Building Up Belonging: Diasporic “Homecomers”, the Ghanaian Government and Traditional Rulers: A Case of Return

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Delpino
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Dynamic Relation ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
Southern Ghana ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis essay analyzes the political dynamics involved in the construction of belonging in the case of African Americans’ “return” from the diaspora generated by the Atlantic slave trade to a town in Southern Ghana. Given the articulated belief of common ancestral origins, such arrival was initially welcomed by all the three groups of actors involved: thereturnees, the local authorities, divided by a chieftaincy dispute, and the Ghanaian government that was supporting homecoming policies. The concepts of origins and kinship and the way to validate them, though, were differently conceived by the various political actors; furthermore each of them held dissimilar reasons and had different expectations behind this return. All these differences created a mutual, mutable and dynamic relation between the actors who were involved in the arrival and aimed to assert their authority.

Corruption and Political Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hazel Gray
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Capital Flight ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Settlement ◽  
The Way

This chapter contrasts the way that the political settlement in both countries shaped the pattern of redistribution, reform, and corruption within public finance and the implications that this had for economic transformation. Differences in the impact of corruption on economic transformation can be explained by the way that their political settlements generated distinct patterns of competition and collaboration between economic and political actors. In Vietnam corrupt activities led to investments that were frequently not productive; however, the greater financial discipline imposed by lower-level organizations led to a higher degree of investment overall in Vietnam that supported a more rapid economic transformation under liberalization than in Tanzania. Individuals or small factional networks within the VCP at the local level were, therefore, probably less able to engage in forms of corruption that simply led to capital flight as happened in Tanzania, where local level organizations were significantly weaker.

scholarly journals Cultures of Victory and the Political Consequences of Foundational Legitimacy in Croatia and Kosovo

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 799-824
Author(s):  
Mieczysław P. Boduszyński ◽  
Vjeran Pavlaković
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Order ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The Way

What are the consequences of a culture of victory in countries undergoing new state formation and democratic transition? In this article, we examine ‘foundational legitimacy,’ or a hegemonic narrative about the way in which a new state was created, and the role particular groups played in its creation. We argue that the way in which victory is institutionalized can pose a grave threat to the democratic project. If reconciliation and democratization depend of integrating losers into the new order and recognizing plural narratives of state formation, then exclusivist narratives based on foundational legitimacy pose a direct challenge to both. We focus on two Yugoslav successor states, Kosovo and Croatia. For both cases, we trace how appeals to ‘foundational legitimacy’ by groups that claim a leading role in the struggle for independence fostered a politics of exclusion, which ran counter to both the spirit of democracy. In Croatia, foundational legitimacy was partly challenged after 2000 by reformist political forces, though more recently it has re-appeared in political life. In Kosovo, foundational legitimacy was never successfully challenged and continues to shape political dynamics to the present day.

SLAVERY AND ITS TRANSFORMATION IN THE KINGDOM OF KONGO: 1491–1800

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDA M. HEYWOOD
Keyword(s):  
Slave Trade ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Atlantic Trade ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade

ABSTRACTStudies of slavery in Africa during the period of the Atlantic slave trade have largely ignored questions of how political processes affected enslavement during the period and also the extent to which notions of who could be enslaved were modified. Documentation for the kingdom of Kongo during the 1500s to 1800 allows us to explore how the trade was sustained and the social and political dynamics behind it. In a state that consistently exported large numbers of slaves throughout the period of the trade, kings of Kongo at first observed quite a pronounced distinction between foreign-born captives subject to enslavement and sale in the Atlantic trade and freeborn Kongos who were largely proctected from enslavement and sale overseas. In time, however, the distinctions that separated foreign-born and Kongos fell apart as later political authorities and others disregarded such distinctions and all Kongos became subject to enslavement and sale overseas. This was a product of internal Kongo conflicts, which witnessed the collapse of institutions and the redefinition of polity, what it meant to be a citizen or freeborn, and who could be enslaved.

scholarly journals “Governance” em Tempo de Pandemia: Um Enquadramento Filosófico

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
Orlando Coutinho ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
The Way

The way in which an unknown virus has moved from a local to a global case, taking on a pandemic outline, has caused significant changes in the lives of all human beings. Firstly, for that reason, it is unknown, then because behind the ignorance comes mistrust and fear. Nowadays, these ingredients are - in the political-social space - substance for the biggest factors of action and decision of the actors of the power. Have we been in a war context, as some have said? Was confinement, global and so prolonged, really necessary? Was decreeing a state of emergency essential? Were the exception measures proportional? And are they reversible? This article aims, in the way of the ideas of several authors that thinking about the political philosophical role of health contexts, of exception state, and of political control of the State, in face of public health issues and not only, understand the “state of the art” in the way of governing western democracies, in the firstly, but flying over other geographies and systems as the virus has assumed global contours. And, by means of the concrete measures, politically adopted, by the different political actors, what real impacts they had on the life and the institutions working, and on the psychology of the persons individually or socially considered.

scholarly journals Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems: Organizational and Political Consequences

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-107
Author(s):  
Paul Dumouchel
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
Autonomous Weapons ◽  
The Way ◽  
Weapons Systems

Focusing on existing ‘autonomous’ weapons systems and their uses replaces speculations about future developments and about what robots will or will not be able to do, with attention to the way these weapons are changing and have already changed warfare. The aspects of these transformations that will interest me in this paper are some of the political, organizational and social consequences of the introduction and deployment of various automatic and autonomous weapons systems. Beyond the questions of responsibility and legality, I want to look at the ways in which these weapons change countries’ ability to project power, on how they affect the composition of armed forces, the power relationships within them, and their relations with other major political actors.

Slave

2021 ◽  
pp. 84-132
Author(s):  
Mark Storey
Keyword(s):  
Toni Morrison ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Ralph Ellison ◽  
The Political ◽  
Long Term Conditions ◽  
American Slavery ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade

Twinned with the first chapter, this takes up the subject of American slavery and its intricate connections to the political philosophies of Roman slavery. The subject here is both the racialized figure of the Atlantic slave trade and the metaphorized “slave” as the coerced and oppressed subject of capitalist modernity. Engaging with the fields of Black classicism and theoretical history, the chapter begins with the photography of Carrie Mae Weems before moving into a series of textual engagements with the Roman slave: Toni Morrison, Howard Fast, Ralph Ellison, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Robert Montgomery Bird all feature, amongst a host of other writers. The chapter argues that Rome has proved to be a way of suturing the embodied and contingent experience of American slavery and subjugation into a fuller apprehension of imperial sovereignty and its long-term conditions.

The Legacy of Pierre Fatumbi Verger in the Whydah Historical Museum (Benin): Development of an Ambivalent Concept of Hybridity

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-312
Author(s):  
Anna Seiderer
Keyword(s):  
Slave Trade ◽  
Ideological Discourse ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article analyses the ambivalent legacy of Pierre Verger in the Whydah Historical Museum (Benin). Created in the Portuguese fort once used for the Atlantic slave trade and transformed into a museum in 1967, it is dedicated to the history of the region and its cultural consequences. This article examines the distinction between the way Verger used his photographs as a tool for anthropological exploration and the reinterpretation of those pictures by way of an ideological discourse once they were fixed in a museological context.

Social and Demographic Changes in the Birim Valley, southern Ghana, c. 1450–c. 1800

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Kiyaga-Mulindwa
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Demographic Changes ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
Southern Ghana ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

Recent archaeological excavations have revealed two distinct pottery traditions in the Birim Valley, southern Ghana. These have been classified as the ‘Earthworks Ware’ and the ‘Atwea Ware’. In certain archaeological contexts, the ‘Atwea Ware’ succeeds ‘Earthworks Ware’, and it also continues into present-day ethnography. The discontinuity between these two pottery traditions suggests a change in population. It is therefore suggested here that the population of ‘Earthworks Ware’ makers was one of the early victims of the Atlantic slave trade from about the mid-sixteenth century and that they were replaced in this area of the Birim Valley around a.d. 1700 by the Atweafo, a Twi-speaking group, whose descendants live there to this day. From the eighteenth century until close to the end of the nineteenth century a number of Denkyira, Asini and Asante migrants also moved into this valley. During this time the militarily weak Atweafo lived at the mercy of four major powers – the Asante, Akim Abuakwa, Akim Kotoku and the Akwamu. However, the Atweafo found means to survive under what seems to have been a highly volatile political environment by shifting their loyalty amongst these powers as situations dictated.

Bringing the Empire Back In: The Gradual Discovery of the Ottoman Empire in Turkish Foreign Policy

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 466-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lerna K. Yanık
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Turkish Foreign Policy ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Way

This article traces the emergence of references to the Ottoman Empire in the discourse and practice of Turkish foreign policy since the late 1940s. It argues that present-day emphasis on the Ottoman Empire and its legacy in Turkey has not happened in a vacuum, but rather has been a gradual process that has taken place over decades, helping to justify Turkey’s foreign policy. The article also shows that politicians from different sections of the political spectrum were crucial in reclaiming the Ottoman past in foreign policy. The consequences of this reclamation have been twofold. First, foreign policy, both in terms of practice and discourse, has become yet another venue, among many, for the continuous framing and reframing of Turkey’s past, paving the way for further Ottomanisation of the Turkish identity. Second, this Ottomanisation, or reclaiming of aspects that characterised the Ottoman Empire, has helped Turkey’s political actors justify and legitimise Turkey’s policies not only externally but, at times, also internally – as was the case in the 1990s, when some of these political actors tried to deal with Kurdish separatism by using the legacy of the Ottoman Empire.


The Mixed Commissions for the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century

1966 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Bethell
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Transatlantic Slave Trade ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
The Way

As a contribution to the history of Britain's campaign for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century this article examines, first, the creation of various mixed commissions for the adjudication of vessels captured on suspicion of trading in slaves after the trade had been declared illegal; secondly, the composition of these mixed commissions and the way in which they functioned, with special reference to the several commissions sitting in Sierra Leone which for 25 years dealt with the majority of captured slave vessels; and thirdly, the reasons why after 1839, and especially after 1845, captured ships were increasingly taken before British vice-admiralty courts with the result that the mixed commissions were gradually allowed to run down, although most of them were not abolished until the Atlantic slave trade had been finally suppressed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document