6533b7dcfe1ef96bd12732c9

RESEARCH PRODUCT

The bureaucratic making of national culture in North-Western Ghana

Konstanze N'guessan

subject

Sociology and Political Sciencemedia_common.quotation_subjectReproduction (economics)Geography Planning and DevelopmentPublic administrationCreativityMaking-ofNegotiationState (polity)Political scienceBureaucracyProductivitymedia_commonCultural policy

description

In this article I explore the making of national culture through bureaucratic routines in the Centre for National Culture in Wa, North-Western Ghana. I focus 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 analysed as practices objectifying and nationalising culture and naturalising the boundaries and categories created through the cultural officers' practices.

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x14000020