The aim of this thesis is to try and explain why southern Gold Coast intellectuals began to write systematically and consistently, in English, about particular aspects of the Gold Coast past, during the years of British imperial conquest and early control, between 1882 and 1917. The first three chapters explore existing limitations and lacunae in Ghanaian historiography and in studies of 'cultural imperialism', and recommend alternative conceptual and methodological strategies, appropriate to a vigorous analysis of the historical literature produced by members of culturally heterogeneous communities, during a period of crisis and change. In the next five chapters, these alternative strategies provide the basis for an investigat ion into the conditions, which facilitated the proliferation of published history, and, for a detailed textual analysis of the extant publications of seven Gold Coast historians. The conclusion suggests that this first, prolific phase in the development of local Gold Coast historiography may only be understood when perceived in the context of the history of an emergent Gold Coast Euro-African Society and isolates strategies and themes, which merit further research. As the biographical and family history of the intellectuals concerned remains virtually unexplored and since much of early Gold Coast Euro-African history was published in the local press and is not readily accessible to historians, four appendices are included to help redress these omissions and to facilitate the presentation of this study.

Children in colonial Ghana lived through a unique kind of childhood, very different from anything observed in either pre-colonial Africa or the metropole. In pre-colonial Ghana, despite the importance for adults of child-bearing, children had a low social status, with few rights to balance their onerous obligations to their elders. But the relationship between children and adult society was - at least in theory - redefined by the colonial presence. Colonial modernity was increasingly perceived to be placing children in moral and physical danger. There was a greater imperative for childhoods to incorporate play and education and for the colonial state to safeguard adult society by protecting the welfare of individual children and reforming the delinquent young. The remainder of the thesis focuses on how these shifts were experienced by children themselves. The second part of the thesis examines the intellectual and emotional history of children. Children understood the colonial world very differently from adults. Children began to fear recognisably colonial institutions and authority figures but also to associate comfort and security with metropolitan material culture. Children had a sometimes acute awareness of imperial wealth and power and the relative weakness of the colony. But, simultaneously, children were largely apolitical because of their lack of experience and their intense focus on the present and the self. The final part of the thesis deals with the economics of childhood. Children were a valuable, if vulnerable, part of the colonial workforce. Child labour was used in new ways as economic and technological change created a raft of 'small jobs' for children to undertake. But, in a fundamental reassessment of the social purpose of child labour, the thesis argues that much of the work undertaken by children was 'accumulative' rather than exploitative. It was labour that bridged the gap between economic childhood and adulthood and allowed children to acquire tangible, human and social forms of capital.

This thesis explores radio advertising in Ghana, focusing on the characteristics of a genre that is often termed 'slice-of-life' and that is popular with advertising producers. Slice-of-life adverts seek to represent a version of real life: specifically, the social reality of the target audience for the advert. I discuss how this represents a challenge to producers given a number of constraints, particularly the very brief duration of the mini-dramas that form the core of slice-of-life adverts and that last for just 1 0-60 seconds. I adopt the notion of 'designed indexicality' as a major analytical concept, arguing that this is a key strategy in designing a persuasive text. Producers, according to this view, deliberately harness culturally-salient indexical resources in the design of adverts, conveying meanings pertaining to the everyday lives of the advertised product's target audience, and that are readily and quickly interpretable by the audience. In analysing slice-of-life radio advertising I draw on an adapted, expanded form of a 'multiperspectived' discourse analysis. This combines an analysis of advertising texts with an analysis of advertising producers' accounts of their practice, observations of the production process and discussion with focus groups who represent the target audience for the adverts, meeting in a context that reflects habitual listening practices. The study therefore goes beyond the 'textualist' approaches that, until recently, have dominated applied linguistic research on advertising. I argue that the study addresses certain gaps in the literature, particularly with respect to the research context (an African country), the research focus (slice-of-life radio advertising) and the expanded multi-perspectived discourse analytical approach. I discuss a number of implications of the study for research on advertising discourse within applied linguistics and related fields, and also argue that the study points to the need for greater dialogue between applied linguists as analysts and advertising practitioners.

Imagine a democratic state in Africa where the Presidential-Executive and Parliament are constitutionally restrained from fundamentally reforming the institutions of land ownership and administration without the legal consent of traditional rulers (chiefs). This is the case in Ghana. Using the historical institutional theoretical approach, the study makes an original contribution to our understanding of how the political process of state formation between British colonial state makers and the rulers of traditional states in Ghana produced a type of state that I call the traditional-federal state in 1821-1831. The core legacies of this state are (i) the bifurcation of public authority between chiefs and government in the governance of land and people; and (ii) the complex interaction of informal-legal rules of customary law and formal-legal rules of common law. The study shows how these legacies have shaped institutional reforms within the dual ‘customary’ and ‘public’ sectors of land administration. The study argues that the traditional-federal state has constrained the development of transparent, accountable and efficient institutional framework of land administration. The study helps us to understand the origins and nature of the bifurcation of state authority between chiefs and government over land administration in Ghana. Secondly, the study helps us to understand the nature of institutions of chieftaincy for customary land administration. The study shows that informal-legal customary institutions of land administration are complementary to, and substitute for, the formal-legal institutions of land administration. Thirdly, the study shows that the potential of communal land ownership to promote development could be realized if government, chiefs, and citizens are committed to the creation and enforcement of formal-legal rules of accountable administration that distributes the benefits among stakeholders. Finally, the study reinforces the historical institutionalist argument that the critical juncture of institutional development matters for understanding subsequent endogenous and exogenous sources of institutional change.

This work is a study of three interrelated themes: international trade, state formation and warfare. These themes are examined within the framework of select littoral states on the Gold Coast and the inland Akany polities of Akany, Akwamu and Asante. The production and export of gold were the bases'for international trade with the trading centres ot the Central and Western Sudan and with the various European trading stations that were established on the Gold Coast littoral I between the late 15th and late 17th centuries. The development of trade centres and trade routes, urbanization, demographic expansion and growing socio-economic differentiation within the coastal and inland states contributed in the late 16th and 17th centuries to the emergence ot new forms of political administration (e.g. bureaucracy) as well as new forms of military organization (e.g. urban-based militia units) and warfare le.g. the employment of ployed and, later, deployed battle tactics). It is suggested that the coastal polities Le.g. the Accra and Fetu Kingdoms) and the Akany confederation represent an early phase of this developmental process,while Akwamu and Asante, building on these earlier achievements, represent a later one; specifically, Akwamu and Asante were imperial state systems, which distinguished them sharply from Akany. The various coastal and inland states are examined in the light of the aforementioned economic, political, military changes. With respect to Asante an attempt has been made to examine in detail the means by which the south-east Gold Coast and the Western Slave Coast were incorporated into Greater Asante.

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Currently there is a resurgence of the role of traditional chiefs in the development of sub-Saharan African countries. It has been proposed that African countries need to adopt more effective and pragmatic approaches, which are rooted in local societies and cultures and can therefore provide developmental outcomes. This thesis examines whether traditional chieftaincy in Ghana, which is a highly respected institution compared to other African countries can be effective and legitimate providers of public goods. This is done by analysing the way chiefs' exercise authority over community land and the revenue it produces. The study analysed land management practices under chiefs' authority and the dynamics of the politics of negotiating compensation for land and public goods. The main finding of the thesis is that investment in public goods might be facilitated by the development of multi-institutional arrangement that ensures collaboration among state and non-state institutions at the local level as a form of co-production for development. The implications of this arrangement on the political authority of chiefs at the local level are examined. The thesis questions the notion that it is custom and tradition that makes leadership provided by chiefs effective, and argues that what matters for development is how legitimate traditional authority is exercised in practice. The main conclusions of the thesis are that: firstly, although chiefs' are important traditional authorities in Ghana, they do not exercise political authority that is effective, as expected, for the development of local communities. There should therefore be caution in elevating traditional authority as the most effective legitimate form of locally rooted authority in Africa, given that Ghana is a country where chiefly authority is still extremely strong and respected. Attention should rather be focussed on the use of local cultural repertoires and multi-institutional collaborations, which have local problem-solving characteristics for development. Secondly, the thesis also provides evidence that shows how activities of mining companies potentially contribute to development of local communities. As a result there is the need to take a more nuanced view of how mining companies operate in Africa.

A la suite du Congrès panafricain de Manchester (octobre 1945), puis de son indépendance en mars 1957, le Ghana a été jusqu'en 1966 le centre de dynamiques transnationales trouvant leur origine dans la transformation sociale et politique de l'espace franco-africain. Considérant que l'indépendance du Ghana était liée à la libération totale du continent africain, Kwame Nkrumah a travaillé à construire la jeune nation africaine en tant que porte-drapeau du panafricanisme et embryon d'une union d'États africains indépendants et affranchis des cadres hérités de la période coloniale. C'est dans ce but qu'il a tissé un réseau d'alliances politiques et accueilli nombre de militants et intellectuels francophones qui ont contribué à nourrir une réflexion sur la transformation des empires, le panafricanisme, le néo-colonialisme, la lutte armée et la Révolution africaine. La construction d'un appareil de propagande à même de produire et de diffuser un imaginaire panafricain mobilisateur tant à l'intérieur qu'à l'extérieur du pays a été l'une des principales réalisations de l'époque. Dans le même temps, de grandes difficultés ont été rencontrées dans l'organisation politique des populations migrantes originaires de l’espace franco-africain et résidant au Ghana. Devenu un carrefour de la Révolution africaine, le Ghana a été progressivement amené à devenir un laboratoire où se discutaient et se construisaient une praxis et une idéologie reposant sur l'analyse des conditions politiques issues des indépendances africaines. La jeune nation a ainsi offert un lieu favorable à l'observation et l'étude du croisement des dynamiques qui ont traversé les anciens empires britannique et français. / Following the Pan-African Congress in Manchester in October 1945 and then its independence in March 1957, until 1966, Ghana became the center of transnational dynamics, which had their roots in the social and political transformation of French Africa. Convinced that the independence of Ghana was linked to the total liberation of the African continent, Kwame Nkrumah worked towards building this young African nation as a standard bearer of Pan-Africanism and as the nucleus of a union of independent African States, which would be freed from the structures inherited from the colonial period. To this end, Ghana formed a number of political alliances, and provided shelter and work for many francophone militants and intellectuals who, in turn, contributed to the reflex ions on the transformation of empires, Pan-Africanism, neo-colonialism, armed struggle and the African Revolution. The establishment of a propaganda machine able to produce and to widen a Pan-African imagined community in order to mobilise inside as well as outside Ghana was one of the main realizations of the period. Meanwhile, there were great difficulties regarding the political organization of the migrant populations coming from French Africa and living in Ghana. As a crossroads of the African Revolution, Ghana was progressively pushed to become a testing ground where a praxis and an ideology based upon an analysis of the political conditions coming from the newly independent African states were being discussed and built. The young nation proved to be a place where the intersection of the dynamics, which crossed both the former French and British empires, can be observed and studied.