Occult Rumors and Politics in Ghana PDF Download

Author: Comfort Max-Wirth
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031598075
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Author: Comfort Max-Wirth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Occultism
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Religion plays an integral role in all aspects of Ghanaian life, including politics. In recent years, many scholars have commented upon the spectacular rise of Pentecostal Christianity in Ghana since the 1970s, noting its particular influence in politics and in shaping the Ghanaian public sphere more generally. Curiously, though less often noted, rumors about "the occult" and occult influence have also flourished during this same period. Despite Pentecostal hostility to the occult and Pentecostal influence in public life, such rumors have become prevalent to the point that they represent a distinctive feature of Ghanaian politics. This thesis addresses the phenomenon of rumors about the occult in contemporary Ghanaian politics. It argues that the flourishing of political-occult rumors and the strength of Pentecostalism are related. Focusing on the period between the late 1970s and present, and drawing on data from fieldwork interviews and newspaper reports, the thesis examines the force of occult rumors in modern Ghanaian politics. It demonstrates some of the ways in which Ghanaian political elites deploy occult rumors for political advantage and some popular attitudes of the Ghanaian electorate to the rumors. The project proposes that the occult, far from being a phenomenon existing on the margins of modern Ghanaian society, is powerful, public and mainstream.

Author: Charles Prempeh
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956553905
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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

Author: Yin, Elijah Tukwariba
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799878996
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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

Author: Albert Wuaku
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004255710
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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

Author: Birgit Meyer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520287673
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Tracing the rise and development of the Ghanaian video film industry between 1985 and 2010, Sensational Movies examines video movies as seismographic devices recording a culture and society in turmoil. This book captures the dynamic process of popular filmmaking in Ghana as a new medium for the imagination and tracks the interlacing of the mediumÕs technological, economic, social, cultural, and religious aspects. Stepping into the void left by the defunct state film industry, video movies negotiate the imaginaries deployed by state cinema on the one hand and Christianity on the other. Birgit Meyer analyzes Ghanaian video as a powerful, sensational form. Colliding with the state film industryÕs representations of culture, these movies are indebted to religious notions of divination and revelation. Exploring the format of Òfilm as revelation,Ó Meyer unpacks the affinity between cinematic and popular Christian modes of looking and showcases the transgressive potential haunting figurations of the occult. In this brilliant study, Meyer offers a deep, conceptually innovative analysis of the role of visual culture within the politics and aesthetics of religious world making.

Author: John L. Comaroff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Informal sector (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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The Max Gluckman memorial lecture, 1998.

Author: Elad Ben Elul
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100057010X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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

Author: Wyatt MacGaffey
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253336989
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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

Author: Pamela J. Stewart
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521004732
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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This book combines two classic topics in social anthropology in a new synthesis: the study of witchcraft and sorcery and the study of rumors and gossip. First, it shows how rumor and gossip are invariably important as catalysts for accusations of witchcraft and sorcery. Second, it demonstrates the role of rumor and gossip in the genesis of social and political violence, as in the case of both peasant rebellions and witch-hunts. Examples supporting the argument are drawn from Africa, Europe, India, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.