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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | Discourses of love and newspapers advice columns in Ghana |
| Author: | Fair, Jo Ellen |
| Year: | 2012 |
| Periodical: | Ghana Studies (ISSN 1536-5514) |
| Volume: | 15-16 |
| Pages: | 413-465 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Ghana |
| Subjects: | courtship marriage sexuality newspapers |
| Abstract: | The article examines the translation of globally circulating discursive packages surrounding romantic love into the Ghanaian milieu, and of Ghanaian truths into adjusted globally circulating discursive packages, as revealed in newspaper advice columns. Like all globally circulating discursive packages (human rights, democracy, television drama), romantic love carries with it words, phrases, packaged attitudes, and global networks of meaning that require fitting into local realities. Advice columns have animated Ghanaian newspapers since colonial times. However, in the 1950s, columnists addressed the few venturing into romantic love; today, they speak to the many. Interviews with columnists suggest that the Ghanaian press relies on the columns and similar 'soft content' to stay relevant and vibrant. The dilemmas of courtship, love, sex, commitment, and marriage, vex Ghanaians just as they do people everywhere. More and more, love is a maze of choices. Sex now? Marriage? How important is monogamy? Polygamy? Cohabitation before marriage? After marriage? A good provider? A partner of my choice? Should my family have a say? People the world over face choices like these, but in countries such as Ghana, there are strong competing discourses about family structure, sexuality, and lineage with which individuals have to come to (Ghanaian) terms with. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract] |