Memory-Making in an Urban Park: Colonial and Contemporary Uses of Kumase’s Jackson Park

Jackson Park in Kumase, Ghana, was designed to serve the recreational interests of its immediate African community. The article analyses how Asante citizens appropriated a colonial park and how it was refashioned by the postcolonial Ghanaian state. This article discussed how the changes in the uses of this urban infrastructure produced individual and collective memories. Using archival data and interviews, memories of Jackson Park are reconstructed via the lenses of football and religion. We highlight the intersection of official and unofficial histories, showing how these interwoven narratives are linked to memory-making. Jackson Park is found to have been essential to the production of memories associated with the playing/grooming of football(ers), religious ceremonies, and other essential socio-economic performances in Kumase. These memories can be linked with context-specific historical events, including the Second World War, football development in Kumase, and Ghana's 50th anniversary of independence celebrations.