Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince
Commercial activities in nineteenth century Gold Coast were crucial in defining, not only the nature of African capitalism, but the consumption changes it brought to its merchant elite, commonly referred to in African historiography as merchant princes. The transformation of the Gold Coast economy i...
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ftjafricanj:oai:ojs.ajol.info:article/181064 2023-05-15T17:30:20+02:00 Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince Sapong, Nana Yaw Boampong 2018-12-03 application/pdf https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/181064 eng eng University of Ghana https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/181064/170449 https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/181064 Creative Commons LicenseAttribution-Noncommercial- Noderivates 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): The license allows others to “download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially” (Source: https:creativecommons.org/licenses).CopyrightThe copyright of all papers published in Legon Journal of the Humanities is vested in the journal. By agreeing to publish the accepted version of the paper in LJH, contributors automatically cede copyright of the manuscript to the journal. This notwithstanding, contributors may use parts of their published articles for non-commercial purposes, e.g., course material, conferences, and academic profile webpage. Access and AttributionWhile LJH published papers (new and archived) can be freely downloaded from its website in compliance with its gratis open access policy, hard copies of current and recent issues as well as offprints of specific papers can only be provided on demand.Citation of a paper from LJH should include name of quoted author, journal title, volume, number, title of paper, page, year of publication, and Digital Object Identifier (DOI)/Uniform Resource Locator(URL). CC-BY-NC CC-BY-NC-ND Legon Journal of the Humanities; Vol 29, No 2 (2018); 264-284 2458-746X 0855-1502 merchant prince capitalist exchange power Gold Coast Anowa info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Peer-reviewed Article 2018 ftjafricanj 2018-12-16T01:04:41Z Commercial activities in nineteenth century Gold Coast were crucial in defining, not only the nature of African capitalism, but the consumption changes it brought to its merchant elite, commonly referred to in African historiography as merchant princes. The transformation of the Gold Coast economy into a commercial capitalist economy, which had as its life source a vibrant north Atlantic world market, exposed merchant princes to other goods which were not necessities but had the power to change one’s social status. In partaking freely in this consumerism that the north Atlantic world offered, they were redefining power relations and helping to entrench colonial capitalism in the Gold Coast. More importantly, this new kind of consumerism signaled the merchant princes’ desire to, at once, show off their newly acquired wealth and also appropriate power in a politically uncertain environment. Using available historical sources as well as creative works such as Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa, this paper suggests imaginative ways in which scholars may tease out African agency in existing narratives on the nineteenth century. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic AJOL - African Journals Online |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
AJOL - African Journals Online |
op_collection_id |
ftjafricanj |
language |
English |
topic |
merchant prince capitalist exchange power Gold Coast Anowa |
spellingShingle |
merchant prince capitalist exchange power Gold Coast Anowa Sapong, Nana Yaw Boampong Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince |
topic_facet |
merchant prince capitalist exchange power Gold Coast Anowa |
description |
Commercial activities in nineteenth century Gold Coast were crucial in defining, not only the nature of African capitalism, but the consumption changes it brought to its merchant elite, commonly referred to in African historiography as merchant princes. The transformation of the Gold Coast economy into a commercial capitalist economy, which had as its life source a vibrant north Atlantic world market, exposed merchant princes to other goods which were not necessities but had the power to change one’s social status. In partaking freely in this consumerism that the north Atlantic world offered, they were redefining power relations and helping to entrench colonial capitalism in the Gold Coast. More importantly, this new kind of consumerism signaled the merchant princes’ desire to, at once, show off their newly acquired wealth and also appropriate power in a politically uncertain environment. Using available historical sources as well as creative works such as Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa, this paper suggests imaginative ways in which scholars may tease out African agency in existing narratives on the nineteenth century. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Sapong, Nana Yaw Boampong |
author_facet |
Sapong, Nana Yaw Boampong |
author_sort |
Sapong, Nana Yaw Boampong |
title |
Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince |
title_short |
Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince |
title_full |
Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince |
title_fullStr |
Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince |
title_full_unstemmed |
Capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century Gold Coast: Interrogating Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince |
title_sort |
capitalist exchange, consumerism and power in nineteenth century gold coast: interrogating ama ata aidoo’s anowa and the contested personage of the merchant prince |
publisher |
University of Ghana |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/181064 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
Legon Journal of the Humanities; Vol 29, No 2 (2018); 264-284 2458-746X 0855-1502 |
op_relation |
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/181064/170449 https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/181064 |
op_rights |
Creative Commons LicenseAttribution-Noncommercial- Noderivates 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): The license allows others to “download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially” (Source: https:creativecommons.org/licenses).CopyrightThe copyright of all papers published in Legon Journal of the Humanities is vested in the journal. By agreeing to publish the accepted version of the paper in LJH, contributors automatically cede copyright of the manuscript to the journal. This notwithstanding, contributors may use parts of their published articles for non-commercial purposes, e.g., course material, conferences, and academic profile webpage. Access and AttributionWhile LJH published papers (new and archived) can be freely downloaded from its website in compliance with its gratis open access policy, hard copies of current and recent issues as well as offprints of specific papers can only be provided on demand.Citation of a paper from LJH should include name of quoted author, journal title, volume, number, title of paper, page, year of publication, and Digital Object Identifier (DOI)/Uniform Resource Locator(URL). |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC CC-BY-NC-ND |
_version_ |
1766126687358025728 |