RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Ivorian Origins of the Ghana Studies Association
JF Ghana Studies
JO Gha Stu
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 121
OP 129
DO 10.3368/gs.21.1.121
VO 21
IS 1
A1 Elisa Prosperetti
YR 2018
UL https://gs.uwpress.org/gs.uwpress.org/content/21/1/121.abstract
AB This article situates the history of the Ghana Studies Association (GSA) in a regional frame. It argues that political dynamics in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire were central to the creation of the GSA’s predecessor, the Akan Studies Council (ASC). In the 1970s, Côte d’Ivoire experienced an upsurge in economic growth that mirrored Ghana’s success in prior decades. Ivorian intellectuals, buoyed by their country’s economic “miracle,” sought to link Ivorian good fortune to a shared Akan history. However, as Côte d’Ivoire’s prosperity receded, the impulse that had driven a transnational approach to Akan Studies became entangled with the xenophobic discourse of ivoirité. The Ghanaization of the ASC in the 1990s reflected the increasing divergence in the two countries’ trajectories, and the consequent reassertion of the nation-state as a key analytical category.