The bureaucratic making of national culture in North-Western Ghana

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Periodical article

Title:	The bureaucratic making of national culture in North-Western Ghana
Author:	N'guessan, Konstanze
Year:	2014
Periodical:	Journal of Modern African Studies (ISSN 0022-278X)
Volume:	52
Issue:	2
Pages:	277-299
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	cultural policy bureaucracy
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/43302913
Abstract:	In this article the author explores the making of national culture through bureaucratic routines in the Centre for National Culture in Wa, North-Western Ghana. The author focuses on an aspect of bureaucracy that is usually left aside: the productivity and creativity of bureaucratic routines. State, nation and culture are not fixed entities, but have to be constantly produced through processes of negotiation and meaning-making and through the continual reproduction of their boundaries and the categories that determine what is to be promoted or preserved. Bureaucratic routines and administrative processes are analyzed as practices objectifying and nationalizing culture and naturalizing the boundaries and categories created through the cultural officers' practices. Bibliogr., notes, sum. [Journal abstract]