Making Fun: Leisure, Culture, and Belonging in Urban Colonial Ghana, 1900-1950s

Abstract

This thesis explores urban African leisure in colonial Ghana to uncover a nuanced and subjective understanding of African urban and colonial experiences. Each chapter explores a distinct aspect of leisure, encompassing voluntary associations, sports, and nightlife. Although the colonial regime and other authorities attempted to use their power over space to direct Africans’ leisure time, Africans fought to spend it as they saw fit. Africans were in pursuit of their own social spaces, where they could become urban, forge new identities, form friendships, and pursue romantic relationships. Leisure was crucial for the construction and maintenance of paracolonial networks and multifaceted identities that determined belonging and exclusion. Groups competed over control of leisure clubs and the resources to maintain them. Young urbanites drew from international influences in creating urban youth culture. Leisure reveals how Africans took control of their leisure time and animated their daily lives.