Commensality and the Variations in the Yagbon Community of North Gonja District of the Savannah Region of Ghana

Zakaria Shanunu^1, and Eliasu Alhassan¹

¹Faculty of Social Sciences,Department of Sociology and Social WorkUniversity for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana

Cite this paper:
Zakaria Shanunu and Eliasu Alhassan. Commensality and the Variations in the Yagbon Community of North Gonja District of the Savannah Region of Ghana. Journal of Sociology and Anthropology. 2023; 7(1):11-17. doi: 10.12691/jsa-7-1-2

Abstract

This Paper Examines Commensality and the variations involved in the Yagbon Community of North Gonja District of the Savannah Region of Ghana. In most cultures, food has a significant impact on how families conduct their lives. The level of significance however, varies from culture to culture and tradition to tradition. People are said to break bread with one another when they eat a meal together with friends. The symbolic interaction theory put out by Nungesser was adopted and used for the study. It examines the arbitrary interpretations and variations that people place on things, incidents and behaviours in order to analyze the society. Both qualitative and descriptive approaches were used for the study. It was used because the former produces rich, detailed and valid process of data based on participants' perspectives and interpretations and the latter produces factual, reliable outcome data that can typically be generalized to some larger populations. The convenient sampling technique was used to select stakeholders because of the key roles they play in the study area. The targeted population included the chiefs, sub-chiefs, opinion leaders, the youth and households in Yagbon community. Focus group discussions interviews as well as observation were employed to collect the qualitative data and the data were summarized, grouped into major thematic areas and analyzed. Key findings were that commensality was seen as not only eating together on a table but also eating in the same bowl. Another key finding was that there was historical development of how eating together came into being in that community and this resulted in building a sense of familiarity with everyone in the group and fostering traditional bonding in the community. It was revealed that men and women don’t eat together in the same bowl when it comes to communal eating in the area. This was seen as a taboo in the community. Again, different households eat from the same bowl to preserve and record cultural legacy. It is recommended that policymakers, Ministry of Tourism, Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies must create awareness on the significance of commensality. This can also be done globally, geographically and focus must be on the use of interdisciplinary methods to keep the Communities bonds and identities for the youth to emulate in future.

Keywords:
Communal eating Culture Tradition Commensality Food.

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