Abstract

ARBOLEDA HURTADO, Nayibe Katherine  and  ARBELAEZ FRANCO, Verónica. The asante matrilineal society: gender, power and social representations. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.44, n.2, pp.169-188.  Epub Apr 06, 2022. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v44n2.87907.

This article makes an effort to show the logic of power in the Asante matrilineal structure and its sociopolitical transformations, once new social representations associated with gender were imposed after colonization and the founding of the modern state. For the development of the article we used a qualitative method under a bibliographic review of secondary sources, emphasizing an analysis on theories of gender and social representation. Additionally, a historical review was made where sociopolitical transformations were evident, starting from the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial era (with the founding of the Modern State) of the rituals of the Ohemaa and matrilineal architecture and composition Asante.

The Asante matrilineal society is a sociopolitical structure that has been part of the Akan ethnic group in Ghana since before the British colonization. Its origin lies in the appearance of three female deities that descended from the heavens with three stools that symbolized each of the castes within the family. Matrilineality, that means that authority and power is inherited through the maternal line, evokes the symbolic and literal power of the ohemaa (queen mother) that gives life to the ethnic group, meaning that it gives birth to new generations of rulers within the Asante. However, after colonization and then, with the founding of the Modern State, new representations of reality and gender were imposed from the West in Africa, that ended up transforming the idea of power and, therefore, its social function. This is how the concept of the ohemaa was redefined and its power has been marginalized to the exclusive representation of women who must be in charge of the labors of care and domestic work, making a transition from power in the public to the private sphere.

Descriptors: cultural change, Ghana, ethnic group, woman in politics.

Keywords : Asante; colonialism; gender; modernity; matrilinearity; Ohemaa; power; social representations.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )