Social Systems Abstracts

Miescher, Stephan Felix. (1997). Becoming a man in Kwawu: Gender, law, personhood, and the construction of 
            masculinities in colonial Ghana, 1875-1957. (Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University).

Abstract: This study examines ideologies of masculinity and the process of negotiating male gender expectations in an Akan society of southern Ghana, in response to missionary and colonial activity. The project has five objectives: first, to reconstruct the history of ideas about gender and masculinity in colonial Ghana with attention to legal discourse; second, to examine the work of distinctive and conflicting understandings of masculinity in lives of individuals; third, to explore male subjectivity as presented in narratives about self and personhood; fourth, to comprehend the power which lies in the social and political constructions of male identity; and fifth, to explore the reflection of socioeconomic transformations of the colonial era--increased mobility, migration, cocoa industry, trading opportunities, and clerical employment for literate men--onto ideas, norms, and expectations of masculinity. During eighteen months of research in Ghana, I employed historical and anthropological methods: archival study of administrative files and customary court records--in addition to work at the Basel Mission Archives, Switzerland--was complemented by oral research in Kwawu, gathering life histories from men and women. Many of these men have been exposed to the missionary project through education; some have worked as teachers, catechists, and pastors. The research extended to men and women with little or no school experience: traders, drivers, cocoa farmers, and assistants at chiefly courts. Embedded in a historical ethnography, the dissertation explores how men negotiated between different and conflicting notions of masculinity during various stages of their lives, and addresses issues such as childhood, education, work, sexuality, marriage, and the process of becoming an elder with attention to self-representation, subjectivity, and the performance of masculinity. The dissertation contributes to an emerging historical literature on men, manhood and masculinity, and engages with Ghanaian historiography of the colonial period by examining the underlayment of male authority. The study advances broader discourses within the humanities and social sciences by expanding investigation of gender to include experiences of men, while developing an understanding of the cultural constructions of masculinity depending on multiple and diverse social contexts. The dissertation presents a fresh approach to the study of self and personhood.