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4 - Misreading Conservative Nationalism (1920–1945)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2024

Mary A. Seiwaa Owusu
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa
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Summary

Against the dominant tendencies to either overlook the interwar period, or to dismiss it as dead-end conservative nationalism irrelevant to the important history that will unfold after WWII, this chapter reveals it as an engagement with problems of ongoing relevance in Ghana. Resting on different ideas about Akan culture and political values, thus chiefs, the debates are conscious of contemporary thinking in the wider world, and based on different opinions about how to go forward. It is a defining moment in time when the notion of Akan homogeneity enmeshed debaters in personality squabbles, factional and party rivalry. The chapter employs Emma Hunter’s insight about other liberalisms, arguing that the debaters had a vision that employed an older but still relevant communal, group rights liberal vision. This connects them to the contemporary, and removes them from the place they are often placed: as backward looking and refusing to think constructively.

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Chapter
Information
Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Ghana
Founding Fathers, Nation-Building, and Transnational Thinkers
, pp. 158 - 201
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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