Ritual Servitudes and Christian Social Practices in Ghana
Ritual Servitudes and Christian Social Practices in Ghana

Author: David Stiles-Ocran

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-10-21

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1000770028

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This book explores the kinds of Christian service or diaconia that develop in non-institutionalized practices for supporting survivors of indigenous ritual servitude or Trokosi in Africa. Drawing on empirical research from Ghana, it examines the possibilities of freedom, equality, and dignity for liberated Trokosi and the manner in which these women’s experiences constitute a repudiation of dominant patriarchal family systems. With close attention to the work of indigenous parachurches – which function outside of institutionalized churches – in challenging the contemporary practice of ritual slavery and offering its survivors a lived space in which they need not remain “hidden” as they seek restoration and integration into wider society, Ritual Servitudes and Christian Social Practices in Ghana will appeal to scholars of sociology, theology, and religion with interests in gender, contemporary ministries and African religion.

Female Ritual Servitude
Female Ritual Servitude

Author: Wisdom Yaw Mensah

Publisher:

Published: 2010-01

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9781438949499

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The first mention of the word "Trokosi can be traced to the work of A. B. Ellis in 1890 writing on the topic of "Priesthood" in "The Ewe Speaking People of the Gold Coast." As far back as the early 1900s a protest letter was submitted by a native of the Gold Coast to the Colonial Secretary of Native Affairs calling for an end to a practice that marginalized, dehumanized and treated young virgins as slaves "consecrated" to the gods. Unfortunately in 2009 the fight still continues. The authors bring light to an issue greatly in need of critical scrutiny. This book poignantly elucidates firsthand accounts of the voices of the Trokosi victims, the geographical spread of the practice, interrogates the social context in which the practice thrives, traces the travailing journeys of the victims, discusses the liberation efforts and rehabilitation programs, examines the role of civil society in confronting the system and closes with the tensions within the discourses that support or reject the Trokosi system.

A West African Model to Address Human Trafficking
A West African Model to Address Human Trafficking

Author: Paul V.I. Sidlawinde Karenga

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-02-02

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 3030881202

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This book describes the nature of trafficking in persons in West Africa, focusing on labor and sexual exploitation in the region, and recommends tailor-made solutions established by the Catholic Church in light of governmental authorities’ failure to effectively combat this scourge of humanity. While states’ efforts to fulfill their international obligations in developing anti-trafficking legislations are recognized, their failure to carry out prosecutions of offenders and ensure protection of the victims reveals that law alone is not a sufficient instrument for realizing human rights and improving people’s lives. Faced with the sobering background of less than successful efforts by governmental entities to end the trade in humans, this research study recommends adopting essential elements of Catholic social teaching, which rests on the inherent dignity of human beings allowing the development of political, socio-cultural, and religious reforms that will increase the effectiveness of existing legislation designed to combat trafficking. This faith-based approach highlights the role that religion may play in fulfilling the discretionary provisions of the Palermo Protocol by promoting the welfare and protecting the life and dignity of the victims. Additionally, religion is composed of sound moral ethics that determine people's behavior to refrain from the sinful conduct of trafficking. It also creates a sense of ethical responsibility that promotes supply chain transparency and ethical purchasing as well as advocating social reforms and anti-trafficking legislations initiatives. In fact, the author's approach, may be a model for other regions in the world and will be of interest to scholars, law and policy makers, human rights advocates and law enforcement agents working in the field of trafficking in persons.

The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education
The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education

Author: Dennis Beach

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-03-02

Total Pages: 769

ISBN-13: 1118933729

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A state-of-the-art reference on educational ethnography edited by leading journal editors This book brings an international group of writers together to offer an authoritative state-of-the-art review of, and critical reflection on, educational ethnography as it is being theorized and practiced today—from rural and remote settings to virtual and visual posts. It provides a definitive reference point and academic resource for those wishing to learn more about ethnographic research in education and the ways in which it might inform their research as well as their practice. Engaging in equal measure with the history of ethnography, its current state-of play as well as its prospects, The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education covers a range of traditional and contemporary subjects—foundational aims and principles; what constitutes ‘good’ ethnographic practice; the role of theory; global and multi-sited ethnographic methods in education research; ethnography’s many forms (visual, virtual, auto-, and online); networked ethnography and internet resources; and virtual and place-based ethnographic fieldwork. Makes a return to fundamental principles of ethnographic inquiry, and describes and analyzes the many modalities of ethnography existing today Edited by highly-regarded authorities of the subject with contributions from well-known experts in ethnography Reviews both classic ideas in the ethnography of education, such as “grounded theory”, “triangulation”, and “thick description” along with new developments and challenges An ideal source for scholars in libraries as well as researchers out in the field The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education is a definitive reference that is indispensable for anyone involved in educational ethnography and questions of methodology.

Slavery, Memory and Religion in Southeastern Ghana, c.1850–Present
Slavery, Memory and Religion in Southeastern Ghana, c.1850–Present

Author: Meera Venkatachalam

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-08-10

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1316368947

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Based on a decade of fieldwork in southeastern Ghana and analysis of secondary sources, this book aims to reconstruct the religious history of the Anlo-Ewe peoples from the 1850s. In particular, it focuses on a corpus of rituals collectively known as 'Fofie', which derived their legitimacy from engaging with the memory of the slave-holding past. The Anlo developed a sense of discomfort about their agency in slavery in the early twentieth century which they articulated through practices such as ancestor veneration, spirit possession, and by forging links with descendants of peoples they formerly enslaved. Conversion to Christianity, engagement with 'modernity', trans-Atlantic conversations with diasporan Africans, and citizenship of the postcolonial state coupled with structural changes within the religious system - which resulted in the decline in Fofie's popularity - gradually altered the moral emphases of legacies of slavery in the Anlo historical imagination as the twentieth century progressed.

The Political Economy of Heaven and Earth in Ghana
The Political Economy of Heaven and Earth in Ghana

Author: Charles Prempeh

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2023-09-30

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 9956553905

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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.

Resilient Rituals
Resilient Rituals

Author: Marijke Steegstra

Publisher: Lit Verlag

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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How should modern Ghanaians relate to 'culture'? This is a hotly debated issue in Ghana, where the annual performance of the initiation rites for Krobo girls (dipo) is highly contested. Drawing on extensive fieldwork as well as missionary and colonial archives, this book shows how the contemporary performance of dipo relates to and is shaped by Krobo encounters with missionary Christianity, colonial intervention and modern nationalism. Krobo responses to global processes of change involved considerable resistance, and over time, ongoing local struggles but also a pursuit of cultural resilience.

Ending Africa's Energy Deficit and the Law
Ending Africa's Energy Deficit and the Law

Author: Yinka Omorogbe

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 0198819838

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With the inclusion of access to energy in the sustainable development goals, the role of energy to human existence was finally recognized. Yet, in Africa, this achievement is far from realized. Omorogbe and Ordor bring together experts in their fields to ask what is stalling progress, examining problems from institutions catering to vested interests at the continent's expense, to a need to develop vigorous financial and fiscal frameworks. The ramifications and complications of energy law are labyrinthine: this volume discusses how energy deficits can burden disabled people, women, and children in excess of their more fortunate counterparts, as well as considering environmental issues, including the delicate balance between the necessity of water for drinking and cleaning and the use of water in industrial processes. A pivotal work of scholarship, the book poses pressing questions for energy law and international human rights.

Translating the Devil
Translating the Devil

Author: Birgit Meyer

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2019-08-06

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1474471005

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This book offers an ethnography of the emergence of a local Christianity and its relation to changing social, political and economic formations among the Peki Ewe in Ghana. Focusing on the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which arose from encounters between the Ewe and German Piestist missionaries, the author examines recent conflicts leading to the secession of many pentecostally oriented members, which it places in a historical perspective. The main argument is that, for the Ewe, involvement with modernity goes hand in hand with new enchantment, rather than disenchantment, of the world. At the grassroots level, the study focuses on the image of the Devil, which the missionaries communicated to the Ewe through translation and which currently receives much attention in the Pentecostal churches. It is shown that this image played and still plays a crucial role in the local appropriation of Christianity, since diabolisation confirmed the existence of local gods and witchcraft and incorporated them into Christian belief as demons. Comparing the discourses and practices of mission and Pentecostal churches, the study reveals that the latter pay much more attention to Satan - especially through 'deliverance' rituals. Pentecostalism's increasing popularity thus stems from the fact that it ties into historically generated local understandings of Christianity, which, despite a declared dislike of non-Christian religious practices, stand much closer to Ewe religion than missionary Christianity. With its emphasis on the hybrid image of the Devil and people's obsessions with occult forces as a way to mediate the attractions and discontents of modernity, this book sheds light on a hitherto neglected dimension in studies of African Christianity.