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Kwame Nkrumah’s construction of ‘the African people’ via the Unite or Perish myth: A discourse-historical analysis of populist performance

Nartey, Mark

Kwame Nkrumah’s construction of ‘the African people’ via the Unite or Perish myth: A discourse-historical analysis of populist performance Thumbnail


Authors

Mark Nartey



Abstract

Employing Wodak's discourse-historical approach, this paper examines how Ghana's independence leader - Kwame Nkrumah - in his creation of the Unite or Perish myth constructed 'the African people' in a manner in sync with populist performance. It argues that Nkrumah's discourse, in its focus on the formation of a Union Government of Africa as the only means of Africa's peace, progress, security and survival in the post-independence era, can be characterized as a form of populist rhetoric that presupposes an antagonistic relationship between two homogeneous social groups. To this end, the paper analyzes three discursive strategies utilized by Nkrumah in promoting anti-establishment sentiments while celebrating or valorizing 'the ordinary people': nomination and predication of social actors and actions, the construction of a man of the people image and the exploitation of familiarity and historical memory. It concludes with a discussion on the implications of the study for political discourse analysis in terms of the interrelationship between political myth and populist performance.

Citation

Nartey, M. (2022). Kwame Nkrumah’s construction of ‘the African people’ via the Unite or Perish myth: A discourse-historical analysis of populist performance. Pragmatics and Society, 13(4), 605-624. https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19023.nar

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 21, 2021
Online Publication Date Nov 4, 2022
Publication Date Nov 4, 2022
Deposit Date Nov 16, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Pragmatics and Society
Print ISSN 1878-9714
Electronic ISSN 1878-9722
Publisher John Benjamins Publishing
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 4
Pages 605-624
DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19023.nar
Keywords Critical discourse analysis, discursive strategy, discourse, historical analysis, Kwame Nkrumah, populist style, political discourse analysis
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10146004
Publisher URL https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ps.19023.nar

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Kwame Nkrumah’s construction of ‘the African people’ via the Unite or Perish myth: A discourse-historical analysis of populist performance (356 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is the author’s accepted manuscript of the article 'Nartey, M. (2022). Kwame Nkrumah’s construction of ‘the African people’ via the Unite or Perish myth: A discourse-historical analysis of populist performance. Pragmatics and Society, 13(4), 605-624. https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19023.nar'.

The final published version is available here: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ps.19023.nar

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19023.nar

For re-use of the published version, the publisher must be contacted.





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