Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture (review)

An initial encounter with this book may give the reader a little surprise. Despite its suggestive title, Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture does not examine established genres such as highlife music, concert party theater, and literary fiction. Instead, it looks at libations, naming ceremonies, funerals, a female initiation ceremony (Dipo), and festival occasions. Students of such subjects usually categorize them as rituals rather than forms of popular culture—a point that immediately raises a question: if ritual is Adjaye's subject, why did he give his book this title?

As the introduction notes, the reasons are threefold. First, Adjaye defines Ghanaian ritual practices as "expressions of mass culture" (p. 3) that individuals encounter on a regular basis and use to express their lives, thoughts, and actions. Second, Adjaye asserts, as do the Comaroffs (1993), that the examined ritual forms are not static or unchanging practices: though libations, naming ceremonies, and funerals retain structural elements over time, Adjaye demonstrates that they are simultaneously open to innovation and improvisation. Finally, Adjaye dismisses structural-functional perspectives of ritual forms, arguing that they mistakenly describe rituals in terms of a single coherent purpose or meaning. Like Margaret Drewal's work on Yoruba ritual (1992), this is a performance-based study, which admirably frames Ghanaian rituals as "messy," multivocal sites of negotiation from which numerous meanings may emerge.

In brief, Adjaye posits (and later demonstrates) that festivals, funerals, and ceremonies share essential characteristics with other forms of Ghanaian popular culture. They are fluid and dynamic, they invoke the past and the present, and they are sites of negotiation between various actors and interpretations. Throughout the book, Adjaye successfully demonstrates that rituals are "repositories of difference as well as commonality" (p. 11), in which boundaries of self and other are continually defined. In the end, the book's title is fitting and provocative. By confronting boundaries that separate "traditional" ritual and popular cultural forms, Adjaye's work challenges future works not only to engage with the complexities of cultural forms and social realities, but to reevaluate commonly used classifications and concepts that too often mask them. In doing so, it is an important and stimulating book.

In addition to an introduction and a conclusion, the book is organized into six chapters. Each looks at a particular Ghanaian ritual and contains introductory comments, basic information on the subject, theoretical frameworks, and subsequent analysis. Chapter two examines libations and argues that they are dialogic mediums, which have metacommunicative messages, but also contain subtexts that allow for innovations in meaning and style. In similar fashion, chapter three reveals that Akan naming rituals are open and fluid events, which, rather than imparting a fixed identity upon a newborn child, are sites of continuity and rupture in both practice and meaning. Chapter four looks at Dipo, a female initiation ceremony of the Krobo of southeastern Ghana. While Dipo may appear to be a neat and orderly experience of transformation, Adjaye contends that it is a "dangerous crossroads" for initiates, who do not fully abandon their youth nor completely attain adulthood during the process. Chapter five explores asafo companies (young men's associations) and Bakatue, a festival in the southern town of Elmina. While suggesting that asafo and Bakatue are important symbols of communal identity for Edenafo (the people of Elmina), Adjaye shows how each allows for the suspension of social hierarchies and the emergence of multiple versions of social reality. Chapter six looks at another festival, Apo, which takes place in Takyiman, a town in Ghana's Brong-Ahafo region. Like Bakatue, Apo allows for the temporary suspension of social hierarchies and gives residents an opportunity to criticize those in power through song. It provides extraordinary examples of songtexts, and uses them to reveal many concerns and identities. The final chapter examines funerals, and argues that they are not only dynamic, but provide opportunities for...