Authors:	Lentz, Carola
Title:	Travelling emblems of power : the Ghanaian ‘Seat of State’
Online publication date:	5-Dec-2008
Year of first publication:	2008
Language:	english
Abstract:	This paper presents a case study of the self-confident and creative fusion of European and African political symbols and rituals that is characteristic of Ghanaian statehood and nation-making. It explores the aesthetic and historical genealogy of the Ghanaian ‘Seat of State’, a throne-like stool on which the President sits when attending Parliament on important state occasions. The Seat was crafted in the early 1960s by Kofi Antubam, one of the chief ‘state artists’ during the Nkrumah regime, and incorporates symbols of Asante royal authority, European aristocratic imagery as well as Ghanaian neo-traditional emblems such as the Black Star. The discussion of the Seat of State’s political meaning is followed by some more general observations on the history of party politics and parliamentary procedure in Ghana as examples of travelling political paradigms.
DDC:	390 Bräuche 390 Customs
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 07 Geschichts- u. Kulturwissensch.
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-485
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hebis:77-18175
Version:	Original work
Publication type:	Arbeitspapier
License:	In Copyright
Information on rights of use:	https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Extent:	20 S.
Appears in collections:	JGU-Publikationen