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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'Accra is changing, isn't it?': urban infrastructure, independence, and nation in the Gold Coast's 'Daily Graphic', 1954-57
Author:Plageman, NateISNI
Year:2010
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies (ISSN 0361-7882)
Volume:43
Issue:1
Pages:137-159
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:infrastructure
urban development
nation building
newspapers
1950-1959
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/25741400
Abstract:From 1954 to 1957, the years immediately prior to Ghana's independence, the 'Daily Graphic', at that time Ghana's most dominant newspaper, contained a great quantity of articles, photo essays and editorials that discussed the state of the colony and the meanings of the increasingly imminent opportunity for self-rule. The present paper looks at the ways in which the newspaper's staff approached political possibilities or the nation-to-be. It clarifies their perspective and examines the ways in which the 'Graphic' writers imagined the new Ghana as a modern urban entity. The newspaper often extolled an enthousiasm for infrastructural development. From 1954-1957, the 'Graphic' published an expansive array of articles that focused on the physical environment of the colony's capital city, Accra. By writing about the city, 'Graphic' employees reclaimed development, long a project supervised by the colonial State, as a domain of local action and national importance. They presented their readers with a controlled narrative of historical change, material progress and nation building. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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