Writing the national man: masculinity and kinship in nation-building from colonial to postcolonial Ghana

My research examines how ideas of masculinity in Ghana transformed between the late colonial period and the rise of nationalism, with a focus on the language used in newspapers and political texts. By comparing pre-colonial Ghanaian press materials to speeches and manifestos from the Convention People’s Party (CPP) during the nationalist movement, I explore how masculinity was strategically reshaped to serve emerging political ideologies. I found that the CPP’s secular nationalist discourse drew heavily from colonial-era Christian family values introduced by the Basel Mission. While framed as modern and progressive, these values reinforced a patriarchal nuclear family model that displaced indigenous matrilineal kinship systems. The CPP’s condemnation of polygamy aligned with colonial Christian norms but also disrupted matrilineal structures that supported extended households and distributed caregiving roles. In matrilineal societies, masculinity was relational and collective—shaped through the roles of maternal uncles and elders—whereas the nuclear model centralized authority in the individual father. In this project, I analyze how this shift impacted the transmission of ideas of masculinity within family units, and how the marginalizing of maternal figures within nuclear structures may have served the CPP’s political goals. Ultimately, I argue that colonial and postcolonial institutions redefined masculinity to align with state-building objectives, constructing the ideal “national man” and limiting alternative expressions of male identity rooted in Ghana’s kinship past.