Un Peacekeeping and the International Men and Women of the Ghana Armed Forces

Abstract

This article argues that after 1973, participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations abroad enabled Ghanaian military personnel and their families to employ the infrastructure of international military cooperation to form an alternate global identity that was not simply larger than the nation-state. Ghanaian military families found the experiences of international military education and peacekeeping personally rewarding, but they also connected Ghanaians to global communities while weakening some national bonds. International military service provided Ghanaian families alternate strategies to negotiate economic insecurity in ways that strikingly resemble other diaspora communities, with an essential difference: in this case, Ghanaian soldiers families’ transnational identity still depended on functioning state agencies and international diplomatic processes to facilitate their travel.