Download or read book Female Voices from an Ewe Dance drumming Community in Ghana written by James Burns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ewe dance-drumming has been extensively studied throughout the history of ethnomusicology, but up to now there has not been a single study that addresses Ewe female musicians. James Burns redresses this deficiency through a detailed ethnography of a group of female musicians from the Dzigbordi community dance-drumming club from the rural town of Dzodze, located in South-Eastern Ghana. Dzigbordi was specifically chosen because of the author's long association with the group members, and because it is part of a genre known as adekede, or female songs of redress, where women musicians critique gender relations in society. Burns uses audio and video interviews, recordings of rehearsals and performances and detailed collaborative analyses of song texts, dance routines and performance practice to address important methodological shifts in ethnomusicology that outline a more humanistic perspective of music cultures. This perspective encompasses the inter-linkages between history, social processes and individual creative artists. The voices of Dzigbordi women provide us not only with a more complete picture of Ewe music-making, they further allow us to better understand the relationship between culture, social life and individual creativity. The book will therefore appeal to those interested in African Studies, Gender Studies and Oral Literature, as well as ethnomusicology. Includes a DVD documentary.
Download or read book A Handbook of Eweland The northern Ewes in Ghana written by Francis Agbodeka and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Living in the Shadow of the Large Dams written by Dzodzi Tsikata and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2006-05-01 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book on dam-affected communities of the Volta River Project breaks with the mould and tackles the question of long term environmental and socio-economic impacts and responses of two often neglected groups of communities- the downstream and lakeside communities.
Download or read book West African Narratives of Slavery written by Sandra E. Greene and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-16 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Slavery in Africa existed for hundreds of years before it was abolished in the late 19th century. Yet, we know little about how enslaved individuals, especially those who never left Africa, talked about their experiences. Collecting never before published or translated narratives of Africans from southeastern Ghana, Sandra E. Greene explores how these writings reveal the thoughts, emotions, and memories of those who experienced slavery and the slave trade. Greene considers how local norms and the circumstances behind the recording of the narratives influenced their content and impact. This unprecedented study affords unique insights into how ordinary West Africans understood and talked about their lives during a time of change and upheaval.
Download or read book Remains of Ritual written by Steven M. Friedson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remains of Ritual, Steven M. Friedson’s second book on musical experience in African ritual, focuses on the Brekete/Gorovodu religion of the Ewe people. Friedson presents a multifaceted understanding of religious practice through a historical and ethnographic study of one of the dominant ritual sites on the southern coast of Ghana: a medicine shrine whose origins lie in the northern region of the country. Each chapter of this fascinating book considers a different aspect of ritual life, demonstrating throughout that none of them can be conceived of separately from their musicality—in the Brekete world, music functions as ritual and ritual as music. Dance and possession, chanted calls to prayer, animal sacrifice, the sounds and movements of wake keeping, the play of the drums all come under Friedson’s careful scrutiny, as does his own position and experience within this ritual-dominated society.
Download or read book Language in Contemporary African Cultures and Societies written by Leonard Muaka and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2018-12-03 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language in Contemporary African Cultures and Societies examines language in contemporary Africa by positioning language at the center of interrelationships between individuals, society, and culture. Because of how language permeates every aspect of human existence within each society, this book has assembled contributions by researchers and scholars who focus on different topics within African languages and cultures. By presenting African languages as resources and subject and subject of the study, this book discusses Africa’s multilingualism, language policy, preservation, and their uses in development, security, liberation, and identity formation in the diaspora. Based on empirical research and analysis of texts, this book takes a closer look at the continent and the diaspora by situating African languages, cultures, and literatures at the center, and shows how African languages are used in the liberation, transfer of knowledge, and promotion of literacy among Africans globally. It is a book that seeks to bridge the gap between the continent and the diaspora. All contributors are experienced scholars of language, literature, education and linguistics. The chapters provide a major means for examining the interplay of language, literature, and education.
Download or read book African Folklore written by Philip M. Peek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 1256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by an international team of experts, this is the first work of its kind to offer comprehensive coverage of folklore throughout the African continent. Over 300 entries provide in-depth examinations of individual African countries, ethnic groups, religious practices, artistic genres, and numerous other concepts related to folklore. Featuring original field photographs, a comprehensive index, and thorough cross-references, African Folklore: An Encyclopedia is an indispensable resource for any library's folklore or African studies collection. Also includes seven maps.
Download or read book African Theology written by Kɔdzo Mawusi and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2015-09-26 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a theological research done as a comparative study of African Traditional Religion in comparison to Christianity. Since Africans in most part, are seen around the world as pagans without any concept of the true God until white missionaries got to the continent, this study is an effort to change that mentality. This book is a result of my research as a theology student to find out what both the Traditional and Christian religions have in common. Those who will approach this book with an open mind will realise that, Africans when it comes to their spirituality, are more spiritual and prayerful than the average Christian in the West. Readers will find to their surprise that there are some similarities or commonalities within these religions, which most Christians are not even aware of. Since the people who brought the notion of this ONE God Christians hold on to so dearly, — the Hebrews, were originally Africans, readers should not be surprised when they come across the facts that, most of the traditional religious sacrificial traditions are in the Christian book of life we call the Bible. Yes, this may come as a surprise to most Christians; but the truth is, we cannot deny their similarities and probably their origin in the Christian tradition because of their African background. Hopefully this book will open the door for dialogue between Christians and non–Christians about God's presence in every culture.
Download or read book Oral Literature in the Digital Age written by Mark Turin and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thanks to ever-greater digital connectivity, interest in oral traditions has grown beyond that of researcher and research subject to include a widening pool of global users. When new publics consume, manipulate and connect with field recordings and digital cultural archives, their involvement raises important practical and ethical questions. This volume explores the political repercussions of studying marginalised languages; the role of online tools in ensuring responsible access to sensitive cultural materials; and ways of ensuring that when digital documents are created, they are not fossilised as a consequence of being archived. Fieldwork reports by linguists and anthropologists in three continents provide concrete examples of overcoming barriers -- ethical, practical and conceptual -- in digital documentation projects. Oral Literature In The Digital Age is an essential guide and handbook for ethnographers, field linguists, community activists, curators, archivists, librarians, and all who connect with indigenous communities in order to document and preserve oral traditions.
Download or read book Food and Identity in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Ghana written by Brandi Simpson Miller and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates how cooking, eating, and identity are connected to the local micro-climates in each of Ghana’s major eco-culinary zones. The work is based on several years of researching Ghanaian culinary history and cuisine, including field work, archival research, and interdisciplinary investigation. The political economy of Ghana is used as an analytical framework with which to investigate the following questions: How are traditional food production structures in Ghana coping with global capitalist production, distribution, and consumption? How do land, climate, and weather structure or provide the foundation for food consumption and how does that affect the separate traditional and capitalist production sectors? Despite the post WWII food fight that launched Ghana’s bid for independence from the British empire, Ghana’s story demonstrates the centrality of local foods and cooking to its national character. The cultural weight of regional traditional foods, their power to satisfy, and the overall collective social emphasis on the ‘proper’ meal, have persisted in Ghana, irrespective of centuries of trade with Europeans. This book will be of interest to scholars in food studies, comparative studies, and African studies, and is sure to capture the interest of students in new ways.
Download or read book Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter written by Sandra E. Greene and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002-05-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Greene gives the reader a vivid sense of the Anlo encounter with western thought and Christian beliefs . . . and the resulting erasures, transferences, adaptations, and alterations in their perceptions of place, space, and the body." —Emmanuel Akyeampong Sandra E. Greene reconstructs a vivid and convincing portrait of the human and physical environment of the 19th-century Anlo-Ewe people of Ghana and brings history and memory into contemporary context. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, early European accounts, and missionary archives and publications, Greene shows how ideas from outside forced sacred and spiritual meanings associated with particular bodies of water, burial sites, sacred towns, and the human body itself to change in favor of more scientific and regulatory views. Anlo responses to these colonial ideas involved considerable resistance, and, over time, the Anlo began to attribute selective, varied, and often contradictory meanings to the body and the spaces they inhabited. Despite these multiple meanings, Greene shows that the Anlo were successful in forging a consensus on how to manage their identity, environment, and community.
Download or read book Slave Traders by Invitation written by Finn Fuglestad and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-01 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Slave Coast, situated in what is now the West African state of Benin, was the epicentre of the Atlantic Slave Trade. But it was also an inhospitable, surf-ridden coastline, subject to crashing breakers and devoid of permanent human settlement. Nor was it easily accessible from the interior due to a lagoon which ran parallel to the coast. The local inhabitants were not only sheltered against incursions from the sea, but were also locked off from it. Yet, paradoxically, it was this coastline that witnessed a thriving long-term commercial relation-ship between Europeans and Africans, based on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. How did it come about? How was it all organised? And how did the locals react to the opportunities these new trading relations offered them? The Kingdom of Dahomey is usually cited as the Slave Coast's archetypical slave raiding and slave trading polity. An inland realm, it was a latecomer to the slave trade, and simply incorporated a pre-existing system by dint of military prowess, which ultimately was to prove radically counterproductive. Fuglestad's book seeks to explain the Dahomean 'anomaly' and its impact on the Slave Coast's societies and polities.
Download or read book More Than Music written by Anne Fraioli and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ewe St mme written by Jakob Spieth and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2011 with total page 982 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ewe of Ghana, Togo and Benin have been one of the most documented ethnic groups in West Africa, given their encounters with the German, French and British colonial administrations. In 1906, Jakob Spieth, a German Bremen Missionary, published Die Ewe-Stamme. Die Ewe-Stamme is one of the most comprehensive treatises on the history, religion, economic life, traditional social structure, and, indeed, the entire spectrum of everyday life of the Ewe. Published over 100 years ago the book had limited circulation and became increasingly rare to the extent that it almost became a deified piece of work and source of classified knowledge. Additionally, Die Ewe-Stamme was published in German and old non-standard and colloquial Ewe languages. It is hoped this translation of Die Ewe-Stamme into English and contemporary Ewe might create a revival of interest amongst researchers, enhance the understanding for the traditional Ewe culture and become reading material in schools and universities.
Download or read book A Handbook of Eweland written by Benjamin Nicholas Lawrance and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coordinated by the West African Organisation for Research on Eweland, this publication constitutes a first and much needed English language survey of the history and cultures of the Ewe peoples in the former French colonies, Benin and Togo.
Download or read book The Fruits of Freedom in British Togoland written by Kate Skinner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of World War I saw the former German protectorate of Togoland split into British- and French-administered territories. By the 1950s a political movement led by the Ewe ethnic group called for the unification of British and French Togoland into an independent multiethnic state. Despite the efforts of the Ewe, the United Nations trust territory of British Togoland was ultimately merged with the Gold Coast to become Ghana, the first independent nation in sub-Saharan Africa; French Togoland later declared independence as the nation of Togo. Based on interviews with former political activists and their families, access to private papers, and a collection of oral and written propaganda, this book examines the history and politics behind the failed project of Togoland unification. Kate Skinner challenges the marginalization of the Togoland question from popular and academic analyses of postcolonial politics and explores present-day ramifications of the contingencies of decolonization.
Download or read book The Fruits of Freedom in British Togoland written by Katharine Alexandra Collier Skinner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fruits of Freedom in British Togoland examines the history and politics behind the failed project of Togoland reunification, in which the United Nations trust territory of British Togoland was to be separated from the Gold Coast to join with French Togoland in a new independent African state.
