Africa’s Triple Heritage and Being and Becoming African in Ghana: A Futile Pursuit or a Promising Prospect?
Africa’s Triple Heritage and Being and Becoming African in Ghana: A Futile Pursuit or a Promising Prospect?

Summary/Abstract: Africa’s triple heritage (African, Western and Arabian) situates Africa and African people in a uniquely intricate position where African socio-cultural, political and economic realities constantly struggle for agency, having been undermined by false Euro-Christian and Arab-Islamic propaganda. The yearning to be and become African has accordingly been entangled in the demands of Euro-Arabian realities. The purpose of this article is to use the following rites of passage – birth, marriage and death – as a framework to explore the parameters of (not) belonging within this triple heritage in Ghana. Under the framework, the objective is to draw out the tensions, contradictions, complexities, as well as conceptions of (dis)empowerment buried in these legacies, particularly, how departing from Euro-Arabian dictates can be (dis)empowering. The essay critiques the asymmetrical power relations among these heritages, as well as the inclination of the Euro-Arabian heritage to create a (re)composition of Africans based on vulnerability and fear. Ultimately, the thesis explores the possibility of Ghanaians being and becoming African, given Africa’s triple heritage.

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