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May 10, 2026
The Noise Silence Makes
Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars
Summary
In The Noise Silence Makes: Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars (Duke UP, 2025) Mariam Goshadze traces the history of noise regulation in Accra, Ghana, showing how the 1990s and 2000s conflicts between the Ga people and Pentecostal/Charismatic churches during the annual city-wide ban on drumming illuminates the inner workings of Ghanaian secularity and the importance of "traditional religions" to African urbanity. Goshadze shows how the drumming ban represents a reversal of the top-down model of noise regulation and illuminates the reality of Ghanaian secularity, in which the state unofficially collaborates with indigenous religious authorities to control sound. In so doing, Goshadze counters the tendency to push African “traditional religions” to the margins.
The author, Mariam Goshadze, is an Assistant Professor in the Study of Religion at Leipzig University.
The host, Elisa Prosperetti, is an Assistant Professor of African and global history at NIE/NTU in Singapore.
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