Our Own Way in This Part of the World : Biography of an African Community, Cultu [Paperback]

Kofi Dᴐnkᴐ was a blacksmith and farmer, as well as an important healer, intellectual, spiritual leader, settler of disputes, and custodian of shared values for his Ghanaian community. InOur Own Way in This Part of the WorldKwasi Konadu centers Dᴐnkᴐ's life story and experiences in a communography of Dᴐnkᴐ's community and nation from the late nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth, which were shaped by historical forces from colonial Ghana's cocoa boom to decolonization and political and religious parochialism. Although Dᴐnkᴐ touched the lives of thousands of citizens and patients, neither he nor they appear in national or international archives covering the region. Yet his memory persists in his intellectual and healing legacy, and the story of his community offers a non-national, decolonized example of social organization structured around spiritual forces that serves as a powerful reminder of the importance for scholars to take their cues from the lived experiences and ideas of the people they study.

Kwasi Konadu centers the life of Ghanaian healer, spiritual leader, and farmer Kofi Dnk (1913–1995) to tell the biography of his community and how they navigated the changes from the late nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth.

Kwasi Konadu is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Chair in Africana and Latin American Studies at Colgate University and the author and editor of several books, includingThe Ghana Reader: History, Culture, Politics, also published by Duke University Press, andTransatlantic Africa, 1440–1888.

“Kwasi Konadu has written an important book for understanding social change at the local level in Ghana. His emphasis on spirituality, healing, and education among the Bono people is a model for people-centered histories of African societies.”

“Kwasi Konadu grounds the tranlC+