How men and women negotiate sociocultural relations in Asante matrilineage (abusua): an ethnographic-based discourse study

Abstract

ABSTRACTEthnographic studies of matrilineal societies in Africa, including the Asante society in Ghana, demonstrate that the practice of matriliny persistently conditions social relations and organisations insofar as individuals trace their descent through the female line. Some studies argue, however, that the influx of Western discourses in contemporary Asante society offers space for individuals to negotiate and renegotiate sociocultural relations at the intersection of discourse. How do the everyday, intelligible actions of men and women sustain or challenge the taken-for-granted ethnocentric view of matrilineal cultural discourse in Asante society? This article contributes to a better understanding of the cultural aspects of social practices and relations in Africa’s developing societies and participates in cultural discourse studies by de-naturalising the ethnocentric and unproblematic view of matrilineal cultural discourse. This article is an ethnographic-based discourse study, which analyses actions and accounts from a focus group discussion of Asante men and women. It reveals that the Western view of matriliny provides a limited situated cultural understanding of Asante matrilineal cultural discourse, indicating that women actively negotiate authority over children in ways that reproduce the ethnocentric view of matrilineal discourse, while men problematise the actions of women and the ethnocentric view of Asante matrilineal discourse.