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“Me Do Wu,” My Val: The Creation of Valentine's Day in Accra, Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Jo Ellen Fair
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Abstract:

Media privatization, commercial growth, and new concern in the popular culture about changing patterns of marriage, love, and sexuality led to a sudden embrace during the 1990s by upwardly mobile urban Ghanaians of a previously minor element of globally circulating mass culture, Valentine's Day. Far from a story of cultural imperialism, the rise of Valentine's Day in present-day Accra shows that local adoption of global consumerist preferences is best understood as a local process imbued with local meanings and values, deliberately and rationally pursued.

Résumé:

Résumé:

La privatisation des médias, la croissance économique et la réalisation récente, dans la culture populaire, de l'évolution des modèles concernant le mariage, l'amour et la sexualité, ont abouti dans la tranche urbaine et aisée de la population ghanéenne à l'engouement soudain, dans les années 90, pour un élément jusqu'alors négligeable de la culture de masse internationale: la célébration de la St. Valentin. Loin de constituer un succès de plus pour l'impérialisme culturel occidental, l'intérêt accru pour la fête de la St. Valentin dans l'Accra d'aujourd'hui indique que l'adoption au niveau local de préférences consuméristes mondiales peut mieux se comprendre comme un processus à l'échelle locale, imprégné de significations et de valeurs locales, dont la poursuite est délibérée et rationnelle.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , December 2004 , pp. 23 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2004

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