Revue des arts et des sciences sociales

Covid-19 And Its Disruption Of Funeral Rituals In Africa: The Ghanaian Experience

Abstract

Vincent Assanful*

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide affected the socio-cultural life of the African. One major socio-cultural ritual that was heavily affected was the celebration of funeral rituals. Funerals in Africa are not only social ceremonies but religious as well. The community uses it to send off the departed to the spiritual world. However, the advent of the COVID-19 affected the performance of funeral rituals in Africa. The paper discusses the impact of the disruption using the experience in Ghana and the responses of the various communities in Ghana had to respond to the regulations put in place by the government to regulate funerals and other indigenous religious rituals. Employing the phenomenological method, the paper analyses data collected from the field and the literature to assess the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 on the celebration of funeral rituals in Ghana. Findings from the study indicates that COVID-19 disrupted the celebrations of festivals in Ghana.