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ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: TheNorthern CharacterBY FARA J. P. AWINDOR
ABSTRACT
During the colonial era cinematic images of Africa was dominated
by countless jungle epics from the Tarzan series to The African
Queen (1951) and the various adaptations of Rider Haggard’s
deeply racist 1885 novel, King Solomon’s mines. These cinematic
images effectively served to reinforce the Western vision of
Africa as a wild and savage place existing outside of history
(Murphy, 2000). When African filmmakers begun to emerge in the
early 1960’s they set out to counter these senseless images and
demeaning portrayal of Africans as objects to be scrutinized.
However, the pertinent question that arises is whether African
filmmakers have been able to redeem the African image? Or in the
process of redemption and reclaiming have they inadvertently or
knowingly reinforced the very negative perceptive vision of the
West. This paper explores some of these issues by looking at
ethnic stereotyping and representation in Ghanaian films. It
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
focusses on the people of Northern descent in Ghana where it
explores some of the social prejudices or programmed depictions
of the ‘Northerner’ in Ghanaian films that have long pervaded and
shaped our social philosophy. In fictional narratives the
filmmaker or writer has to his/her disposal countless
possibilities when characterizing, but most often images of some
ethnic groups or minorities are perniciously distorted and
misrepresented. Narratives that lend themselves to predictable
taxonomy and yearn for ‘positive imaging’ are neglected for cheap
entertainment, especially in dealing with subjects that tend to
involve a people’s worldview. These images are consistently
fed to a population where they are likely to develop false
assumptions and prejudiced attitudes, possibly discriminatory
behavior towards others (Chung, 2008). In this age of digital
technology, the popular media products have become the dominant
means by which most people learn about others. Our identity is
partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the
misrecognition of others, and so a person or a group of people
can suffer real damage, if the people or societies around them
mirrors back to them a confining or demeaning picture of
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
themselves. The paper draws examples from some notable Ghanaian
films and questions some of the avoidable narrative styles and
the blatant misuse of a powerful medium to subvert ethnic
minorities for commercial purposes, and calls for an awareness
implementation to counteract stereotyping in our society. The
paper suggests that to productively engage our creative energies
to any development, we must go beyond these derogatory
characterizations of ourselves and work towards a greater
national consciousness and national identity. For we have a much
greater work to do- to reverse the Western misrepresentation of
our continent, decolonize our mental perceptions and strive to
rediscover our cultural heritage and spiritual consciousness.
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
Stereotyping and representation in the cinema has been the
subject of many discussions in books, intellectual discourses,
papers and essays. The history of cinema has had a century-long
pattern of stereotypical representation, and to attempt to define
stereotyping within the perspective of cinema we need to have a
more precise understanding of what stereotyping is generally. But
like most social issues, an attempt at defining stereotyping is a
difficult one without having to go into other disciplinary and
inter-disciplinary fields of study. It is worth noting that for
all the decades of meaningful research done on stereotypes and
stereotyping, social scientists have yet to agree on a definitive
meaning for either term. The research and theorizing reflect
different approaches and interests, and consequently, as one
recent surveyor of the stereotyping literature commented, "A
single and unified concept of stereotype cannot be found”
(Ramirez-Berg, 2002). Nonetheless, I will make some general
descriptions of these terms for the purposes of this paper. A
stereotype is normally someone who represents a fixed set of
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
ideas about what a particular type of person is like, usually
incorrect and mostly used derogatively. On the flip side,
stereotyping for some cognitive psychologists, describes a value-
neutral psychological mechanism that creates categories and
enables people to manage the swirl of data presented to them from
their environment. This categorizing function was recognized in
1922 by Walter Lippmann, who first coined the term "stereotyping"
(see Ramirez-Berg, 2002), and to categorize in this way is not
"wrong," nor is it something that only bad people, or prejudiced
people do.
Ethnic stereotyping is a term that even when described loosely
one could still have a sense of what it is. By just combining the
two words one might fine a generic connotation that will explain
the term to mean a generalized representation of an ethnic group,
composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of
members of the group. The stereotyping of ethnic people,
especially black people, and some particular minorities has been
exploited by so many films. The images used in these films are
perniciously distorted and thus tend to maintain a certain
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
preconceived idea. These ideas Woodward (2000) believes are
linked to certain cultural processes by which the majority and
dominant groups define, demean and disempower minorities and
subordinate groups. Most often preconception results from ideas
that are continually reinforced and perpetuated by the powerful
such as a broadcast medium, individuals or a dominant group over
a long period of time and this becomes entrenched in a society
who tend to thrive on it leaving their victims, so to speak,
wallow in their own complexes of low esteem.
In this paper I will not be reviewing or criticizing films or any
particular film. My purpose here will be to draw our attention to
some of the issues that are disquieting that seem to portray some
groups of people in this country as only suitable for certain
character roles and visual narratives. Such condescending
attitude can only epitomize the treatment of the colonized in the
cinema, which ‘have often been marred by a certain methodological
naiveté’ (Stam & Spencer, 1985).
The ravages of colonialism undoubtedly have left some indelible
damages in the continent of Africa. Although most African nations
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
have had their independence more than five decades ago, we are
still in many ways victims to a new form of colonialism, a kind
that Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, often referred
to as ‘neocolonialism’. Jerry Komia Domatob in his essay, “The
Challenge Before African Media” points out that the social,
religious, economic and cultural legacies handed down by the
imperial overlords still permeates all facets of sub-Saharan
African life (Domatob, 1988). There has been no attempt to
decolonize these Western concepts or better still stick to our
own concepts which are readily available in our indigenous
systems. Stuart Hall, as cited by Linda Smith in her book
“Decolonizing Methodologies” makes the point that the West is an
idea, or concept, a language for imagining a set of complex
stories, ideas, historical events and social relationships. Hall
suggests that the concept of the West functions in ways which (1)
allow ‘us’ to characterize and classify societies into categories,
(2) condense complex images of other societies through a system of
representation, (3) provide a standard model of comparison, and (4)
provide criteria of evaluation against which other societies can
be ranked (Smith, 1999:42-43) . It is not surprising that the
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
colonialist coded and characterized us through these procedures.
We are witnesses to the cinematic images of Africa during the
colonial era that was dominated by countless jungle epics from
the Tarzan series to The African Queen (1951) and the various
adaptations of Rider Haggard’s deeply racist 1885 novel, King
Solomon’s mines. These cinematic images effectively served to
reinforce the Western vision of Africa as a wild and savage place
existing outside of history (Murphy, 2000).
It is interesting to note that this colonialist representation
did not begin with the cinema: it is rooted in a vast colonial
intertext, a widely disseminated set of discursive practices.
Long before the first racist images appeared on the film screens
in Europe and North America, the process of colonialist image-
making, and resistance to that process, resonated through Western
literature (Stam & Spence. 1983). This however had serious
repercussions in the colonies they built. The Europeans managed
their colonies in such a way that provided avenues for the
colonized to rank themselves and classify others into categories.
Such was the case in the Gold Coast (Ghana) where the Gold Coast
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
was made up of the Colony, Ashanti and the Northern Territories,
generally called the protectorate. History tells us that it was a
deliberate attempt on the part of the colonialists to keep the
then Northern territories ignorant, inept and poor to feed the
South with inexhaustible labour, because it was claimed the
Asantes were averse to any systematic work (see Bening,1999). It
is on record that Sir Hodgson, who was Governor in 1899,
initiated this benign policy of neglect and saw to it that no
money was spent on development in the protectorate. Such an
attitude and other policies brought about untold consequences
which still live with us today despite efforts by various
governments to try to bridge the North-South gap through
education, economic development, and currently the Savanna
Accelerated Development Authority (SADA)[1]. This deliberate
denigration of the North has made the ethnic populations of the
North a subject of scorn and prejudice. The mass media,
especially the visual media has either deliberately or
‘unwittingly sutured into a colonists perspective’ and have
perpetrated and reinforced the ethnic stereotypical images. There
are some ethnic groups even in the Volta Region that have also
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
suffered such patronizing abuse in the mass media where their
accent of the English language has been subjected to constant
ridicule and comic reliefs. As if there exists a Ghanaian-English
accent which we all have to acquire.
Research has proved that when a certain media message is fed
consistently to a population, that message invariably becomes
cardinal or a construct in the minds of the viewers. Therefore
in constructing the ‘other’ filmmakers should be careful not to
reduce a population to a simple dichotomy such as us and them.
‘Dichotomization especially promotes the image of a mythical
Other who is not at all like “us.” Ultimately dichotomization
results in stigmatizing those who are less powerful. It provides
the grounds for those whole categories of people to become the
objects of contempt (Karen, Rosenblum and Travis, 2003). At this
juncture I will want to draw an example from Heritage Africa.[2]
In Kwaw Ansah’s Heritage Africa, the houseboys and watchmen have
northern names such as Atongo and Atiah, very familiar names in
our media landscape. Even though a film’s setting allows a
certain amount of realism, but looking at Kwaw’s Heritage,
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
hypothetically, if the name Atongo was swapped for kwame, will
the narrative have changed or to be more practical, could it be
that there was a possibility that a Kwame could have been a house
boy to a Colonial Governor?. “While posing legitimate questions
concerning narratives plausibility and (imitative) mimetic
accuracy, negative stereotypes and positive images, the emphasis
on realism has often betrayed an exaggerated faith in the
possibilities of (authenticity) verisimilitude in art in general
and the cinema in particular, avoiding the fact that films are
inevitably constructs, fabrications, representations”( Stam and
Spence, 1983).
I was supervising a student’s thesis and her topic was Ethnic
Representation in Ghanaian Cinema. Her interview with one notable
filmmaker in Ghana confirmed the ignorance and lack of
ideological grounding of some filmmakers that make them denigrate
some ethnic groups either deliberately or unintentionally. When
asked about the roles that characters play vis avis their
ethnicity, the filmmaker said, ‘why should I cast an Akan as a watchman
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
when a northerner is there?’ This of course has its antecedents, which
has been explained above, where Northerners could only be
employed in unskilled jobs. As artists and filmmakers we should
be sensitive to the ‘other’ and be more broad with our
methodology or narrative style and such “a comprehensive
methodology must pay attention to the mediations which intervene
between ‘reality’ and representation, its emphasis should be on
narrative structure, genre conventions, and cinematic style
rather than on perfect correctiness of representation or fidelity
to an original ‘real’ model or prototype. Our insistence on
positive images, “obscures the fact that ‘nice’ images might at
times be as pernicious as overtly degrading ones, providing a
bourgeois façade for paternalism, a more pervasive racism” or in
our particular case, tribalism.[3]
A research I conducted for the Directing Department at the
National Film and Television Institute, Ghana (NAFTI), revealed
certain startling results. The primary purpose of the research
was to enable teachers cope with the challenges in training
students from various ethnic and diverse social and cultural
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
orientations. The survey was conducted at NAFTI during four
intake sessions. The fresh candidates were given two sets of
information numbered one to six in two columns. The first column
was composed of ethnic names purposely selected to represent a
cross section of ethnic groups in the country, specifically the
North and South. The other information was character roles, which
they were to assign to the names in the first column. A short
scenario was also attached to the names to give them an
understanding of what they were supposed to do. The roles were;
Managing Director, Accountant, Businessman, Thief, Driver and
watchman. What we realized was that close to 98% of the
candidates gave the thief, watchman and Driver roles to the
Northern names, and the Managing Director, Businessman and
Accountant to the Akan names. The results captured for the four
intakes was invariably the same. From these results we realized
how deeply rooted or methodological flawed our young society have
been constructed. Even though there are some underlining
political and economic reasons for this trend, the biggest
culprit obviously is our visual and broadcast media. The
understanding of images by the population is based upon what they
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
see every day on the screens. Casting Atia or Atongo [4] as a
watchman might be the reality, and it is not wrong either to cast
any ethnic name as watchman or houseboy, but it is the derogation
that comes with it and the untold deep seething repercussive
havoc this is likely to bring to the Northern group. The same
will not necessarily apply to a name such as Kofi, Kwame or Appiah.
[5] The reasons for this are legion and the political and
economic antecedents described above are part of the equation to
this acceptable norm. The standard description given to the
Northern character is one who is often represented as poor,
irresponsible, deviant, ignorant, illiterate, and prone to
pervasive violence. I have always thought that for us to be
Ghanaians our ethnicity should be invisible. In conversations
with close friends, students and first time acquaintances I will
always be reminded of who I am. Not that I have an ethnic
complex, but once the question of identity comes up a spot light
is thrown on you. I suddenly realize I have become a
representative of my entire ethnic grouping including other
northern tribes and a subject to be actualized. To them all
Northerners are one and the same, irrespective of the diversity
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
of language, traditions and customs. I must know everything about
Northerners. Some try to make descent statements about
Northerners, probably to be on your side; statements like,
‘Northerners are hardworking and honest.’ The worse is when they begin
to give you examples of Northerners who served them well and kept
their homes, a remark intended to make you feel good. Sometimes
they simply just ask you an ignorant question, ‘Are you Muslim?
[6] As if being a Muslim is synonymous to being ‘Northern’, or
they might probably ask you a very impolite one, ‘why don’t you
have tribal marks? Especially when I tell them I am a Grunŋa
(Frafra) from the North. Again, as if Northerners should always
remain marked to be recognized. And lastly, a statement that I
personally feel insulting, ‘you don’t look like a Northerner’.
Maybe, that’s the reason Northerners should be marked so that
they don’t look or pass off like others. These unsavory
questioning is borne out of the ignorance that is permeating our
media products and our educational systems. Most Ghanaians,
especially in the Southern part of the country are just not
interested in knowing about the ‘other’. This might sound
fallacious and very generalized but the ignorance is just
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
overbearing. Our educational books are silent about the people
who make up the nation; their histories, geography, traditions
and culture. And if they do, it is nothing to write home about. I
have not seen or read any book that probably had said a dry warm
weather is more accommodating than a humid warm weather. But that
is respectively, the condition that exists between the North and
South. Going through the educational system in Ghana, you are
certain to learn about the West, our colonial masters and you
will definitely learn a great deal about the Akans, especially
the Ashanti Kingdom, its rulers, its geographical wealth and
colourful traditions. Nothing great or colourful is written about
the Northern tribes except their recurring conflicts and hot
weather, a geographical heritage they did not ask for, which at
the slightest opportunity is reinforced; dry hot savanna, very
low vegetation, low rainfall patterns, dry deserted landscape,
dry hot harmattan, dry hot winds and so on. You will be surprised
that most journalist and news readers mix up the names of the
towns and cities in the three Northern Regions. They don’t really
care whether Lawra is in Upper West Region or Bawku is in the
Upper-East Region. Once it is in the North that is enough.
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
Stereotyping arises as a result of one not having enough
information or in-depth knowledge of the people they are trying
to portray.
In Kwaw Ansah’s Heritage Africa, Bosomfield represented the perfect
product of colonial education who went through identity crisis
like most educated people today, but the film has a redeeming
quality for the central character that takes him through several
phases of change until he redeems himself. Likewise there are
conscious embedded themes that reveal conflicts between
traditional and western values where traditional values are
portrayed as having a certain superior quality. Heritage Africa’s
depiction of class is very clear visually. You will easily notice
the difference between the educated and the illiterate through
costuming. However in terms of dialogue both the literate and
illiterate speak good English except Bosomfield’s mother and
household who speak Fante (Akan), and of course, the northern
illiterate whose identity must remain real, whose character must
conform to the stereotype to make the plot work, so he speaks bad
and exaggerated accented English . These days you hardly find the
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
Northern character portrayed so overtly in Ghanaian movies, but
when they do it is refined to hide the conventional cliché.
However the Kumawood films, Chorkor Trotro, New Generations,the
Interplast water Advert and other advertisements or media
products blatantly distort the sensibilities of the Northern
character. Portrayal of the ‘Other’ in most Ghanaian films are
sometimes traded for cheap entertainment without considering the
subliminal references they carry. Mass media is a powerful factor
which influences our beliefs, attitudes, and the values we have
of ourselves. It is said that today’s mass media is just as
influential as religion was 500-600 years ago.
Stereotypes are usually employed to explain real or imaginary
differences due to race, gender, religion, age, ethnicity socio-
economic class, disability and occupation etc. Today’s youth are
constantly exposed to the images they see on TV, and from it they
form a sense of reality. From the mass media children are
learning about gender roles, and ethnic and racial
identification; the result of this self-socialization is that
children are learning from a pretentious and lopsided sense of
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
reality. This raises the question, as to how racial, ethnic, and
gender stereotyping in the mass media have on society today? The
media have the main influence on our notions of ethnic groups. In
order to counteract the stereotyping imposed upon us from the
mass media awareness has to be implemented in society at all
levels.
It is often said that African film was borne as a resistance to
her representation by the West. Ironically do we have to
misrepresent others to free ourselves from western
representation? Our first President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah after
independence sort to change the direction of our values and
attitudes to restore our lost image and this was done through
various policies for national unity. The educational boarding
school concept, the Arts Council, the Ghana Film Industry were
some of the approaches put in place to moderate ethnic
tendencies. So during the early 60’s ethnicity seemed to have
declined dramatically, but after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah
the phenomena was revived. It was therefore not surprising that
in 1979 when the bid for presidency by Dr. Hilla Limann, a
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
Northerner under the Peoples National Party (PNP) contested
against Victor Owusu, an Asante on the ticket of the Popular
front Party (PFP) was met with disdain that eventually sparked a
barrage of unsavory allegations and insults against Limann and
his northern ethnicity. One such insult was that if Limann was
allowed to win the election Northerners would flock to the castle
(the seat of Government), and disfigure the walls and carpets
with kolanut and tobacco spitum (Bening, 1999;West
Africa,1979:1151). The PNP won the election and a report by a
correspondent of the West Africa Magazine gave a sharp indication
of the true level of national integration in Ghana as reflected
in the reactions to the prospect of the election of the first
Northerner as President of Ghana after twenty-two years of
political independence (Bening,1999):
“ One important element in the reception of the PNP by members of other
parties and supporters is based on class consciousness, which cuts across
the southern tribal, administrative and business elite. There have been so
many jokes and sarcastic comments about Limann based on the fact that
he is a northerner; that he had to have his teeth scrubbed of kolanut
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
stains. Some members of the southern middle class claim that their night
watchmen have stopped work following the PNP victory, and even that the
night soil carriers have left the work to the Fantes and Asantes…”
A riposte was made to the sentiments expressed above in West Africa
magazine by Joe Kubayanda. His response was that “ this was a
nationally dangerous proclivity towards ethnic intolerance, and
that there are still in Ghana some tribal rejects who nonetheless
project themselves not only as the restricted embodiments of
sectional images, but dangerously as the larger symbols of
divinely ordained leadership in an increasingly more complex
country” (West Africa, 1979:1426).
The feelings and thoughts stated above can only exist in a
country that does not respect multiculturalism or diversity. Most
Ghanaians will deny that this fact exists, because of the
seemingly integrated coexistence that is currently taking place
in Ghana. However, it is significant, and rightly so that there
has to be a conscious effort at creating a politics of
representation.
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
Charles Taylor (1994, in Gutman ed. 1994, p.25) has argued that
in contemporary politics a need arises for the recognition of
mostly minority or “subaltern” groups “in what is today called
the politics of ‘multiculturalism’. Taylor observes that
“…our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its
absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and
so a person or a group of people can suffer real
damage, real distortion, if the people or society
around them mirror back to them a confining or
demeaning or comtemptible picture of themselves.
Nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm,
can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a
false, distorted, and reduced mode of being” (ibid,
p.25).
Taylor argues further that the consistent negative and
condescending portrayal of some cultures and identities as
inferior or “uncivilized” do have long-lasting effects on such
people, who tend to accept such inferior portrayal as fact and
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
may behave accordingly in relation to the dominant culture.
Taylor suggests that the first task in dealing with this
situation is for the minority or disadvantaged identities “to
purge themselves of this imposed and destructive identity”. As
Taylor (1994, in Gutman ed. 1994, p.149) has also pointed out,
“people have the right to be acknowledged publicly as what they
already really are.” It is not right for one culture or form of
identity to reject another and then impose itself on that other,
even if in subtle ways. Most African states, especially those
found in south of the Sahara where you are likely to see numerous
languages and countless dialects, dominant ethnic groups tend to
‘colonize’ the rest and impose on them their language and culture
and worse of all present themselves as superior. Examples can be
drawn from the following: Mossi in Burkina-Faso, the Berbers in
the Maghreb, Akan in Ghana, Zulu in South Africa, Shona in
Zimbabwe, Hutu in Burundi, Hausa and Yoruba in Nigeria, Fula in
Gambia and Guinea, Bambara in Mali.
In this era of digital technology, the current and popular media
products have become the dominant means by which most people
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
learn about others because as rightly posited by Taylor our identity is
partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others. We
should as filmmakers productively engage our creative energies to
developing a greater national consciousness and national
identity. We must go beyond the derogatory characterizations of
ourselves and work towards reversing the Western
misrepresentation of our continent, decolonizing our mental
perceptions and strive to rediscover our cultural heritage and
spiritual consciousness. This challenge is obligatory and
incontestable. It is very possible to make an ideological
relevant cinema and yet accomplish a balance between
entertainment and commerce. The challenge is to undertake a
sincere and radical re-examination of the media industry and
build values and attitudes that will make our ethnicity
invisible.
Notes
1. The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) is an independent intervention for coordinating a comprehensive development agenda for the northern savannah ecological zone in Ghana comprising the three Northern regions of Ghana namely, Upper East, Upper West and the Northern Region, and stretches to
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
include districts contiguous to the North that are located north of Brong-Ahafo and north of the Volta region. Its main thrust isto promote sustainable development using the notion of a forestedand green north to catalyze climate change reversal and improve livelihoods of the most vulnerable citizens in the area.(http://mofa.gov.gh/site).
2. Heritage Africa (1989) is set in 1955 in the violent run-up to Ghanaian independence, this ambitious political drama follows theconversion of conscience of the first black District Commissioner, an anglicised Cambridgeman so dedicated to his duties that he refuses to attend his mortally ill son. Kwaw Ansahpresents a diffuse political analysis - with the complex pains and ironies of colonialism coming over powerfully.
3. Tribalism refers to a way of thinking or behaviour in which people are more loyal to their tribe than to their friends, social group, country or any other social group. It is defined as‘the state of being organized in, advocating for, a tribe or tribes.
4. Atia and Atongo are common names mostly used by people in the Upper-East Region. There are variations to the spelling and sometimes in pronunciation, such as Tia. Tia or Atia simply means aTree. These two names have been used derogatively in Ghana for comic reliefs.
5. Kofi, Kwame and Appiah are names commonly found in the southern part of Ghana.
6. Islam is wide spread in the Northern part of Ghana with Hausa as a common language and there’s a reason for this. The upper northern belt of West Africa during the 11th and 12th Century BC was dominated by the trans-Atlantic trade and Islamic proselytization. These activities moved south to most states south of the Sahara. Hausa was the common trading language, because of the numerous languages and dialects that existed in this area. Today pockets of these activities exist in Ghana and mostly found in the Zongo, where Hausa is the dominant language. These Zongos are inhabited by people mostly from the north of Ghana and other middle belt countries such as Burkina-Faso, Mali,Niger, Northern Nigeria and Mauritania. Therefore most Southern Ghanaians erroneously refer to all Northerners as Hausas and
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
Muslims. But the Ghana Statistical Data (GLSSS, 2006), has recorded more Christians than Muslims in the North.
References:
Bening, B. R.(1999). Ghana Regional Boundaries and National Integration. Ghana University Press.
Chung, S. K. (2008). An Exploration of the Issue of Stereotyping in the Artroom. Art Education, Vol.61. No. 3. Pp 22-24. NAEA
Karen E. Rosenblum and Toni C. Travis: The meaning of Difference 2003 3 ed.
Murphy, D. (2000). Africans Filming Africa: Questioning Theories of an Authentic African Cinema. Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 13. No. 2 pp 239-249
Ramirez-Berg, C. (2002). Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion and Resistance. University of Texas Press.
Stam and Spence, L. (1983). Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction. Screen 24 (2): 2-20. Oxford Journals.
Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books Ltd. NY.
Taylor, C. (1994). The Politics of Recognition – In Gutman, Amy (ed) – Multiculturalism – Princeton University Press.
West Africa Magazine, 2 July 1979, p 1151
West Africa Magazine, 6 August, 1979, p 1426
Woodward, K. (2000). Questioning Identity: Gender, Class and Identity. Open University Psychology Press. London: Routledge.
ETHNIC STEREOTYPING AND REPRESENTATION: The Northern Character
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jim Fara Awindor is a Senior Lecturer at the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI). He is a Fulbright Scholar and studied at NAFTI and Columbia College, Chicago for his MFA. He has contributed immensely to curricular and to the learning environment at NAFTI for two decades and currently teaches documentary filmmaking and developing story ideas for both fiction and non-fiction films. Fara has written several papers onvarious film topics, which includes, Ousman Sembene: The Auteur; African Cinema, a Social and Political Force; Transdisciplinary Methods in Documentary Filmmaking; Audio-Visual Archiving in Ghana. Currently at the final stages of his PhD research work in Endogenous Development with special interest in finding an interface between Biomedicine and African Traditional medicine.