(In)Visible Diasporan Returnee Communities: Silences and the Challenges in Studying Trans-Atlantic History in Ghana

his article’s argument is two-fold. First, it shows how returnees (emancipated Africans and their offspring from the West) have contributed in significant ways to Ghana’s history. Second, these contributions have been marginalized for a variety of reasons and rooted in a number of issues. I assert that returnees have made constructive efforts to make significant social and political contributions to society, by building on their experiences and expertise gained abroad. This work calls attention to the obscured history of nineteenth-century Diaspora returneecommunities in the Gold Coast, now Ghana, and its relevance to the study of reverse migrations in the twenty-first century. I examine several factors that contributed to the historical invisibility of returnees, and how ongoing transatlantic interactions