Ghana’s Independence: Archives of Optimism and the Trauma of Unfinished Freedom 

On this eve of Ghana’s 70^th Anniversary of independence, the Editorial Team of Sankofa: Ghana Journal of Archaeology and Heritage Studies invites a wide array of critical interdisciplinary essays for its Special Issue to be published in 2027 (see previous volume here). Upon attaining independence on March 6, 1957, Ghana became Africa's drumbeat, a rhythmic insistence that history, memory, and heritage are cosmopolitan lenses for renewal and revitalization. The moment was at once national, continental, and universal. Ghana’s independence was an ontological rebellion: a refusal of history's assigned script of rites of passage and a declaration that those long confined to the footnotes of empire would henceforth become authors of their own becoming at the core of history.

The Editorial Team of the rebirthed Sankofa: Ghana Journal of Archaeology and Heritage Studies invites a wide array of critical interdisciplinary essays for its maiden issue to be published in late 2024/early 2025. Topical areas may include broadly conceived disciplinary fields of Archaeology, Heritage Studies, Anthropology, History, Sociology, Religions, Politics, Economics, Classics and Philosophy, Environmental Humanities, and Gender and Sexuality. We welcome papers dealing with a broad range of original themes in all periods that focus on field reports, expository essays, book reviews, and critical commentaries. We envision contributions that refurbish African ontologies and epistemologies and that realistically address the challenges and prospects of Africa and the world.