Reading :: Deliberating Ghana

 Deliberating Ghana: Postcolonial Rhetorics, Culture, and Democracy

By Stephen Kwame Dadugblor

It was my privilege to serve on Stephen Dadugblor’s dissertation committee and see the stellar dissertation he produced, a dissertation that focused on Ghana’s close 2012 election. This election’s results were disputed, and Dadugblor drew on a cultural rhetorics approach to examine some of the ways in which that dispute played out: In court cases, in forms that declared poll results, and in social media. The dispute wasn’t just about this election, it was about postcoloniality in Ghana.

That dissertation, heavily revised, became this book. I highly recommend it. Through concrete examinations of the dispute, Dadugblor explores the tensions of postcoloniality in Ghana, tensions that are played across genres, media, court proceedings, and other concrete encounters. But it is not just about Ghana, as Dadugblor concludes that Western democracies must also decolonialize (p.132). 

If you’re interested in cultural rhetorics, genre, decolonialization, or just good case studies of communication, I highly recommend this book. I’ll be returning to it as I continue to think through genres in terms of cultural heritage.