Frafra Culture: “Women Marrying Women in Northern Ghana” book launched 

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Dr Eva Agana, a Gurene researcher and publisher, has launched two books on marriage and gender among the Frafra people. 

The books are “Women Marry Women in Northern Ghana” and “Who Am I? Exploring the Concepts of Gender and Identity from the Frafra Perspective”.

The books generated from her PhD thesis on culture and development were a quest to provide insights on same-sex practices in the Gurene culture in Ghana.

This led her quest to bridge the knowledge gap on the question of “whether all same-sex practices amount to homosexuality and what form of gender and identity manifest in same-sex practices”.

I scheduled an interview with Dr. Agana to provide insights on her new books, which will provide new perspectives on the discussion of gender, marriage, and homosexuality in Ghana.

1. What inspired you to write this book, and how did the initial idea come to you?

Ghanaians have become more Western than the Westerners themselves, with a huge appetite for Western culture and lifestyles, and in the process have branded the Ghanaian culture as devilish. This, for me, is quite unfortunate. 

We have become a fluid pseudo-western society that can easily be tossed to and fro. We are a floating generation without a foundation. 

Even our ideological positions are grounded in Western philosophies. We have not been able to document our cultural philosophies in a concise document to guide our lives. Our discourses are grounded on American and European philosophies, nothing local. We have nothing to back our rejection of certain Western demands, save a few oral historical stances. 

And when the Western system that we so proudly emulate decides to influence and carry us along on their lifestyles, we cry cultural imperialism. We are quick to say we are not Westerners when everything about us is more Western than the Westerners themselves. We cry that we are culturally rich people who cannot and will not accept certain practices. 

Ghana recently passed an anti-gay bill in parliament. When asked why we are so homophobic considering how Western we are, we respond it is not in our culture. But which culture? The culture we don’t even know? the culture we have relegated to the background or the culture we have branded devilish? which one?

My inspiration for these books came from the seeming disregard for our culture and what makes us a people, which has been replaced by mostly foreign culture making it appear as though we are a people without a culture. I am motivated to document and make public our auspicious cultural values and positions that are almost going extinct under the poor marketing umbrella of being devilish.

Through these books, we can help the rest of the world to understand why we take certain very strong positions as it relates to Homosexuality, whilst providing us with pointers to understand and describe one’s identity.

2. Can you describe the journey of creating this book, from initial concept to publication?

These books are the outcome of my PhD thesis in culture and development. The journey started with a desire to answer the answer “Does all same-sex practices amount to homosexuality and what form of gender and identity manifest in same-sex practices?”

It was a desire to document same-sex practices by focusing on and highlighting the governing framework that regulates same-sex practices. After the completion of my thesis, I realized the wealth of information and rich cultural information that I had gathered, which not only answered the questions I sought out but also critiqued the dominant understanding of gender, identity, and marriage. 

I realized then that I could not leave it on the shelves to gather dust and I needed to bring them out so that the general public could be educated on these, especially since the study was multicultural. 

Then I had to package this academic output in readable, simple books that the general public could easily appreciate. I then divided the work into 3 books for ease of understanding. I then had to look for renowned writers to review them before it went to publication. 

Being the first time publishing books, it was a huge task with issues of editing, proofreading, formatting etc. The easiest part of this journey for me was publishing. 

I personally knew someone who worked with the publishing house so I only approached him and they agreed to work on it for me. I’m glad I went through this whole process. It has set the pace for my writing career.

3. What themes or messages do you hope readers take away from your work?

Each book offers the reader different lessons. The book on women marrying women provides the following lessons:

1. Ghanaians and Africans have different understandings of same-sex practices
2. Having two people of the same sex living together is not homosexuality
3. We cannot say same-sex practices are alien to the Ghanaian and African culture
4. We cannot also accept that homosexuality has existed in precolonial Ghana and Africa
5. There are reasons why Ghanaians are not accepting of homosexual activities

On the second book on gender, here are a few takeaways:

1. The cultural understanding of identity and gender is contrary to literature definitions
2. A person’s gender doesn’t change because they perform certain roles that are outside their assigned gender roles. They still are identified by the assigned gender
3. The female gender is not weak or marginalized in the cultural sense as projected
4. A person’s identity is predetermined and only lived out.
5. We need to go back to our foundations to understand who we are as a people. External factors and Western understanding should only help us in describing our identity, but who we are is properly appreciated when we take the time to understand where we are coming from.

So, be interested in your foundation and study it.

 4. Did you encounter any unexpected challenges or surprises during the writing process?

My main challenges had to do with converting academic work to easily readable books. Also, being the first product of my writing, there were many things about which I was not informed of, which delayed the release of my work. 

I had to keep editing and revising my books until the launch, but it was all worth the process.

What is the uniqueness of each book?

These are 2 books from 3 cultures in Ghana. 

The first, Women Marrying Women in Northern Ghana: Wading into the homosexuality debate from a Ghanaian Perspective,” documents the reality of same-sex practices in Ghana that present a very fascinating governing framework different from homosexuality.

The second, Who am I? Exploring the concepts of gender and identity from the Frafra perspective critiques the current positions and understanding of gender and identity and at the same time, outlines the criteria for understanding and describing oneself.

The writer, Daniel Abugre Anyorigya, is a Gurene historian with expertise in Knowledge Management, Communications and Environment. He can be reached via danielanyorigya@gmail.com