On Embodied Consciousness in Anlo-Ewe Worlds

Abstract

Anlo-Ewe generally refers to a dialect of the Ewe language spoken in southeastern Ghana, with Anlo designating an ethnolinguistic group whose homeland is on a littoral between the Keta Lagoon and the sea. Etymologically, however, Anlo derives from the Ewe term ‘nlo’ which means rolling up or folding into oneself. This article describes moments of ethnographic fieldwork that led to tracing links among meanings assigned to ‘nlo’, a migration story reinforcing the ‘nlo’ that was incorporated into a name, the experiential dimensions of folding into oneself when recounting the migration tale, and how this body posture indexes and evokes a melancholy sensibility shared among many Anlo-Ewe people in diaspora as well as at ‘home’. Anlo cultural memory is approached from the standpoint of phenomenology in ethnography, and the essay explores connections among landscapes, livelihood, bodily sensations, a certain present, a particular past, in addition to Anlo-Ewe interlocutors and an ethnographer. It is meant as a meditation on lived experience and consciousness in Anlo-Ewe worlds.