Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T07:06:51.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kinship and gendered economic conduct in matrilineal Offinso, Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2020

Jovia Salifu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Résumé

Résumé

Les anthropologues débattent depuis des décennies de la question du matrilignage et certains, parmi eux, s'inquiètent de ses perspectives de survie dans une économie moderne de propriété privée et face à une différenciation économique accrue. S'inscrivant dans ce débat, cet article apporte de nouveaux éléments de preuve contemporains de la pertinence continue du matrilignage en tant que pratique de parenté qui façonne le comportement quotidien des femmes. S'appuyant sur des données ethnographiques recueillies dans la ville ashanti d'Offinso au Ghana, l'article démontre le rôle essentiel de la parenté matrilinéaire à travers les expériences économiques de deux femmes qui travaillent sur les marchés et vivent chacune avec leur époux. Les données montrent que la persistance de valeurs économiques qui encouragent l'entrepreneuriat des femmes, les normes de parenté qui privilégient davantage les relations maternelles que les relations paternelles et les conventions du mariage qui autorisent les époux à disposer de ressources économiques distinctes créent un environnement socioéconomique dans lequel les femmes affirment activement leur indépendance de leur époux. La forte allégeance des femmes à leur matrilignage se reflète dans leur comportement économique, accentuant davantage l'antithèse entre liens conjugaux et liens de lignage. La réunion de ces facteurs suggère que les femmes ashanti jouissent d'une plus grande autonomie socioéconomique.

Type
Kinship in Ghana and Sierra Leone
Information
Africa , Volume 90 , Issue 4 , August 2020 , pp. 683 - 700
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu, K. (1983) ‘The separateness of spouses: conjugal resources in an Ashanti town’ in Oppong, C. (ed.), Female and Male in West Africa. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Agarwal, B. (1997) ‘“Bargaining” and gender relations: within and beyond the household’, Feminist Economics 3 (1): 1–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allerton, C. (2007) ‘What does it mean to be alone?’ in Astuti, R., Parry, J. and Stafford, C. (eds), Questions of Anthropology. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Allman, J. (1996) ‘Rounding up spinsters: gender chaos and unmarried women in colonial Asante’, Journal of African History 37 (2): 195–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allman, J. (1997) ‘Fathering, mothering and making sense of “Ntamoba”: reflections on the economy of child-rearing in colonial Asante’, Africa 67 (2): 296–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, G. (2003) ‘Human pawning in Asante, 1820–1950: markets and coercion, gender and cocoa’ in Lovejoy, P. and Falola, T. (eds), Pawnship, Slavery and Colonialism in Africa. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Blanchy, S. (2019) ‘A matrilineal and matrilocal Muslim society in flux: negotiating gender and family relations in the Comoros’, Africa 89 (1): 21–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boni, S. (2002) ‘The encompassment of the autonomous wife: hierarchy in Akan marriage (Ghana)’, Anthropos 97 (1): 55–72.Google Scholar
Brantley, C. (1997) ‘Through Ngoni eyes: Margaret Read's matrilineal interpretations from Nyasaland’, Critique of Anthropology 17 (2): 147–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carr, E. R. (2013) ‘Livelihoods as intimate government: reframing the logic of livelihoods for development’, Third World Quarterly 34 (1): 77–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. (1994) Onions Are My Husband: survival and accumulation by West African market women. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. (1999) ‘Mothering, work, and gender in urban Asante ideology and practice’, American Anthropologist 101 (4): 717–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J. L. (2001) ‘On personhood: an anthropological perspective from Africa’, Social Identities 7 (2): 267–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crehan, K. (1997) ‘Of chickens and guinea fowl: living matriliny in north-western Zambia in the 1980s’, Critique of Anthropology 17 (2): 211–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darkwah, A. K. (2007) ‘Work as a duty and as a joy: understanding the role of work in the lives of Ghanaian female traders of global consumer items’ in Harley, S. (ed.), Women's Labour in the Global Economy: speaking in multiple voices. New Brunswick NJ and London: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. (2001 [1969]) ‘Is matriliny doomed in Africa?’ in Douglas, M. and Kaberry, P. M. (eds), Man in Africa. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Duncan, B. A. (2010) ‘Cocoa, marriage, labour and land in Ghana: some matrilineal and patrilineal perspectives’, Africa 80 (2): 301–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Englund, H. (2008) ‘Extreme poverty and existential obligations’, Social Analysis 52 (3): 33–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortes, M. (1950) ‘Kinship and marriage among the Ashanti’ in Forde, C. D. and Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (eds), African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fortes, M., Steel, R. W. and Ady, P. (1947) ‘Ashanti survey, 1945–46: an experiment in social research’, Geographical Journal 110 (4/6): 149–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gluckman, M. (1965) The Ideas in Barotse Jurisprudence. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Grier, B. (1992) ‘Pawns, porters, and petty traders: women in the transition to cash crop agriculture in colonial Ghana’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 17 (2): 304–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, J. I. (1993) ‘Wealth in people and self-realisation in Equatorial Africa’, Man 28 (2): 243–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, J. I. and Peters, P. E. (1987) ‘Introduction’, Development and Change 18: 197–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, P. (1963) The Migrant Cocoa-farmers of Southern Ghana: a study in rural capitalism. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Hill, P. (1975) ‘The West African farming household’ in Goody, J. (ed.), Changing Social Structure in Ghana: essays in the comparative sociology of a new state and an old tradition. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hill, P. (1978) ‘Food-farming and migration from Fante villages’, Africa 48 (3): 220–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, J. (2016) ‘Matriliny’ in Stein, F., Lazar, S., Candea, M., Diemberger, H., Robbins, J., Sanchez, A. and Stasch, R. (eds), The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Anthropology [online] <https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/>.Google Scholar
Kabeer, N. (1999) ‘Resources, agency, achievements: reflections on the measurement of women's empowerment’, Development and Change 30: 435–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lepani, K. (2015) ‘“I am still a young girl if I want”: relational personhood and individual autonomy in the Trobriand Islands’, Oceania 85 (1): 51–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLeod, M. (1975) ‘On the spread of anti-witchcraft cults in modern Asante’ in Goody, J. (ed.), Changing Social Structure in Ghana: essays in the comparative sociology of a new state and an old tradition. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Mikell, G. (1992) Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana. Washington DC: Howard University Press.Google Scholar
Neumark, T. (2017) ‘“A good neighbour is not one that gives”: detachment, ethics, and the relational self in Kenya’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23 (4): 748–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E. (1997a) ‘Against the odds: matriliny, land and gender in the Shire Highlands of Malawi’, Critique of Anthropology 17 (2): 189–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E. (1997b) ‘Introduction: revisiting the puzzle of matriliny in South-Central Africa’, Critique of Anthropology 17 (2): 125–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E. (2019) ‘Revisiting the social bedrock of kinship and descent in the anthropology of Africa’ in Grinker, R. R., Lubkemann, S. C., Steiner, C. B. and Gonçalves, E. (eds), A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa. Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Rodima-Taylor, D. (2013) ‘Gathering up mutual help: relational freedoms of Tanzanian market-women’, Social Analysis 57 (3): 76–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, M. (2011) ‘What kinship is: part one’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17 (1): 2–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strathern, M. (1988) The Gender of the Gift. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tashjian, V. B. (1996) ‘“It's mine” and “It's ours” are not the same thing: changing economic relations between spouses in Asante’ in Hunwick, J. and Lawler, N. (eds), The Cloth of Many Coloured Silks: papers on history and society, Ghanaian and Islamic in honour of Ivor Wilks. Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Wilks, I. (1977) ‘Land, labour, capital and the forest kingdom of Asante: a model of early change’ in Friedman, J. and Rowlands, M. J. (eds), The Evolution of Social Systems. Gloucester: Duckworth.Google Scholar