Valentine’s Day in Kumasi, Ghana: sexuality and changes in intergenerational relations

Astrid Bochow

Africa Spectrum, 2007, vol. 42, issue 2, 195-218

Abstract: In the past five years, Valentine’s Day has been celebrated in Ghana by young people in the public sphere. This opened up public discussions giving insights into changes of youth and childhood in postcolonial Ghana: The celebrations are closely connected with the arrival of new goods and communication technologies which have been used by young people since the turn of the millennium. The media and Pentecostal Churches create a sexualised public, with ‘the youth’ as a centre of interest. Schools not only prolong childhood, creating a gap between young people’s sexual maturity and their entry into reproductive life, but also offer a sexualised sphere outside their parents’ control. Despite these complex changes, young people (and their parents) keep to customary forms of premarital relationships, in which modes of intergenerational communication are marked by silence and secrets about sexual friendships.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gig:afjour:v:42:y:2007:i:2:p:195-218

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.giga-hamburg.de/afrika-spectrum

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Africa Spectrum from Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Andreas Mehler ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).