Dwelling on the Road: Routines, Rituals and Roadblocks in Southern Ghana

Abstract

The Accra–Kumasi road, one of Ghana's most important trunk roads, traverses numerous towns and settlements whose residents at times engage intimately with the road on their doorstep. In this article, I provide ethnographic insights into the ways in which roadside dwellers conceptualize – and spatialize – the road and its roadside through distinct repertoires of movement (performed and encountered), through localized storytelling and narratives, through self-reflection, and also through disruptive and vigilante actions. I describe the spatial practices that are at the core of the dwellers' ‘anthropological’ experience of the road and its roadside, a space that is continuously domesticated, appropriated and, thus, implicated in the mundane and everyday. The dwellers' everyday practices, as well as the exceptional performances oriented to the road, appear as closely intertwined both with the liveliness, socialities and opportunities the road affords, as well as with its dangers and potential for destruction and death. Thus the ‘ambivalent nature of road experiences’, in Masquelier's phrase – namely the experience of the road as a space of both perils and possibilities – is crucial to how roadside dwellers socially produce the Accra–Kumasi road.

“You have to say everything is nice here”

“…Recent contributions have challenged this interpretation, however, critically commenting on the insider-outsider dichotomy, and examining the way positionalities shift throughout the research process (Clark, 2011;Lund et al, 2016;McFadyen and Rankin, 2017;Mutua and Swadener, 2011;Reeves, 2010;Singh and Wassenaar, 2016;Sunal and Mutua, 2008). Within this new wave of post-colonial, critical literature as few examples do exist which provide some practical guidelines for researchers, set within the Global South (Andoh-Arthur et al, 2018;Brandt and Josefsson, 2017;Johnstone, 2019;Klaeger, 2013;Mandel, 2003;Mutua and Swadener, 2011;Nelson, 2013;Pascucci, 2017;Sökefeld and Strasser, 2016;Sunal and Mutua, 2008;Turner, 2013). However, there remains a gap for practical advice for interacting with and managing gatekeepers prior to and during fieldwork, particularly within African contexts (Driver, 2000;Mathewson, 2001).…”

Can Anthropologists Contribute to Road Construction? Insights from Southwest China

“…Differing from much of the existing anthropological literature that focuses on the negative impacts of road projects (e.g. Dalakoglou, 2010;Klaeger, 2013;Nielsen, 2012) as well as on theoretical discussions regarding the roles of space and the nation-state in road projects (e.g. Campbell, 2012;Dalakoglou & Harvey, 2012;Kernaghan, 2012), this research provides an evidence-based example on how social scientists can make positive contributions to road building.…”

“…Balmford et al, ; Laurance et al, ), many social scientists focus on its negative impacts in local communities; anthropologists have particularly criticized that the negative impact road construction can potentially have on local culture, livelihood and societal relations, to the extent that it can even cause the breakout of conflict and violence (e.g. Dalakoglou, ; Kernaghan, ; Klaeger, ; Nielsen, ). As such, there has been recent growth of research from the perspective of the social sciences to promote the incorporation of participatory design and ethnographic methodology in road projects (e.g.…”

Using ERGMs to Disaggregate Displacement Cascades*

“…WFP roads are a subset of all roads in Somalia, but it is reasonable to expect that they are the largest and most salient roads in Somalia. Major roads provide opportunities for access to transportation, information, and necessary resources (Joireman et al, 2012;Klaeger, 2013). The control changes attribute measures whether there have been any battles where territorial control changed hands within 10 kilometers of a given location.…”