Enterprise and Society

Richard M. Shain Philadelphia University

The southeastern coast of Ghana in West Africa has been an economic and political back–water in local and regional terms for at least the past five hundred years. Yet in the past six years the history of the Anlo Ewe speakers who live there has been the subject of three major monographs. Does such a historically insignificant area merit so much academic attention? Judging from Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong’s Between the Sea and the Lagoon, the answer has to be a qualified “maybe.” Akyeampong is one of the most gifted Africanist historians of his generation, and anything he writes is of great interest. His latest work. synthesizes social and environmental history, shedding new light on such important topics as the ramifications of abolition on African coastal societies, the dislocations brought about by European colonial rule, the “invention” of ethnicity, and the social and ecological impact of gargantuan development projects.

He has chosen a fascinating subject in the Anlo Ewe. Originally hunters arid farmers, the Anlo Ewe over the past three centuries have transformed themselves into a maritime people, famed throughout West Africa for their fishing prowess. However, the sea that now provides many Anlo Ewe with their livelihoods has been sweeping away their homeland for the past century. Beach erosion has taken an increasing toll, especially on the once vibrant administrative and market center of Keta. For much of the twentieth century, the Anlo Ewe have been tying, without success, to convince first the British colonial state and then the post–independence Ghanian government to stem the erosion. Their frustration with government inaction and ineptitude has been instrumental in shaping their ethnic identity.

Akyeampong weaves two themes throughout his narrative: the constantly changing relationship between the Anlo Ewe and their difficult natural environment and the role of new technologies in Anlo Ewe history. Akyeampong’s work reminds readers that humanity not only works on nature but nature equally works on humanity. In this. part of Ghana the inhabitants have had to learn to adapt to shifting ecological circumstances. “Mastering” nature has not been an option. New technologies have played a key role in these adaptations, such as the advent of new fishing nets in the mid‐nineteenth century and the introduction of small, powerful motors in the twentieth century. Ironically, modem engineering has so far proven ineffectual in holding back the sea.

Akyeampong works on a small canvas thick with detail. Instead of making his research comparative with other parts of Africa, like Nigeria’s Niger Delta, or with other parts of the world, he “opens up” his book by discussing concepts like “moral ecology” and “environmental citizenship.” One looks forward to Akyeampong’s further developing these fresh ideas in the future. They promise to stir productive scholarly debate. In this volume, though, his forays into social science theory sometimes mute the voice of the Anlo Ewe themselves and how they conceptualize and experience their past. Akyeampong's book will have a lasting influence on African environmental history. Its greatest contribution, however, may well be in the field of African cultural history. His chapters on Anlo Ewe religion and the growth of a Pan Ewe ethnic identity are intellectually rigorous and methodically innovative. He demonstrates in this part of his work that even in small places there can be historical processes of great interest.

Enterprise and Society
December 2002