Political Myth-making, Nationalist Resistance and Populist Performance: Examining Kwame Nkrumah's Construction...

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Mark Nartey (University of the West of England, UK)

Political Myth-making, Nationalist Resistance and Populist Performance

Examining Kwame Nkrumah's Construction and Promotion of the African Dream

Mark Nartey (University of the West of England, UK)

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English

Routledge
26 August 2024

Sociolinguistics; African history; Politics & government

Series: Routledge Research in Language and Communication

Using the socio-political discourse of Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering Pan-Africanist and Ghana’s independence leader, Nartey investigates the notion of political myth-making in a context underexplored in the literature. He examines Nkrumah’s construction of a myth described in the book as the Unite or Perish myth (i.e., the idea of a ‘United States of Africa’ being a prerequisite for the survival of Africa in the post-independence period), exploring the rhetorical resources he deployed, categorizing and analyzing key tropes and metaphors, and setting out the myth’s basic components.

This book focuses on three areas: an investigation of political myth-making as a social and discursive practice in order to identify particular semiotic practices and linguistic patterns deployed in the construction of mythic discourse; the unpacking of the discursive manifestation, representation, features, and functions of political mythic themes; and finally to propose and implement an integrated discourse analytical framework to account for the complexities of mythic discourse and political narratives in general. It analyzes how Nkrumah deployed his discourse to concurrently construct heroes and villains, protagonists and antagonists, as part of an ideological mechanism aimed at galvanizing support for and instigating action on the part of the masses towards his lifelong African dream.

Nartey’s book steps out from the conventional domain of critical discourse studies to focus on myth as a form of populist performance. It will be of interest to postgraduate students and academics in (critical) discourse studies, rhetorical discourse analysis, African and Diaspora studies, and African history, as well as non-academics such as journalists, political commentators, and people who consider themselves to be Nkrumaists and Pan-Africanists.

By: Mark Nartey (University of the West of England UK)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 370g
ISBN: 9781032109183
ISBN 10: 1032109181
Series: Routledge Research in Language and Communication
Pages: 188
Publication Date: 26 August 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

1. Introduction 2. Discourse and Mythology 3. Analytical and Methodological Procedures 4. The Unite or Perish Myth as a Discourse of Nationalist Resistance 5. Metaphor and the Unite or Perish Myth 6. The Unite or Perish Myth as Populist Performance 7. Conclusion

Mark Nartey is Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the Bristol Centre for Linguistics, University of the West of England. He studied in Ghana, Norway, and Hong Kong. He is an interdisciplinary scholar who specializes in corpus-assisted discourse studies, with a focus on issues at the intersection of language, culture, and society. He investigates how people deploy language in specific spatiotemporal and socio-cultural contexts to achieve various aims, including identity construction, self-promotion, and othering as well as argumentation, resistance, and (de)legitimation. He has published extensively in applied linguistics, discourse analysis, and communication/media studies.