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MARKET QUEENS
Author(s) -
CLARK GRACIA
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb48129.x
Subject(s) - geography , population , politics , unit (ring theory) , census , government (linguistics) , ethnic group , bureaucracy , capital (architecture) , socioeconomics , consumption (sociology) , economic growth , ethnology , economy , political science , history , sociology , demography , archaeology , economics , law , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics education , mathematics , social science
The Asante are a major political and cultural unit of a larger language grouping, the Akan, a matrilineal people who spread across southern Ghana and into the neighboring Cote d'Ivoire. In 1960, the last census to include questions of ethnicity, the Akans made up more than half of the Ghanaian population, presently estimated at sixteen million. The Asante nation successfully conquered or collected tribute from many other neighboring Akan and non‐Akan peoples during the 18th and 19th centuries. Kumasi was their historic capital and remains the seat of a royal bureaucracy with dual chieftainship of the Asantehemma and Asantehene who retain great local influence. The Asantehene has a constitutional role in political life through the national House of Chiefs, under Ghana's current elected government. Kumasi is also the capital of Ashanti Region, corresponding roughly to the precolonial Asante territory. It includes many urban and rural residents with non‐Asante origins, the majority of whom, both men and women, are farmers. Community and family‐based land rights still predominate over individual title. They grow the staple foods (yams, plantain, cassava and cocoyams) and a variety of vegetables and fruits for home consumption and for sale nationally. Cocoa, an export tree crop, is grown principally by men, and is the major source of rural wealth and of foreign exchange for the nation. Gold and timber are other important exports from the region. Kumasi is Ghana's second largest city, with a population estimated at 385,000 in 1988. There are several large sawmills and other factories in Kumasi, but many more people are employed in small workshops and commerce. The Kumasi Central Market is the largest single marketplace in Ghana; fifty thousand traders do business there daily, according to a 1989 World Bank study.