research. Besides, her expertise in the field, thoroughness, and excellent publications, were a vital resource to the study. I also thank Professor Annette Hill for her complementary supervisory role and Dr. Winston Mano for inspiration and encouragement. My experiences serving with him on the editorial Board of the Journal of African Media Studies (JAMS) and in the Media-in-Africa conferences have been rewarding and beneficial to this project. I am also indebted to Dr. Kariuko Kondo (Koko) for her help with aspects of the project and the insights gained from her work, and my doctoral colleagues for the inspiration and empowerment gained from their camaraderie - in particular, Salvatore Scifo (Salvo) for imparting some IT skills. I also wish to acknowledge the contributions made by students I was privileged to teach, whose essays and seminar discussions, sparked flashes of ideas for the project. My immense gratitude also goes to the various families and other participants in my research who were generous with their time and whose responses provided the empirical raw materials with which the thesis was assembled. I am grateful to Westminster University for the generous scholarship without which the research would not have taken place, and for providing a resourceful environment in which to advance the project and to gain some valuable teaching experiences in the process. Above all, I am grateful to God, the Alpha and Omega, who made it all possible. 5 CHAPTER 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1.0: Introduction: The centripetal dynamics of globalisation continue to draw economies and cultures into a web of interconnections and flows with increasing intensity and with implications for peoples and their identities.