Overview

For generations, the Ga community in Accra, Ghana, has enforced an annual citywide ban on noisemaking during an important religious festival. In the 1990s and 2000s, this “ban on drumming” became a point of conflict between the Ga people and the newly popular Pentecostal/Charismatic churches, which refused to subdue their loud worship during the ban. Although the Ghanaian state constitutionally and institutionally grants superior status to Christianity and Islam, it ruled in favor of the Ga community, which emphasized its “cultural” rather than religious rights. In The Noise Silence Makes, Mariam Goshadze traces the history of noise regulation in Accra, showing how the Ga people have adopted colonial mechanisms of noise control to counter Pentecostal/Charismatic dominance over Accra’s soundscape. Goshadze shows how the drumming ban represents a reversal of the top-down model of noise regulation and illuminates the reality of Ghanaian secularity, in which the state unofficially collaborates with indigenous religious authorities to control sound. In so doing, Goshadze counters the tendency to push African “traditional religions” to the margins, demonstrating that they are instrumental players in contemporary African urbanity.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mariam Goshadze
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Weight:   0.445kg
ISBN:  

9781478031413

ISBN 10:   1478031417
Pages:   216
Publication Date:   30 May 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

A Note on Orthography  ix A Note on Pronunciation  xi Introduction: Altered Ontologies and Reversed Paradigms  1 1. Jumping on the Anti-Noise Bandwagon: Drumming Permits for Accra’s Residents  25 2. Winds of Change: The Ban on Drumming Enters the Public Sphere  46 3. The Power of Sound: Cross-World Sonic Theologies  69 4. When the Deities Visit: Translating Religion into the Language of the Secular  87 5. Sacred Acoustic Inspectors: The Ghanian State and Noise Abatement during the HƆMƆWƆ Festival  108 6. Let US Offer Thanks for the Nation of Ghana: Hɔmɔwɔ as a Civil Ceremony of Thanksgiving  133 Conclusion: Layered Epistemologies of Contemporary Accra  153 Acknowledgments  159 Glossary  161 Notes  163 References  177 Index  193

Reviews

“Re-sounding tensions about ‘noisemaking’ arising between Ga ‘traditionalists’ and Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians in Accra, Mariam Goshadze offers a fresh take on interreligious entanglements from a sonic angle. This amazing book breaks new ground for understanding the precarious position of ‘traditional religion’ vis-à-vis Christianity by situating it in the Ghanaian secular regime in which religion, culture, and heritage are defined and managed. A trailblazing contribution to the study of religion and secularity in Africa!” -- Birgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies, Utrecht University

“Re-sounding tensions about ‘noisemaking’ arising between Ga ‘traditionalists’ and Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians in Accra, Mariam Goshadze offers a fresh take on interreligious entanglements from a sonic angle. This amazing book breaks new ground for understanding the precarious position of ‘traditional religion’ vis-À-vis Christianity by situating it in the Ghanaian secular regime in which religion, culture, and heritage are defined and managed. A trailblazing contribution to the study of religion and secularity in Africa.” - Birgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies, Utrecht University “This fascinating, innovative, and theoretically and ethnographically rich study questions the fixity in Ghana of the categories by which most political analysts define contemporary democratic nation-states. Mariam Goshadze’s argument for recognizing Ghanaian secularity as a unique formation is compelling and convincing. The Noise Silence Makes represents what is best about religious studies: its ability to analyze apparently nonreligious dynamics in productive ways through the accumulated tools of ritual analysis. A tour de force.” - Joseph Hellweg, author of (Hunting the Ethical State: The Benkadi Movement of Côte d'Ivoire)

“Re-sounding tensions about ‘noisemaking’ arising between Ga ‘traditionalists’ and Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians in Accra, Mariam Goshadze offers a fresh take on interreligious entanglements from a sonic angle. This amazing book breaks new ground for understanding the precarious position of ‘traditional religion’ vis-à-vis Christianity by situating it in the Ghanaian secular regime in which religion, culture, and heritage are defined and managed. A trailblazing contribution to the study of religion and secularity in Africa!” -- Birgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies, Utrecht University “This fascinating, innovative, and theoretically and ethnographically rich study questions the fixity in Ghana of the categories by which most political analysts define contemporary democratic nation-states. Mariam Goshadze’s argument for recognizing Ghanaian secularity as a unique formation is compelling and convincing. The Noise Silence Makes represents what is best about religious studies: its ability to analyze apparently nonreligious dynamics in productive ways through the accumulated tools of ritual analysis. A tour de force.” -- Joseph Hellweg, author of * Hunting the Ethical State: The Benkadi Movement of Côte d’Ivoire *

Author Information

Mariam Goshadze is Assistant Professor in the Study of Religion at Leipzig University.

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