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The Making of An African King is a study examining the causes of the kingship internecine struggle among the Effutu by exploring the two traditional systems of succession, the patrilineal and the matrilineal, among the Effutu (Awutu-abe), and how best to end political violence.Kingship or chieftaincy disputes in Ghana may begin as rivalry among.

For many decades, anthropologists have debated the question of matriliny, with some expressing concerns about its prospects of survival in a modern economy of private property and greater economic differentiation. In continuing this debate, this article provides new and contemporary evidence of the continued relevance of matriliny as a kinship practice that shapes the daily conduct of women. Using ethnographic evidence from the Asante town of Offinso in Ghana, the article demonstrates the crucial role of matrilineal kinship through the economic experiences of two market women living with their respective husbands. The evidence shows that the persistence of economic values that encourage female enterprise, norms of kinship that privilege maternal relations over paternal ones and marriage conventions that allow spouses to maintain separate economic resources create a social and economic environment in which women actively assert their independence from husbands. Women's strong allegiance to their matrilineage is mirrored in their economic conduct, further accentuating the antithesis between conjugal and lineage bonds. Put together, these factors point to greater social and economic autonomy for Asante women.

In Sierra Leone, transactional relationships – so-called agreement relationships – have a life-course dimension. Not only are they employed by young people but they are equally important among elders, and they serve different purposes as people age. Long-term ethnographic research with the elderly uncovers that they remember the past and engage with the present through agreement relationships. The elders’ love and life histories from the 1930s to today form ‘accumulated history’. They reveal a shift from kin-based rural hierarchies, where agreement relationships were carefully concealed, to larger, more dynamic urban networks that are openly held together through such relations. Leaving the former and finding one's feet in the latter become possible through transactional relationships that provide alternatives to fosterage and strategies of fictive or aspirational kin. The case of Sierra Leone invites us to rethink the focus on transactional relationships at a specific point in time for a life-course perspective that reveals the enduring nature of the phenomenon and sheds light on its changing texture in individual biographies, with the potential for capturing large-scale social trajectories within and across countries.

Extreme flexibility in the residential and financial arrangements attached to marriage and matrilineal kinship have remained a consistent characteristic of Asante throughout this century. The constant renegotiation processes that constitute and renew family relations have kept them remarkably strong through a series of radical changes in the enacted content and boundaries of those relations, linked with dramatic fluctuations in the economic and political environment of Ghana. The degree of personal agency sustaining this Asante social framework has challenged and stretched a succession of theoretical models, since this negotiability extends to the principles and limits of negotiation itself. The continuing vitality of Asante matriliny actually requires a high degree of individual autonomy, including the economic autonomy that anchors the negotiating position of each social adult. Recent life history work among Kumasi women traders shows that the elastic framework of family relations can absorb considerable change in the expectations and the balance of power between spouses or between parents and children as long as the pace remains slow enough and individual self-reliance stable enough to preserve the continuity of the renegotiation process. The economic crisis of the final decade of the century has threatened the basis of social reproduction by reducing the opportunities for financial independence. Without basic autonomous subsistence young men and women can no longer function effectively as Asante adults. Tout au long de ce siècle, la très grande souplesse des dispositions en matière financière et en matière de résidence afférentes au mariage et à la parenté matrilinéaire a été une caractéristique constante des Asantes. Grâce aux processus constants de renégotiation qui forment et renouvellent les rapports familiaux, ces derniers sont restés remarquablement solides malgré une série de changements radicaux du contenu et des limites de ces rapports, liés à des fluctuations spectaculaires du contexte économique et politique du Ghana. Le degré d'action personnelle qui soutient ce cadre social Asante a mis à rude épreuve une succession de modeies theoriques, dans la mesure ou cette négotiability s'etend aux principes et aux limites de la négociation elle-même. La vitalité permanente de la parenté matrilinéaire Asante requiert un degré important d'autonomie individuelle, y compris l'autonomie économique qui fixe solidement la position de negociation de chaque adulte social. Des études historiques récentes sur la vie des femmes commerçantes de Kumasi montrent que le cadre élastique des rapports familiaux est capable d'absorber des changements d'attentes et d'équilibre du pouvoir considérables éntre epoux ou entre parents et enfants, à condition que le rythme de ces changements demeure suffisamment lent et que l'autosuffisance individuelle demeure suffisamment stable pour préserver la continuité du processus de renégotiation. La crise économique de la dernière décennie de ce siècle a menacé la base de reproduction sociale en réduisant les possibilités d'indépendance financière. Sans une subsistance autonome de base, les jeunes (hommes et femmes) ne peuvent plus fonctionner de maniere efficace en tant qu'Asantes adultes.

This article focuses on the institutionalised relationship between a married woman and a younger woman of her lineage. This alliance implies that the older woman incorporates her clan sister into her household and later marries her off to a man of her choice, preferably her own husband or one of his (classificatory) brothers. This specific form of sororal polygyny is firmly based on rituals and the structure of kinship relation among the Bulsa of northern Ghana. Women bear the ritual responsibility for their brothers' offspring and therefore acquire the right to adopt their daughters. Cet article examine les rapports institutionnalisés entre une femme mariée et une femme cadette de sa lignée. Cette alliance implique que l'aînée intègre sa ‘sœur de clan’ dans son foyer et la marie plus tard à un homme de son choix, de préférence son propre mari ou un de ses fréres (classificatoires). Cette forme particulière de polygynie sororale repose solidement sur des ritues et sur la structure des liens de parenté qui prévaut au sein de la communauté Bulsa du nord du Ghana. Selon ces rites, les femmes sont responsables des enfants de leurs frères et acquièrent par conséquent le droit d'adopter leurs filles.

Violence and abuse by grandchildren towards their grandparent kinship carers is an important but under-researched issue. Research evidence on the perceived legitimacy of aged-related myths, beliefs, and witchcraft accusations against older people, especially grandparents, in Ghana and Africa suggest that violence and abuse against grandparent kinship carers could be common. This study explored the types of violence or abuse experienced by grandparent kinship carers, and the meanings grandparents associate with the abuse. Thirty-one grandparents were recruited from four communities in Ghana following a horizontal network sampling approach and interviewed using a qualitative in-depth narrative storytelling strategy. Analysis of the narratives revealed three common types of abuse experienced by the grandparent kinship carers which were perpetrated by children living under their care: (1) insults and verbal abuse, (2) stealing and financial exploitation, and (3) physical threats. However, the grandparents rationalised and justified the abusive behaviours by attributing them to factors within the children’s eco-system, such as friends and household members. The findings highlighted three crucial interrelated factors that underlie these incidents of violence including cultural beliefs around witchcraft, family structural dynamics, and grandparents’ attitudes towards violence. Practical recommendations, including the development of a community normative change program, have been proposed to address violence by grandchildren towards grandparent kinship carers in Ghana.

Objective We explore how information communication technologies (ICTs) enable doing kin work through communication and its impact on the well‐being of Ghanaians at home and abroad. Background Using ICTs has become a significant and rapid way to keep in touch with family relations as they are “scattered” across different geographic spaces within a country and globally. In this digital age, families can choose from a wide range of options that allows the combination of textual, verbal, and visual interactions. Method This paper is based on observations, in‐depth interviews, and life stories collected over a cumulative fieldwork period of 28 months. A total of 40 Ghanaians living in the Netherlands and 30 living in Ghana were recruited from 2017 to 2019 for this study. Results Through smartphones or messenger apps, people share their life and provide care and support including financial, emotional, moral, personal, and communal attachment. Conclusion Doing family online involves a complex, open, and hidden system of support, care, anxiety, and empathy. Doing family online is an example of a social matrix in which new patterns of social relationships, intimacies, care, and intergenerational solidarities emerge and develop. Implications We propose that doing family online will remain an integral means of connecting with family members and other relations. It is therefore important that ICT is made affordable, reliable, and secure as a way to improve its use. This means that more innovation, development, and research would be required.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns in sub-Saharan Africa led to significant social, economic, and health shocks, raising the need for social protection. While the adaptation of formal systems of social protection in response to these shocks has been investigated, gaps remain in understanding how informal social protection (ISP) systems were reconfigured. Taking the ISP systems of older adults as an entry point, and through the lens of ubuntu, an African moral philosophy that underpins ISP systems, this paper synthesises evidence on the ISP systems of older adults prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2024). It highlights shifts that were experienced within these systems amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence reveals pre-existing barriers for older adults to engage in ISP networks prior to the pandemic. The pandemic context enabled older adults to re-integrate and participate in reciprocal exchanges within kinship and community networks. However, the unique pandemic circumstances revealed the additional vulnerabilities of ISP systems, highlighting the need to strengthen state-led interventions to reduce reliance on ISP systems. Opportunities and social policy considerations to reimagine care for older adults in a post-COVID-19 world are discussed.

Bridewealth is fundamental to marriage in Africa. Anthropological research provides substantial information regarding characteristics of the bridewealth transaction, but scholars and policymakers know little about its consequences for women in contemporary Africa. We argue that the payment of bridewealth strengthens normative constraints on women's autonomy in the reproductive domain. We test and find support for our argument using a unique vignette experiment conducted with rural women in the Volta Region of Ghana.

To date, studies of imprisonment and incarceration have focused on the growth of male-gendered penal institutions. This essay offers a provocative addition to the global study of the prison by tracing the emergence of a carceral system in West Africa in the nineteenth century that was organized around the female body. By examining archival testimonies of female prisoners held in what were called “native prisons” in colonial Gold Coast (southern Ghana), this essay shows how birthing, impregnation, and menstruation shaped West Africa penal practices, including the selection of the captives, the duration of their time in prison, and how the prison factored into the legal infrastructure around tort settlements for debts and crimes. The term “prison of the womb” is used here to describe how the West African prison held bloodlines captive, threatening the impregnation of a female kin member as a ticking clock for tort settlement. Furthermore, it will be shown that this institution was imperative to the spread of mercantile capitalism in nineteenth-century Gold Coast.