Do you want to stay informed about this journal? Click the buttons to subscribe to our alerts.
African Traditional Religion and Trans-Saharan Migration from Ghana
The Role of Nkoranza Deities in Youth Migration to Libya
In: African DiasporaAbstract
This paper interrogates an unexamined component of the religion-migration nexus in Ghana. Using African Traditional Religion as a case in point, the paper examines the function shrines play in sustaining youth migration to Libya and across the Mediterranean to Europe. The paper relies on interviews and fieldtrips to migrant sending communities in the Nkoranza area of the Bono East region of central Ghana. The paper gives an account of the daily realities of prospective migrants, returnees and their families. Among other key findings, it is shown that there is an intricate connection between youth migration, the family system and the deities in sustaining the trans-Saharan migration. This migration, we observe, has become a livelihood strategy, the perpetuation of which reassures the survival of not only the people, but their gods as well.
Résumé
Cet article interroge un aspect négligé du lien entre religion et migration au Ghana. En partant de l’ exemple de la religion traditionnelle africaine, il examine la fonction des sanctuaires dans le soutien à la migration des jeunes vers la Libye et, au-delà de la Méditerranée, vers l’ Europe. Ce texte repose sur des entretiens et des séjours sur le terrain dans des sanctuaires pour rendre compte de la réalité quotidienne des futurs migrants, des migrants rentrés au pays et de leur famille. Parmi les découvertes majeures, nous rapportons l’ existence d’ une connexion complexe entre les jeunes migrants, le système familial et les divinités de la région de Nkoranza dans la zone de Bono à l’ est du centre du Ghana. Nous observons que la migration transsaharienne des jeunes est devenue une stratégie de survie économique dont la perpétuation assure la survie ou non de la population mais aussi de ses dieux.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Agyeman, Akwasi, E. 2020. Between the imagined and the reality: Threat of African invasion and Spain’s migration policy in sub-Saharan Africa. African Human Mobility Review, 6 (3): 53–73
-
Agyeman, Akwasi, E. 2011. Religion, race and migrants’ integration in Italy: The case of Ghanaian migrant churches in the province of Vicenza, Veneto. Yearbook on Humanitarian Action and Human Rights, 8: 105–116.
-
Agyeman, Akwasi, E. and Akwasi Amoako-Gyampah. 2019. Cross cultural ties between Ghana and Egypt: Agency of the Egyptian community in Accra, Ghana. African Human Mobility Review, 5(2): 1636–1649.
-
Agyeman, Akwasi, E. and Richard O. Kyei. 2019. Religious identities and transnational religious practices of second generation African migrants in Amsterdam. In: Afe Adogame, Raimundo Barreto, and Wanderley P. da Rosa (eds.) Migration and public discourse in world Christianity. Minnesota: Fortress Press. Pp. 51–65.
-
Agyeman, Akwasi, E. and Mary B. Setrana. 2014. Human mobility in Ghana. In: Fabio Baggio (ed.) Africans on the move: Human mobility in Ghana, Nigeria, Angola and South Africa. Cape Town: SIHMA. Pp. 13–69.
-
Assimeng, Max. 1999. Social structure of Ghana: A study of perspective and change (second edition). Tema: Ghana Publishing Corporation.
-
Assimeng, Max 2010. Religion and social change in West Africa: An introduction to the sociology of religion (second edition). Accra: Woeli Publishing Services.
-
Baker, Chris and Hannah Skinner. (2006). Faith in action: The dynamic connection between spiritual and religious capital. Lancashire: William Temple Foundation.
-
BBC. 2017. (June 1). Over 40 people ‘die of thirst’ in Sahara Desert. Available at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40118370. Accessed 22 February 2020.
-
Boafo-Arthur, Kwame. 2007. A decade of liberalism in perspective. In: K. Boafo-Arthur (ed.) Ghana: One decade of liberal state. Dakar: CODESRIA. Pp. 1–20.
-
Bob-Milliar, George M., and Gloria. K. Bob-Milliar. 2013. The politics of trans-Saharan transit migration in the Maghreb: Ghanaian migrants in Libya, c. 1980–2012. African Review of Economics and Finance, 5 (1): 60–73.
-
Bredeloup, Sylvie and Oliver Pliez. 2011. The Libyan migration corridor. European University Institute.
-
Crux. 2018 (December 1). Ghana’s bishops urge youth not to leave the country. Available at https://cruxnow.com/church-in-africa/2018/12/ghanas-bishops-urge-youth-not-to-leave-the-country/. Accessed 22 February 2020.
-
Dako-Gyeke, Mavis and Richard. B. Kodom. 2017. Deportation and re-integration: Exploring challenges faced by deportee residents in the Nkoranza municipality, Ghana. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 18: 1083–1103
-
Darkwah, Akosua, K., Boateng Doris A. Thorsen Dorte and Joseph K. Teye. 2019. Good for parents but bad for wives: Migration as a contested model of success in contemporary Ghana. School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Working Paper 61.
-
Dennis, Dorcas. 2017. Travelling with the Spirit: Pentecostal migration religiosity between Ghana and Australia. PhD dissertation: Victoria University of Wellington.
-
Dinham, Adam. 2012. Faith and social capital after the debt crisis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Field, Margaret, J. 1940. Some new shrines of the Gold Coast and their significance. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 13 (2): 139–149.
-
Field, Margaret, J. 1960. Search for security: An ethno-psychiatric study of rural Ghana. London: Faber and Faber.
-
Finke, Roger. 2003. Spiritual capital: Definitions, applications and new frontiers [Paper prepared for the Spiritual Capital Planning Meeting]. Fairfax: American Enterprise Institute, George Mason University.
-
Ghana News Agency. 2012 (March 29). Returnees from Libya assisted with tools. Newsghana.com. Available at https://newsghana.com.gh/returnees-from-libya-assisted-with-tools/. Accessed 22 February 2020.
-
Hackett, Rosalind, I.J. 2003. Discourse of demonization in Africa and beyond. Diogenes, 50 (3): 61–75.
-
Iannaccone, Laurence, R. 1990. Religious practice: A human capital approach. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 29 (3): 297–314.
-
Iannaccone, Laurence, R. (1992). Religious market and the economics of religion. Social Compass, 39 (1): 123–131.
-
Iannaccone, Laurence, R. (1990). Introduction to the economics of religion. Journal of Economic Literature 36 (3): 1465–1495.
-
IOM Ghana. 2018. Annual Report 2017. Accra: International Organization for Migration.
-
Kandilige, Leander and Manou N. Hamidou. 2019. Migrants in countries in crisis: The experiences of Ghanaian and Nigerien migrants during the Libyan Crisis of 2011. African Human Mobility Review 5 (2): 1583–1610.
-
Laczko Frank, Singleton Ann and Black Julia. 2017. Fatal journeys: Improving data on missing migrants (part 1). Available at https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/fatal_journeys_volume_3_part_1.pdf. Accessed 22 February 2020.
-
Kah, Henry, K. 2019. ‘Blood money’, migrants’ enslavement and insecurity in Africa’s Sahel and Libya. Africa Development, XLIV (1): 25–44.
-
Manuh, Takyiwaa. 2011. Assessment of Libyan returnees in the Brong Ahafo region. Report presented to UNCT and NADMO. Accra.
-
Meyer, Birgit. 1998. ‘Make a complete break with the past’: Memory and post-colonial modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist discourse. Journal of Religion in Africa, 28 (3): 316–348.
-
Noghiu, Alain, A. 2015. Spiritual capital theory: A grounded theory based analysis of SCT and its policy applications. Newark: University of Delaware.
-
Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart. 2011. Sacred and decular: Religion and politics worldwide (second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Nweke, Kizito C. 2020. Multiple religious belonging (MRB): Addressing the tension between African spiritualties and Christianity. Theology Today, 77 (1): 76–88.
-
Nyamnjoh, Francis, B and Joel A. Carpenter. 2018. Religious innovation and competition in contemporary African Christianity. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 36 (3): 289–302.
-
Olivesi, Marine. 2012 (October 18). Ghana’s jobless head for Libya once more. DW.com. Available at https://www.dw.com/en/ghanas-jobless-head-for-libya-once-more/a-16311889. Accessed 22 February 2020.
-
Owusu-Ansah, David. 1983. Islamic influence in a forest kingdom: The role of protective amulets in early 19th century Asante: Transafrican Journal of History, 12: 100–133.
-
Parish, Jane. 2000. From the body to the wallet: Conceptualizing Akan witchcraft at home and abroad. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 6 (3): 487–500.
-
Reissig, Juliane. 2018. IOM Ghana Annual Report 2017. Accra: International Organization for Migration, Ghana.
-
Stark, Rodney and Roger Finke. 2000. Acts of faith: Explaining the human side of religion. University of California Press.
-
Tanle, Augustine. 2012. Everybody has his/her luck: Irregular migration of young people from Ghana to Libya and beyond. Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 1 (1): 43–64.
-
Ter Haar, Gerrie. 2005. The religious dimension in migration and its relation to development: The case of Ghanaians in the Netherlands. In Takyiwaa Manuh (ed.) At home in the world? International migration and development in contemporary Ghana and West Africa. Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers.
-
Teye, Joseph K., Louis Boakye-Yiadom, Edward Asiedu, Julie Litchfield, Johnsom W. Appiah Kubi and Mariama Awumbila. 2019. The impact of migration on the welfare of households left behind in rural Ghana: A quasi-experimental impact evaluation. School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Working Paper 62.
-
Tonah, Steve and Emmanuel Codjoe. 2020. Risking it all: Irregular migration from Ghana through Libya to Europe and its impact on the left-behind family members. In: E. Bahl and J. Becker (eds.), Global processes of flight and migration: The explanatory power of case studies. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press. Pp. 25–40.
-
Tweneboah, Seth. (2021). Biting the hand that feeds them? The case of Ghanaian pentecostal discourse on ‘breaking from the past’. Journal of Contemporary African Studies. 39 (1): 104–118.
-
van Dijk, Rijk. A. 1997. From camp to encampment: Discourses of transsubjectivity in the Ghanaian pentecostal diaspora. Journal of Religion in Africa. 27 (2): 135–159.
-
Wong, Sam. 2013. Using religious capital to alleviate poverty? A case study of cross-border migration in south China. In: G. Carbonnier, M. Kartas, and K.T. Silva (eds.) International development policy: Religion and development. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 174–191.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 367 | 229 | 16 |
| Full Text Views | 17 | 7 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 20 | 14 | 0 |
African Traditional Religion and Trans-Saharan Migration from Ghana
The Role of Nkoranza Deities in Youth Migration to Libya
In: African DiasporaAbstract
This paper interrogates an unexamined component of the religion-migration nexus in Ghana. Using African Traditional Religion as a case in point, the paper examines the function shrines play in sustaining youth migration to Libya and across the Mediterranean to Europe. The paper relies on interviews and fieldtrips to migrant sending communities in the Nkoranza area of the Bono East region of central Ghana. The paper gives an account of the daily realities of prospective migrants, returnees and their families. Among other key findings, it is shown that there is an intricate connection between youth migration, the family system and the deities in sustaining the trans-Saharan migration. This migration, we observe, has become a livelihood strategy, the perpetuation of which reassures the survival of not only the people, but their gods as well.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 367 | 229 | 16 |
| Full Text Views | 17 | 7 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 20 | 14 | 0 |