Paper short abstract:

African nationalism was influenced by international ideas, including Pan-Africanism. Nkrumah used these influences in developing his own form of Pan-Africanism, altering it to fit an African context. This paper examines the international context for the development of Nkrumah’s distinctive Pan-Africanism.

Paper long abstract:

When Ghana gained independence in 1957, its leader, Kwame Nkrumah, quickly established it as a state guided by and supportive of Pan-Africanism. Nkrumah declared that Ghana was dedicated to the liberation and unification of all Africa. Presenting a new interpretation of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah however created a significant break with the Pan-Africanism of diaspora leaders such as W.E.B. DuBois. Nkrumah emphasised a core African identity within both nationalism and Pan-Africanism, and sought to highlight these and reconstruct both meta-narratives around this African identity. Through his pronouncements on the 'African personality,' Nkrumah redirected discourses on Pan-Africanist nationalism away from their origins in the African diaspora and towards an Afro-centric interpretation.

This paper will examine the interaction between international and local understandings of Pan-Africanism and nationalism. Highlighting the contradictions and contentions between Nkrumah's interpretations of Pan-African nationalism and the ideas of the diaspora, this paper will analyse how meta-narratives and ideologies were established and restructured in the international discourses that took place throughout the first half of the twentieth century. This paper will challenge preconceptions about the development of Nkrumah's ideological position, and re-locate the origins and space in which these debates and discourses took place.