Victor Selorme GedziKwame Nkrumah University Of Science and Technology | KNUST · Department of Religious Studies
Victor Selorme Gedzi
Doctor in Development Studies
Working on: 'Ethics of the World Economic System: Lessons for African Continental Trade Area'. I need two collaborators.
About
43
Publications
63,943
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
116
Citations
Introduction
Current research interest: Religion/culture and Development.
Methods & Techniques: Qualitative interviews, group discussions, survey, observation and reviews of relevant textual materials.
Forthcoming publications:
1. Religious Market and Wealth Creation in Ghana
2. Christian Stewardship and Electricity Management in Ghana;
3. Asante Sense of family Property and Social Security
4. Religion and Waste management in Urban Africa
Additional affiliations
November 2011 - July 2022
Position
- Professor (Associate)
Description
- I am Professor (Associate) of Religion/Culture and Development with special research interests in the following interdisciplinary areas: religion/culture and human rights/law, religion and gender, religion and environment, religion/culture and health care delivery, church conflicts, religion/cultural tourism, religion and poverty alleviation, etc. I am interested in how culture, and religious resources from the intellectual traditions of Religions can help in development interventions in Africa.
Education
April 2005 - June 2005
Utrecht University
Field of study
- Research
April 2005 - October 2009
ISS The Hague of Erasmus University Rotterdam
Field of study
- Development Studies
September 2001 - May 2003
Radboud University of Nijmegen
Field of study
- Intercultural Theology
Publications
Publications (43)
This article analyzes the environmental crisis in Ghana and
what contributions religious resources from the intellectual
traditions of African Traditional Religion can make towards
addressing it. This study was based on an extensive review and
interpretation of existing textual materials on the subject
matter, supplemented by general field observat...
This paper interrogates the interrelationships between the state, pentecostalism, and the media in contemporary Ghana. It examines how pentecostal ideological and practical approach to the indigenous field, its symbolisms and ritual practices, latently aids contemporary Ghana to negotiate between protecting indigenous normative systems and meeting...
This study analysed the harnessing of ritual observances of death as part of livelihood strategies among the Asante of modern Ghana. It employed qualitative unstructured open-ended interviews supplemented by observation and interpretation of textual materials. Among other things, the findings of the study revealed that funeral celebrations over the...
This study assessed Christian faith in relation to economic development of Ghana using some Christian Workers in Ghana's public sector in Kumasi as a sampled case study. Sectors studied were the judicial service, the public education sector, the health and the police services. Christian faith used in the study referred to normative values that woul...
This study reviewed the religious market theory in relation to the religious economy of Neo-Prophetic Pentecostal-Charismatic churches in Ghana. Using unstructured qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, the study discovered that the theory in its present western context ignored Ghanaian religio-cultural sensibilities that affect decisi...
The main objective of the study is to find out how the adoption of digital transformation by Neo-Prophetic Pentecostal or Charismatic churches in Ghana affects their religious communication, using Believers Worship Centre and Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre respectively at Kenyase-Adwumam and Ahenema Kokoben in the Ashanti region as case studies. T...
This study analyzed value crisis of Ghana"s economy since independence, using qualitative in-depth interviews and observation, supplemented by reviews of related literature. The findings showed that corruption, bad leadership and mismanagement promoted by certain elements in the Ghanaian culture are the main causes of Ghana"s economic crisis. This...
This study examined the complex role religion plays in both promoting and ending sexual and gender-based violence against women in the Tamale Metropolis of Ghana. While major religious traditions emphasize equality and non-violence, certain interpretations of religious texts and cultural traditions have enabled patriarchal norms that subjugate wome...
Contemporary environmental issues continue to take center stage in various local and international discourses. This paper sought to examine the role of religion, in this context Christianity in environmental conservation at the Abasua prayer center. The study adopted an interpretivism approach which enabled the utilization of a qualitative research...
The study investigates the challenge of solid waste management in a congested inner-city environment like Aboabo in Ghana and how some resources from the intellectual traditions of local religions could contribute to addressing this problem. The findings show that Aboabo has no systematic way of managing its solid waste as residents dump their wast...
Religion forms an important aspect of the social fabric of every nation and contributes to human development. However, religious doctrinal differences work against coming together for human development. With the global vision for peaceful co-existence that would bring about human development, inter-religious dialogue among people of different faith...
Church conflicts impact lives in societies wherever they occur. This present study analyses one of such conflicts and impacts, using a congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Ghana as a case study. The approach of the study was qualitative with individual and group interviews techniques. The findings are that: both central and local...
The chapter 5 from which the excerpt is derived discusses actual dispute resolution in chiefs’ courts in Ghana. Analysis of procedures and proceedings in chiefs’ courts is crucial in view of allegations of gender bias in the institution, and that the court‘s norms or principles violate females’ property inheritance rights. Therefore, they infringe...
This paper examines the literary works of Aminu Bamba as a perspective of his contributions to Islamic reform and counter to religious unorthodoxy propagated by some religious elites in the Tijaniyya movement in Ghana. It pays particular attention to his interpretations of issues that pertain to theology, jurisprudence, and conflict resolution comp...
The study discusses experiences of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade symbolically represented in Ghana by the Cape Coast Castle. It considers the themes of emotions, transcendence, differentiated voices, and resistances characterised tourists' experiences of heritage tourism in Ghana. There is already a small but growing literature on heritage tourism...
The study carefully examined trokosi-the keeping of virgins (henceforth referring always to girls and not boys) in traditional religious shrines in Ghana, using a shrine in Afife as a case study. The study tried to find out whether culture, including its primary constituent, religion, and law play any role in sustaining the trokosi institution in s...
Health care has been the backbone of all developments across the globe. Its presence in every society has been possible due to the contributing role of religious institutions. The need for involvement of religious institutions in health care comes via global concern for the poor’s inability to access health care services. The main objective of this...
Health care has been the backbone of all developments across the globe. Its presence in every society has been possible due to the contributing role of religious institutions. The need for involvement of religious institutions in health care comes via global concern for the poor's inability to access health care services. The main objective of this...
In many societies, medicinal knowledge including healthcare delivery is associated with cultural and religious traditions. Among the Akan of Ghana, cultural knowledge about healthcare includes beliefs and practices as well as the use of expressions of culture in accordance with indigenous laws and mores. In this paper, we argue that despite the ext...
In many societies, medicinal knowledge including healthcare delivery, is associated with cultural and religious traditions. Among the Akan of Ghana, cultural knowledge about healthcare includes beliefs and practices as well as the use of expressions of culture in accordance with indigenous laws and mores of the people. In this paper, we argue that...
The study discusses homosexuality in Ghana. It has analyzed the interdisciplinary views of science, the social learning theory and religion on the phenomenon. The approach is mainly qualitative involving both individual and group interviews. Individual and group informants were respectively selected using purposeful and availability sampling design...
This chapter 2 of Principles and Practices of Dispute Resolution in Ghana: Ewe and Akan Procedures on Females' Inheritance and Property Rights, negotiates a research model and a method for research. In order to arrive at a model, the chapter first analyzed some pertinent concepts. It appears that concepts like ‘dispute’, ‘indigenous law’, ‘female i...
The present study sought to identify barriers to sustainability as experienced by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), including the faith-based ones. The work was based on case reviews and case studies of some NGOs, which worked in the northern parts of Ghana. The study used a qualitative approach of in-depth interviews and focus group discussio...
The study sought to identify barriers to sustainability as experienced by NGOs, including the faith-based ones. The work was based on case reviews and case studies of some NGOs, which worked in the northern parts of Ghana. The study used qualitative approach of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Reviews of the relevant textual materia...
The study analyzes trokosi, the keeping of virgin girls in a religious and cultural bondage in Ghana. The study uses qualitative approach and involves interviewing of key informants; and supplemented by relevant secondary data. The research identifies the religio-cultural institution as a power field that sustains its enslaving activities through s...
Akyem Abuakwa is suffering from environmental degradation as a result of human activities and insatiable desire for acquiring wealth and property. Rapid environmental degradation has occurred within the last two decades in Akyem Abuakwa. The paper examines factors contributing to the environmental degradation and the role traditional leaders can pl...
This article analyses a dimension of nationalism among migrant Muslims who were once victims of successive post-colonial nationalist policies. By focusing on the life trajectory of Umar Ibrahim, a graduate from Saudi Arabia and a central figure in the Islamic Research and Reformation Centre (IRRC), this paper examines how he became a victim of ethn...
The paper has analyzed the erection of the formal legal system in Ghana. The research based its analysis on relevant textual and field materials, including observation. The finding has shown that socio-economic context of the colonial period has frame-worked the legal system Ghana inherited from the British. For example, the British have seen the c...
This study analyzes the level of popularity among the Anlo and the Asante in Ghana of PNDC Law 111 on intestate inheritance. Reasons for the promulgation of Law 111 include the removal of laws that discriminate against women and children, determination of intestacy and substitution for legal practices on inheritance after death, and provision of a...
Etymological attempts to explain who the Asante really are could not fully explain the concept. The research finding has, however, shown that the understanding of the concept is fluid over time. Observation on the social life of the Asante has demonstrated that an Asante may be someone capable of speaking the Twi language; whose parents, especially...
The general impression created is that cultural norms used in dispute resolution in chiefs' courts in Ghana violate women's rights. Analysis of these norms and proceedings in chiefs' courts is important because chiefs' courts play a tremendous role in dispute resolution among the ethnic groups. The units of analyses are Anlo and Asante of Ghana. Th...
The paper has discussed Ghana's PNDC Law 111 and related it to international human rights instruments such as the African Charter and the CEDAW on women's property inheritance rights. The objective is to find out if Law 111 fully promotes women's property inheritance rights. The findings are that: to some extent, Law 111 has addressed some injustic...
The article analyses the religion of Jesus, the Christ and of Zakadza, a variant of African Traditional Religion in Ghana. Worship, including ritual utterances, a primary source in the study of religious experience, and the informal expression of religion of both people, have been analysed. The findings of the research are that both religions are t...
The paper analyses societal perception of major illnesses such as leprosy, cancer, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS; and how this perception influences people’s relationship with victims. The study is important because it may contribute to correct the societal perception thereby making people relate well with those who suffer from such debilitating illnes...
The paper analyzes causal relation of sin and suffering, including illness. Modern/postmodern societal perception of suffering, and relationship with ill persons has been studied. In addition, the Bible (the Books of Job and Luke) has been investigated on the subject. The idea is to use Jesus’ actions and teachings as the assessment criteria. The s...
The article analyses property relations among the Anlo and the Asante of Ghana. Due to discriminatory effects of the
socio-cultural practices on women, government intervened with PNDC Law 111 in 1985. The approach of the study is mainly qualitative. The finding shows that, despite government’s legislative intervention, women’s rights and position i...
The main objective of the study was to find out which courts women access more in view of their unfavourable experiences of traditional institutions on property inheritance. The other reason for the study was to discover whether indigenous courts really play a significant role in the settlement of cases among the Anlo and Asante to ease congestion...
This is an excerpt from V. S. Gedzi (2009). Principles and Practices of Dispute Resolution in Ghana: Ewe and Akan Procedures on Females' Inheritance and Property Rights. The excerpt presents how women in Anlo and Asante societies find it hard to claim their inheritance and property rights in courts because of the fear of spiritual reprisals. Even t...
This work analyses core elements of variant dispute resolution procedures in chiefs’ courts, and substantive laws among the Anlo and the Asante of Ghana. It delimits itself to studying dispute resolution procedures and proceedings on female’s property inheritance among these two socio-cultural groups. The intention is to identify the strengths and...
This article analyses how Christianity and therefore, the church should involve itself more in redeeming Africa of its numerous problems such as poverty, disease, ignorance and injustice.
This article analyses the general life of people in Atikpui in the Volta region of Ghana. It talks about how the people have adapted to the dry and rainy seasons. The dry season is for hunting and harvesting; a time for relaxation and entertainment and show of an African hospitality; while the rainy season is used for the planting of crops.
Questions
Questions (8)
The concept of the free-market economy is based on an assumption that no single person or country can influence market prices of goods. But as we may all agree, "dominant" countries in the international trade fix prices of goods to their advantage. For example, the international oil market price is determined by a very few powerful players. Developing countries are "small" players in most traded goods (particularly raw materials) and have to accept prices fixed by dominant countries. What can Africa do to avoid the challenges that bedevil the world economic system resulting in socio-econmic inequality and stratifications between the global North and the South?
Literature on solid waste management in sub-Saharan Africa is massive, but very little on what contributions local religions can make in addressing the problem. Thus, I intend filling in knowledge gap by investigating the role that resources from the intellectual traditions of local religions like Islam, Christianity and African Traditional Religion in sub-Saharan Africa can play in contributing to resolve the solid waste management challenge particularly in urban communities by specifically focusing on Aboabo in Ghana as a sampled case study. Aboabo is in the Asawase sub-Metropolitan area and forms part of the Kumasi metropolis in the Ashanti region of Ghana. It has a population of 44,577 with 6,626 households that generates a lot of solid waste that inhabitants find very challenging to manage.
There is a vast disparity between rich nations and poor nations in terms of GDP per capita. Ghana, for example, in the 1960s, had the same level of GDP per capita like Singapore and Malasia. Today, Ghana is left too far behind; and has to undergo series of structural adjustment and other economic recovery programs that have not worked. Ghana is blessed with many natural resources, but seems to lack the requisite labour resources, and capital resources. In which way(s) can rich nations help poor nations like Ghana in acquiring the requisite labour and capital resources that can lead to improvement in their GDP per capita?
