A Life Story of Grassroot Activist: The Case of Community Development in Rural Ghana under 1980's Military Regime

Abstract

This study focuses on community development in rural communities in the northern part of Ghana during the military regime of the 1980s. “The revolution” was launched and lasted for ten years following the coup d'état of Air Force Captain Jerry Rawlings on December 31, 1981. During the “revolution” led by Rawlings, “revolutionary organization” was organized by ordinary Ghanaian people throughout the country. Particularly in the rural communities, self-help activities such as the construction of roads, schools, and wells were promoted by the residents. At the center of these activities, there were “youth groups/associations” organized mainly by young people who attended schools, which were still few in the north at that time. By tracing the life story of the individual involved, this paper attempts to understand how the individual came to take a leadership role in the community, focusing on subjective reality. As a result, it was found that the acquisition of “alternative perception of the reality” and “alternative self-perception” through various experiences, including schooling, led the person to initiate group activity aimed at social change. Objectively, these activities were integrated into a popular movement called the “revolution,” but for the subject, the revolution was a “mean” to promote the social change he was pursuing. Even the “revolution” end, a grassroot activist continues what he has been doing since before the arrival of the “revolution.”