Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Alcoholism in Ghana—A socio-cultural exploration

  • Other Papers
  • Published:
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A vast literature has accumulated in recent years, examining the disease concept of alcoholism, and analyzing the interaction of biomedicine with indigenous healing systems in colonial and post-colonial societies. Social scientists have consistently emphasized the social context of alcoholism, although their works have been largely ignored. This article engages the literature on the social history of medicine in Africa, and works on alcohol use in non-Western societies, in an attempt to offer an understanding of alcoholism in Ghana rooted in Ghanaian cultures and history. It explores how alcohol's established ties with spirituality influences Ghanaian perceptions of alcoholism. Based on interviews, highlife music, popular literature, and the few written works on alcohol use in Ghana, the article examines the social construction of the alcoholic in independent Ghana.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adomako, C. C. 1976 Alcoholism: The African Scene. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 273: 39–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Akyeampong, Emmanuel 1992 Alcohol Use, Abuse, and Rehabilitation in Twentieth-Century Urban Ghana. Workshop Paper, University of Ghana.

  • Akyeampong, Emmanuel 1993a The State and Alcohol Revenues: Promoting “Economic Development’ in Gold Coast/Ghana. Conference Paper, Huron College.

  • Akyeampong, Emmanuel 1993b Alcohol, Social Conflict and the Struggle for Power in Ghana, 1919 to Recent Times. Ph.D Dissertation, University of Virginia.

  • Akyeampong, Emmanuel 1994 Powerful Fluids: Alcohol and Water in the Struggle for Social Power in Urban Gold Coast, 1860–1919. Seminar Paper, Northwestern University.

  • Appiah-Kubi, Kofi 1981 Man Cures, God Heals: Religion and Medicine among the Akans of Ghana. Totowa: Allanheld.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arhin, K. 1980 The Economic and Social Significance of Rubber Production and Exchange in the Gold and Ivory Coasts, 1880–1900. Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 20(77–78): 49–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1990 Trade, Accumulation and the State in Asante in the Nineteenth Century. Africa 60(4): 524–537.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bayor, Bernard Kofi 1978 The Social Relevance of Pito Drinking among the Dagabas of Daffiama. B.A. Thesis, University of Ghana.

  • Boahen, Adu A. 1989 The Ghanaian Sphinx: Reflections on the Contemporary History of Ghana, 1971–1987. Accra: Asempa Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breidenbach, Paul S. 1976 Colour Symbolism and Ideology in a Ghanaian Healing Movement. Africa 46(2): 137–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, James Wilson 1972 Kumasi, 1896–1923: Urban Africa during the Early Colonial Period. Ph.D Dissertation, University of Wisconsin.

  • Caetano, Raul 1990 Hispanic Drinking in the US: Thinking in New Directions. British Journal of Addiction 85: 1231–1236.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casely-Hayford, Augustus 1989 Hermetic Hegemony: A Study of Arcane Brotherhoods on the Gold Coast (1735–1935). Seminar Paper, School of Oriental and African Studies.

  • Colson, Elizabeth, and Thayer Scudder 1988 For Prayer and Profit: The Ritual, Economic, and Social Importance of Beer in the Gwembe District, Zambia, 1950–1982. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crush, Jonathan, and Charles Ambler (eds.) 1992 Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Debrunner, Hans 1959 Witchcraft in Ghana. Kumasi: Presbyterian Book Depot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, Mary (ed.) 1987 Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duodu, Cameron 1967 The Gab Boys. Suffolk: Chaucer Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dumett, Raymond 1974 The Social Impact of the European Liquor Trade on the Akan of Ghana (Gold Coast and Asante), 1875–1910. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5: 69–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, A. B. 1970 The Tshi Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa. Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falola, Toyin, and Dennis Ityavyar (eds.) 1992 The Political Economy of Health in Africa. Ohio University: Center for International Studies.

  • Field, Peter B. 1962 A New Cross-Cultural Study of Drunkenness.In Society, Culture and Drinking Patterns. D. Pitman and C. Snyder, eds. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Forster, E. B. 1962 A Historical Survey of Psychiatric Practice in Ghana. Ghana Medical Journal September. 25–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frimpong-Ansah, J. H. 1992 The Vampire State in Africa: The Political Economy of Decline in Ghana. Trenton: African World Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gusfield, Joseph R. 1972 Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, Brian 1971 Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1915–1872. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heath, Dwight 1987 A Decade of Development in the Anthropological Study of Alcohol Use, 1970–1980.In Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology. Mary Douglas, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holt, Mack P. 1993 Wine, Community and Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Burgundy. Past and Present 138: 58–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horton, Donald 1943 The Functions of Alcohol in Primitive Societies: A Cross-Cultural Study. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 4(2): 199–320.

    Google Scholar 

  • Janzen, J., with W. Arkinstall 1978 The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joralemon, Donald 1984 The Role of Hallucinogenic Drugs andSensory Stimuli in Peruvian Ritual Healing. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 8(4): 399–429.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karp, Ivan 1980 Beer Drinking and Social Experience in an African Society: An Essay in Formal Sociology.In Explorations in African Systems of Thought I. Karp and C. Bird, eds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Killick, Tony 1966 Labour: A General Survey.In A Study of Contemporary Ghana Vol. 1 Walter Birmingham, et al., eds. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kilson, Marion 1969 Libation in Ga Ritual. Journal of Religion in Africa 2(3): 161–178.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klausner, Samuel Z. 1964 Sacred and Profane Meanings of Blood and Alcohol. Journal of Social Psychology 64: 27–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kucklick, Henrika 1991 The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leslie, Charles 1980 Medical Pluralism in World Perspective. Social Science and Medicine 14B: 191–195.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lin, T. Y., and David T. C. Lin 1982 Alcoholism among the Chinese: Further Observations of a Low-Risk Population. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 6: 109–116.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandelbaum, David G. 1965 Alcohol and Culture. Current Anthropology 6(3): 281–293.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCaskie, T. 1981 Anti-Witchcraft Cults in Asante: An Essay in the Social History of an African People. History in Africa 8: 125–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mickson, E. K. 1966 When the Heart Decides. Accra: Graphic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1967 Who Killed Lucy? Accra: Graphic Press?

    Google Scholar 

  • Netting, Robert 1964 Beer as a Locus of Value among the West African Kofyar. American Anthropologist 66: 375–384.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nukunya, G. K., P. A. Twumasi, and N. O. Addo 1976 Attitudes Towards Health and Disease in Ghanaian Society.In Traditional Life, Culture and Literature in Ghana. Max Assimeng, ed. London: Conch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peele, Stanton 1985 The Meaning of Addiction: Compulsive Experience and Its Interpretation. Lexington: D. C. Heath.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prins, Gwyn 1989 But What Was the Disease? The Present State of Health and Healing in African Studies. Past and Present 124: 159–179.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rattray, R. S. 1927 Religion and Art in Ashanti. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1929 Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reindorf, C. C. 1889 The History of Gold Coast and Asante. Basel: Basel Mission Book Depot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, Claire 1984 Sharing the Same Bowl: A Socioeconomic History of Women and Class in Accra, Ghana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Room, Robin 1990 Alcohol Problems and the City. British Journal of Addiction 85: 1395–1402.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sangree, Walter 1962 The Social Functions of Beer Drinking among the Bantu Tiriki.In Society, Culture and Drinking Patterns. D. Pitman and C. Snyder, eds. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarbah, John Mensah 1968 Fanti National Constitution. London: Frank Cass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarpei, James Annorbah 1975 A Note on Coastal Elite Contact with Rural Discontent before the First World War: The “Good Templars’ in Akyem Abuakwa.In Communications from the Basel African Society, Akyem Abuakwa and the Politics of the Inter-War Period in Ghana. Basel: Basel African Bibliography.

    Google Scholar 

  • Serebro, Boris 1972 Total Alcohol Consumption as an Index of Anxiety among Urbanised Africans. British Journal of Psychiatry 67: 251–254.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sournia, Jean-Charles 1990 A History of Alcoholism. Translated by Nick Handley and Gareth Stanton. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swaniker, G. R. E. 1975 Beer—The National Drink. Ghana Medical Journal December: 332–342.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tasjian, Victoria B. 1993 “You Marry to Beget”: Menopause and Non-Marriage in Asante. Boston, African Studies Association Conference.

  • Vaughan, Megan 1991 Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Washburne, Chandler 1961 Primitive Drinking: A Study of the Uses and Functions of Alcohol in Preliterate Societies. New York: College and University Press Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Harvard University, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Emmanuel Akyeampong

Authors
  1. Emmanuel Akyeampong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Research for this article was made possible by a 1991–92 research grant from the African Development Foundation. An earlier version of this article was presented at a seminar organized by the Social Medicine Department, Harvard Medical School, April 1994. The article has benefitted from suggestions made at this seminar. The clarity of this article has been enhanced by the comments of the anonymous reviewers forCulture, Medicine and Psychiatry.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Akyeampong, E. Alcoholism in Ghana—A socio-cultural exploration. Cult Med Psych 19, 261–280 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01379414

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01379414

Keywords

Search

Navigation