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‘Kakube has come to stay’: the making of a cultural festival in Northern Ghana, 1989–2015

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Carola Lentz  and
Trevor Wiggins
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Abstract

In Ghana, cultural festivals, usually initiated and organized by the chiefs, provide public arenas where local and regional political elites voice demands vis-à-vis central government, and where national politicians canvass for support. Festivals offer commercial opportunities, forums to promote ‘development’, and occasions for entertainment. Yet advocating for ‘our own culture’ stands out as their very raison d’être, offering a frame for cultural entrepreneurs to organize performances that express and reconfigure local styles of music and dance to fit national formats. In this article, we examine such processes of cultural creation for the Kakube Festival in Nandom, a paramount chiefdom in north-western Ghana. We analyse the cultural building blocks and their evolution during the festival's history as well as the context of changing national politics of cultural heritage in which the festival developed. We discuss the invention of a cultural festival to create local alliances and stake claims at the regional and national political level, and how the desire to assert a presence in the national political and cultural arena has transformed the ways in which local culture is defined and presented. We examine the tensions at the heart of such an event, where traditions of chiefly patronage and allegiance meet the requirements of modern political and bureaucratic systems of funding, and the criteria of excellence in cultural performance. Music and dance are essential components and we analyse the evolution and adaptation of these elements alongside the critical path management of the event that has led to its local and national profile.

Résumé

Au Ghana, les festivals culturels, généralement initiés et organisés par les chefs, offrent des arènes dans lesquelles les élites politiques locales et régionales expriment des exigences à l’égard du gouvernement central, et dans lesquelles les politiciens nationaux sollicitent un soutien. Les festivals offrent des opportunités commerciales, des forums de promotion du « développement » et des occasions de se divertir. Mais ce qui ressort comme leur profonde raison d'être est le plaidoyer pour « notre propre culture », en offrant aux entrepreneurs culturels un cadre d'organisation de prestations qui expriment et reconfigurent des styles locaux de musique et de danse pour les adapter à des formats nationaux. Dans cet article, les auteurs examinent ces processus de création culturelle à travers le festival Kakube de Nandom, une grande chefferie du nord-ouest du Ghana. Ils analysent les éléments culturels de base et leur évolution au cours de l'histoire du festival, ainsi que le contexte d’évolution de la politique nationale du patrimoine culturel dans lequel le festival s'est développé. Ils débattent de l'invention d'un festival culturel pour créer des alliances locales et faire des revendications au niveau politique régional et national, et de la manière dont le désir d'asseoir une présence dans l'arène politique et culturelle nationale a transformé les modes de définition et de présentation de la culture locale. Les auteurs examinent les tensions au cœur d'un tel événement, où les traditions de patronage et d'allégeance aux chefs côtoient les exigences de systèmes politiques et bureaucratiques modernes de financement, et les critères d'excellence de l'expression culturelle. La musique et la danse sont des composantes essentielles, et les auteurs analysent l’évolution et l'adaptation de ces éléments, ainsi que la gestion du chemin critique de l’événement qui a conduit à son profil local et national.

Type
Performing identities
Information
Africa , Volume 87 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 180 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2017 

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