Indigenous Basketry Furniture Art in Upper West Region of Ghana: Opportunities and Sustainability

Abstract

Basketry, as an artistic discourse, is one of the enviable indigenous heritage arts that evolves with society and is still of great relevance in contemporary African civilisation. Although the primary historical reason for the perpetuation of basketry art in many ancient African societies was largely utilitarian, the scope of basketry has since metamorphosed beyond its functional focus to include aesthetic, economic, and many opportunities that are geared toward meeting the sociocultural and economic needs of African societies. The focus of this qualitative case study was to investigate the opportunities and sustainability of indigenous basketry furniture artistic practices in the geographical context of the Upper West Region of Ghana.  Thematic analysis of triangulated data generated from twenty-seven (27) conveniently sampled experts reveals the use of local technology and ingenuity in the indigenous basketry furniture artistic practices in the Sissala West District, Sisaala East and Jirapa Municipalities in the Upper West Region. The study also found that the indigenous basketry furniture products (lounge chairs, beds, dining tables, local market tables among others) the ready market thereby providing lucrative economic gains to the artisans. The study concludes that the indigenous basketry furniture art in the Sissala West District, Sisaala East and Jirapa Municipalities in the Upper West Region of Ghana is an economically viable vocation that provides decent livelihood to its practitioners. The artisans are, therefore encouraged to seek governmental and non-governmental funding to expand the frontiers of the vocation within global sustainability dictates for massive employment and industrial production.