Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:33:04.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Kakube has come to stay’: the making of a cultural festival in Northern Ghana, 1989–2015

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Carola Lentz  and
Trevor Wiggins
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In Ghana, cultural festivals, usually initiated and organized by the chiefs, provide public arenas where local and regional political elites voice demands vis-à-vis central government, and where national politicians canvass for support. Festivals offer commercial opportunities, forums to promote ‘development’, and occasions for entertainment. Yet advocating for ‘our own culture’ stands out as their very raison d’être, offering a frame for cultural entrepreneurs to organize performances that express and reconfigure local styles of music and dance to fit national formats. In this article, we examine such processes of cultural creation for the Kakube Festival in Nandom, a paramount chiefdom in north-western Ghana. We analyse the cultural building blocks and their evolution during the festival's history as well as the context of changing national politics of cultural heritage in which the festival developed. We discuss the invention of a cultural festival to create local alliances and stake claims at the regional and national political level, and how the desire to assert a presence in the national political and cultural arena has transformed the ways in which local culture is defined and presented. We examine the tensions at the heart of such an event, where traditions of chiefly patronage and allegiance meet the requirements of modern political and bureaucratic systems of funding, and the criteria of excellence in cultural performance. Music and dance are essential components and we analyse the evolution and adaptation of these elements alongside the critical path management of the event that has led to its local and national profile.

Résumé

Au Ghana, les festivals culturels, généralement initiés et organisés par les chefs, offrent des arènes dans lesquelles les élites politiques locales et régionales expriment des exigences à l’égard du gouvernement central, et dans lesquelles les politiciens nationaux sollicitent un soutien. Les festivals offrent des opportunités commerciales, des forums de promotion du « développement » et des occasions de se divertir. Mais ce qui ressort comme leur profonde raison d'être est le plaidoyer pour « notre propre culture », en offrant aux entrepreneurs culturels un cadre d'organisation de prestations qui expriment et reconfigurent des styles locaux de musique et de danse pour les adapter à des formats nationaux. Dans cet article, les auteurs examinent ces processus de création culturelle à travers le festival Kakube de Nandom, une grande chefferie du nord-ouest du Ghana. Ils analysent les éléments culturels de base et leur évolution au cours de l'histoire du festival, ainsi que le contexte d’évolution de la politique nationale du patrimoine culturel dans lequel le festival s'est développé. Ils débattent de l'invention d'un festival culturel pour créer des alliances locales et faire des revendications au niveau politique régional et national, et de la manière dont le désir d'asseoir une présence dans l'arène politique et culturelle nationale a transformé les modes de définition et de présentation de la culture locale. Les auteurs examinent les tensions au cœur d'un tel événement, où les traditions de patronage et d'allégeance aux chefs côtoient les exigences de systèmes politiques et bureaucratiques modernes de financement, et les critères d'excellence de l'expression culturelle. La musique et la danse sont des composantes essentielles, et les auteurs analysent l’évolution et l'adaptation de ces éléments, ainsi que la gestion du chemin critique de l’événement qui a conduit à son profil local et national.

Type
Performing identities
Information
Africa , Volume 87 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 180 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adrover, L. (2015) ‘Refashioning chieftaincy in Ghana: festival dress, corporate sponsorship and new logics of value’, Africa 85 (4): 635–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrieu, S. (2007) ‘La mise en spectacle de l'identité nationale. Une analyse des politiques culturelles au Burkina Faso’, Journal des anthropologues hors-série: 89–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apter, A. (2005) The Pan-African Nation: oil and the spectacle of culture in Nigeria. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binsbergen, W. M. J. van. (1994) ‘The Kazanga festival: ethnicity as cultural mediation and transformation in central western Zambia’, African Studies 53: 92–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke-Ekong, S. (1995) ‘Ghana's festivals: celebrations of life and loyalty’, Ufahumu 23: 16–33.Google Scholar
Clarke-Ekong, S. (1997) ‘Traditional festivals in the political economy: the case of contemporary Ghana’, Journal of Social Development in Africa 12: 49–60.Google Scholar
Coe, C. (2005) Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: youth, nationalism, and the transformation of knowledge. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Crinson, M. (2001) ‘Nation-building, collecting and the politics of display: the National Museum, Ghana’, Journal of the History of Collections 13 (2): 231–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cultural Division of the Ministry of Education and Culture (1975) Cultural Policy in Ghana. Paris: UNESCO Press.Google Scholar
De Maaker, E. (2013) ‘Performing the Garo nation? Garo Wangala dancing between faith and folklore’, Asian Ethnology 72 (2): 221–39.Google Scholar
Donkor, D. A. (2009–10) ‘Gyamfi's golden soap: commodity marketing, reform legitimation, and the performance of cultural authenticity in Ghana's popular theatre’, Ghana Studies 12–13: 189–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etzioni, A. (2004) ‘Holidays and rituals: neglected seedbeds of virtue’ in Etzioni, A. and Bloom, J. (eds), We Are What We Celebrate: understanding holidays and rituals. New York NY: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940) ‘The Nuer of the Southern Sudan’ in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (eds), African Political Systems. London: KPI.Google Scholar
Fuller, H. (2014) Building the Ghanaian Nation-State: Kwame Nkrumah's symbolic nationalism. New York NY: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandah, S. W. D. K. (2008) The Silent Rebel. The missing years: life in the Tamale Middle School (1940–47). Edited by Lentz, C.. Legon, Accra: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Gandah, S. W. D. K. (2009) A Man of Great Foresight: S. W. D. K. Gandah's history of Birifu Naa Gandah (ca. 1872–1950). Edited by Lentz, C.. Legon, Accra: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Guss, D. M. (2000) The Festive State: race, ethnicity, and nationalism as cultural performance. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Handelman, D. (1990) Models and Mirrors: towards an anthropology of public events. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hess, J. B. (2001) ‘Exhibiting Ghana: display, documentary, and “national art” in the Nkrumah era’, African Studies Review 44: 59–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuuder, C.-J. W., Adongo, R. and Abanya, J. (2012) ‘The socio-cultural significance of the Kakube Festival of the Dagara of Nandom Traditional Area in Ghana’, Ghana Journal of Development Studies 9 (2): 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambek, M. and Walsh, A. (1997) ‘The imagined community of the Antankarana: identity, history, and ritual in northern Madagascar’, Journal of Religion in Africa 27: 308–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lentz, C. (1993) ‘Histories and political conflict: a case study of chieftaincy in Nandom, northwestern Ghana’, Paideuma 39: 177–215.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2000) ‘“Tradition” versus “politics”: succession conflicts in a chiefdom in northwestern Ghana’ in de Pina-Cabral, J. and Pedroso de Lima, A. (eds), Choice and Leadership in Elite Succession. London: Berg Publishers.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2001) ‘Local culture in the national arena: the politics of cultural festivals in Ghana’, African Studies Review 44 (3): 47–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lentz, C. (2006) Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
McCaskie, T. C. (1995) State and Society in Pre-Colonial Asante. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
National Commission on Culture (NCC) (2004) The Cultural Policy of Ghana. Accra: Anttis Printing Co. Ltd. Google Scholar
N'Guessan, K. (2014) ‘The bureaucratic making of national culture in north-western Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 52 (2): 277–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Opoku, A. A. (1970) Festivals of Ghana. Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Peterson, D. R. (2015) ‘Introduction: heritage management in colonial and contemporary Africa’ in Peterson, D. R., Gavua, K. and Rassool, C. (eds), The Politics of Heritage in Africa: economies, histories, and infrastructures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranger, T. (1983) ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’ in Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds), The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rathbone, R. (2000) Nkrumah and the Chiefs: the politics of chieftaincy in Ghana 1951–60. Athens OH: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Schauert, P. (2015) Staging Ghana: artistry and nationalism in state dance ensembles. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Schramm, K. (2000) ‘The politics of dance: changing representations of the nation in Ghana’, Africa Spectrum 35 (3): 339–58.Google Scholar
Shipley, J. W. (2015) Trickster Theatre: the poetics of freedom in urban Africa. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Wiggins, T. (2005) ‘An interview with J. H. Kwabena Nketia: perspectives on tradition and modernity’, Ethnomusicology Forum 14 (1): 55–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material 1

Download Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material(Video)
Video 11.9 MB

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material 2

Download Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material(Video)
Video 4.8 MB

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material 3

Download Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material(Video)
Video 8.6 MB

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material

Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material 4

Download Lentz and Wiggins supplementary material(Video)
Video 7.6 MB