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Association for Africanist Anthropology
Volunteered - Oral Presentation Session
This paper looks at the effects of class formation on the conception of womanhood within Ghanaian Christian communities, examining the ways in which class intersects with questions of being and formations of self. Class positioning impacts the ways in which Christian communities articulate their priorities, goals and understanding of who they are, and mark people within hierarchies that are made evident through dressing, language and other forms. Women’s church groups have not only served as spaces for women to have some power in male-dominated churches, but also function as reproductive sites of identity formation. As such, I look at two women’s groups in two Charismatic churches in Accra, examining their teachings, priorities and in essence, what they imagine to constitute the self, and the gendered self in particular. I argue that class does not only form a critical part of how Ghanaian Christian women articulate their identities, but also produces specific theologies that shape the terrain of gender discourse in Christian communities in Ghana, and in the country as a whole.