Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures, and maps
- Preface
- Glossary
- I Ethnicity and migration
- II Kinship and community
- III Politics and change
- 8 The political history of the zongo community: 1900–1970
- 9 The social organization of the Mossi community
- 10 Ethnicity, generational cleavages, and the political process
- 11 Conclusion: ethnicity, cultural integration, and social stratification
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Ethnicity, generational cleavages, and the political process
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures, and maps
- Preface
- Glossary
- I Ethnicity and migration
- II Kinship and community
- III Politics and change
- 8 The political history of the zongo community: 1900–1970
- 9 The social organization of the Mossi community
- 10 Ethnicity, generational cleavages, and the political process
- 11 Conclusion: ethnicity, cultural integration, and social stratification
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In discussing the structure of the Mossi community, we have so far avoided describing the political process. In this section, through the presentation of a case study, we are able to see how structural changes affect political action – how situations that appear as conflicts in day-to-day political life reflect deeper changes occurring in the immigrant community. The events which took place within the Mossi community after the coup which ousted Nkrumah in February 1966, particularly the contest over the selection of the headman, demonstrated the importance of the generational differences we have outlined. A description of these events shows how the distinct value orientations of first- and second-generation immigrants affect political life and how generational cleavages are handled, so as to prevent the dissolution of the ethnic community. These events are comprehensible only when placed in the context of the multiethnic zongo, for many of the stresses which the Mossi community experienced in 1966 had to do with changes that had affected all strangers in the preceding years. In the period immediately after the 1966 coup there was a great resurgence of overt expressions of ethnic identity among many stranger groups, although these manifestations of ethnicity were completely divorced from national political concerns. In fact, it was the claim that ethnicity was apolitical, and that it implied the absence of conflict, which enabled the stranger communities to reemerge and heal the wounds they felt they had incurred during the period when party alliances had cross-cut ethnic communities.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- People of the ZongoThe Transformation of Ethnic Identities in Ghana, pp. 252 - 263Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1978