A Death in the Family: Property, Inheritance, and Belonging in Late Colonial Asante

Abstract

AbstractAn inheritance dispute heard before one of the chiefs’ courts established in Asante under indirect rule illustrates the multivalent, dynamic character of social institutions at a time of economic and political transition. Litigated in 1951, the dispute raised questions about the meaning of ‘family’ and ‘belonging’, and their significance for people's access to wealth and their obligations to one another. Played out against a backdrop of potentially far-reaching social and political change in Ghana and beyond, cases such as this one suggest that terms such as ‘belonging’ and ‘family’ are best understood as labels for complex social processes, rather than facts that determine people's social identities and entitlements.