As It Is in Zion: Seeking the Rastafari in Ghana, West Africa

Middleton, Darren J. N.

doi:10.1558/blth.2006.4.2.151

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…When I first met her in 2008, dreadlocks were still definitively connected to African traditional priests and were heavily stigmatized. While in Ghana in 2017, I noticed an 43 (Middleton 2006). 44 Ibid.…”

Section: The Rastafari Trod Is a Constant Choice: Considerations For Future Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…20 Most Ghanaians learn about Rastafari through reggae music. Please see (Middleton 2006;White 2007White , 2010. 21 Sista Pama, in discussion with the author (in Takoradi, Ghana), July 2017. had similar experiences of discrimination.…”

Section: A Personal Perspective Of Trodding the Path In Takoradi Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…12 Even when the concept is not explicitly tied to these histories, it commonly denotes a Euro-centered and scripto-centric understanding of religion. While I appreciate the innovative notions of conversion that discuss the concept as a form of self-transformation, 13 I do not think the conceptual category of conversion is adequate to account for 3 (Middleton 2006;White 2007White , 2010Bonacci 2015;Augier and Salter 2010). 4 (Edmonds 2012;Bonacci 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“We Stand for Black Livity!”: Trodding the Path of Rastafari in Ghana

Alhassan

2020

Religions

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Rastafari is a Pan-African socio-spiritual movement and way of life that was created by indigent Black people in the grip of British colonialism in 1930s Jamaica. Although Rastafari is often studied as a Jamaican phenomenon, I center the ways the movement has articulated itself in the Ghanaian polity. Ghana has become the epicenter of the movement on the continent through its representatives’ leadership in the Rastafari Continental Council. Based on fourteen years of ethnography with Rastafari in Ghana and with special emphasis on an interview with one Ghanaian Rastafari woman, this paper analyzes some of the reasons Ghanaians choose to “trod the path” of Rastafari and the long-term consequences of their choices. While some scholars use the term “conversion” to refer to the ways people become Rastafari, I choose to use “trodding the path” to center the ways Rastafari theorize their own understanding of becoming. In the context of this essay, trodding the path of Rastafari denotes the orientations and world-sensorial life ways that Rastafari provides for communal and self-making practices. I argue that Ghanaians trod the path of Rastafari to affirm their African identity and participate in Pan-African anti-colonial politics despite adverse social consequences.

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Section: The Rastafari Trod Is a Constant Choice: Considerations For Future Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: A Personal Perspective Of Trodding the Path In Takoradi Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“We Stand for Black Livity!”: Trodding the Path of Rastafari in Ghana

Alhassan

2020

Religions

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Conversion in Africa

2020

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Dancehall City: Zongo Identity and Jamaican Rude Performance in Ghanaian Popular Culture

Alleyne¹

2022

Afr. Stud. Rev.

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The explosion of Ghanaian Reggae-Dancehall reflects the influence of Jamaican-inspired popular culture in Ghana today. This subculture is championed by local Rastafarians and by youth from the zongos (internal migrant, largely Islamic, unplanned neighborhoods). Suffering social alienation, many zongo artists have adopted postures similar to their Jamaican counterparts—mirroring Rasta and rude identities as counter-hegemonic resistance. Alleyne explores several artists variously located between the zongo, the Reggae diaspora, and the Ghanaian state, examining how subjects rework Jamaican tropes and voice their aspirations within a globalizing Ghana and rethinking the zongo as space of rousing diasporic consciousness.

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As It Is in Zion: Seeking the Rastafari in Ghana, West Africa

Cited by 4 publications

References 1 publication

“We Stand for Black Livity!”: Trodding the Path of Rastafari in Ghana

“We Stand for Black Livity!”: Trodding the Path of Rastafari in Ghana

Religious Conversion in Africa

Dancehall City: Zongo Identity and Jamaican Rude Performance in Ghanaian Popular Culture

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