27th February 2024, 14h-16h, Bâtiment de recherches sud, Campus Condorcet, room n. 3.122
Zoom link: https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/97480803176?pwd=bGtmcGxDSTY2YzU2SWlJS2JwTHRIUT09
Creative gendered mobilities: migration, motorization and trade networks in colonial Ghana (1920-1957)
Domenico Cristofaro, University of Bologna
Abstract
The history of migrations in Ghana is closely tied to the flows of male migrant laborers who, since the early decades of the twentieth century, moved from the north to work in the cocoa fields or gold mines in the south. These migrations were facilitated and supported by both the colonial state before independence and the post-colonial state after independence. However, many women also participated in these migrations, yet the literature and primary sources are notably reticent about them. The seminar aims to better contextualize the issue and propose some research perspectives to overcome this reticence. Specifically, during the seminar it will be examined how infrastructural changes in mobility between the north and south of the country, as well as urbanization, influenced the success and careers of female traders from the North. Additionally, it will suggest research paths to explore how the professional ethics and networks developed by these women, in turn, influenced mobilities and the commercial growth of the northern regions of Ghana.
Selected bibliography
Chalfin, Brenda. «Border Zone Trade and the Economic Boundaries of the State in North-East Ghana». Africa 71, 2 (2001): 202–24.
Clark, Gracia. African Market Women: Seven Life Stories from Ghana. Indiana University Press, 2010.
Cristofaro, Domenico. «From Caravans to Lorries: Shifting Patterns of Mobility and Colonial Roadmaking in Northern Ghana (1896–1936)». International Journal of African Historical Studies 53, 3 (2020): 289–314.
Eades, Jerry S. Strangers and Traders: Yoruba Migrants, Markets, and the State in Northern Ghana. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1994.
Hart, Jennifer. Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation. Indiana University Press, 2016.
Rouch, Jean. «Migrations au Ghana (Gold Coast): enquête 1953-1955», Journal de la Société des Africanistes, 26 (1956): 33–196.
Skinner, Elliott P. «Labour Migration and Its Relationship to Socio-Cultural Change in Mossi Society». Africa 30, 4 (1960): 375–401.