( In)visible diasporan returnee communities: silcences and the challenges in studying trans-atlantic history in Ghana

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Periodical article

Title:	( In)visible diasporan returnee communities: silcences and the challenges in studying trans-atlantic history in Ghana
Author:	Essien, Kwame
Year:	2014
Periodical:	Ghana Studies (ISSN 1536-5514)
Volume:	17
Pages:	63-99
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	return migration historiography social history
Abstract:	This article's argument is two-fold. First, it shows how returnees (emancipated Africans and their offspring from the West) have contributed in significant ways to Ghana's history. Second, these contributions have been marginalized for a variety of reasons and rooted in a number of issues. The author asserts that returnees have made constructive efforts to make significant social and political contributions to society, by building on their experiences and expertise gained abroad. This work calls attention to the obscured history of nineteenth-century Diaspora returnee-communities in the Gold Coast, now Ghana, and its relevance to the study of reverse migrations in the twenty-first century. The author examines several factors that contributed to the historical invisibility of returnees, and how ongoing transatlantic interactions and exchanges within present-day Ghana help bring this historical development to light. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]