The Predicament of Blackness
Subtitle: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race
By: Jemima Pierre
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780226923024; 9780226923031; 9780226923048
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Race relations; Race identity; Blacks; Heritage tourism; African diaspora; Race awareness
Description: What is the meaning of blackness in Africa? This title tackles the question of race in West Africa through its post-colonial manifestations. Pierre examines key facets of contemporary Ghanaian society, from the pervasive significance of 'whiteness' to the practice of chemical skin-bleaching to the government's active promotion of Pan-African 'heritage tourism'.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Of natives and Europeans: Colonialism and the ethnicization of racial dominance; title: "Seek ye first the political kingdom": The postcolony and racial formation; title: "You are rich because you are white": Marking race and signifying whiteness; title: The fact of lightness: Skin bleaching and the colored codes of racial aesthetics; title: Slavery and pan-Africanist triumph: Heritage tourism and state racecraft; title: "Are you a black American?": Race and the politics of African-diasporic interactions; title: Race across the Atlantic; title: and back: Theorizing Africa and/in the diaspora; title: Epilogue: Writing Ghana, imagining Africa, interrogating diaspora.