Market men and station women: changing significations of gendered space in Accra, Ghana

ABSTRACT

It is impossible to understand the gendered relation between women and public space without taking into account its other, that is, male engagements with and in space. Our joint paper contrasts the public spaces of a market and a bus station in central Accra, Ghana. While the former is historically associated with female entrepreneurship, masculinity is deeply inscribed in the activities defining the latter. However, recent developments gradually undermine these gendered divides. By focusing on interpersonal claims to entrepreneurial places in the two locations, we illustrate how the configurations and co-constructions of gender and space are exposed to on-going, often subtle shifts, which are impelled by dialectically grounded transformations of quotidian spatial practices and social relations. Expanding upon the notion of viri–/uxorilocality, we explore shifts in the gendered strategies of newcomers establishing their presence in the two spaces and the extent to which these practices may alter gendered spatial significations.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• place/space
• markets
• bus stations
• Accra
• Ghana

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Alena Thiel is a Research Fellow at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg and holds a PhD from the University of Aberdeen. Her publications focus on networked social interactions in Ghanaian marketplaces, transnational entrepreneurship, Chinese–Ghanaian employment relations and urban space making.

Michael Stasik is a research assistant at the Chair of Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth and a PhD candidate at the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies. His publications focus on the intersection of urban cultures, economies and mobilities in West Africa.

ORCID

Alena Thiel http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1092-1140

Michael Stasik http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6354-2323

Notes

1. In Ghanaian English bus stations are referred to as ‘lorry parks’.

2. PRAAD (Accra HQ), Records CSO 20/1/9 “Regulations for the protection of food sold in Accra markets”; CSO 6/6/183 “Seizure and destruction of unwholesome foodstuffs”; ADM 11/892 “Collection of market dues by chiefs or land owners”.

3. The allegations of artificial price hikes allegedly caused by traders’ hording strategies have been refuted by Clark (1994) and Robertson (1984), who both doubt that traders at the time could have had the necessary capital strength to orchestrate such a calculated intervention meant to impinge on the national economy. Paraphrasing Clark (1994), the fact that traders managed to get back on their feet speaks less of their economic power than of the effectiveness of their mutual support networks.

4. Kalabule, a vernacular term that had emerged in the 1970s, generally refers to profiteering through informal means and channels (Nugent 1995, 27).

5. For example, state funds were used to supply GPRTU members with wear parts and to subsidise the acquisition of vehicles for the association, while its senior members were included in national transport committees. This system of clientelism proved largely successful. As Gyimah-Boadi (1994, 132) notes, the GPRTU became a ‘prosperous organ’ of Rawlings’ revolution, with many of its members featuring prominently in political mobilisation activities.

6. The new ‘Makola’, the ‘31st December Market’ named in reference to Rawlings’ second coup, was reconstructed on the site of a former transport company. A car park, named after Rawlings, was opened in the location of the former market.

7. The fast ‘pace’ sellers attribute to the market found inside the station generally refers to the many and quickly changing groups of potential clientele of travellers.

8. Interview with Town and Country Planning Department, Accra, December 22, 2011.

9. Since the early 1980s, the Euro-American supply centres procuring Ghana’s commodity markets have been gradually replaced by the new Asian destinations, first Taiwan and Bangkok and later in the 1990s Dubai and Hong Kong, before the mainland Chinese commodity hubs of Guangzhou and Yiwu became popular in the early 2000s.