The Disappearing of Hannah Kudjoe: Nationalism, Feminism, and the Tyrannies of History

Abstract

Hannah Kudjoe was Ghana's leading woman nationalist in the struggle for independence from British colonial rule in the 1940s and 1950s. As Ghana celebrated a half century of independence in 2007 and the heroes of that struggle were publicly honored by street naming ceremonies, the unveiling of statues, and historical reenactments, Hannah Kudjoe's name was nowhere to be found. Who was Hannah Kudjoe and how could such a high-profile, formidable, and well-connected nationalist leader be forgotten so quickly? Employing an agnotological approach to women's history that interrogates the construction of ignorance and sanctioned forgetting, this article traces the processes by which Hannah Kudjoe "got disappeared," and the ways in which feminist and nationalist histories have conspired in her disappearing.

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