TY - JOUR

T1 - Chinese factor in the space, place and agency of female head porters in urban Ghana

AU - Giese, Karsten

AU - Thiel, Alena

N1 - Funding Information: 4. Research for this publication was undertaken as part of the larger project ‘Entrepreneurial Chinese Migrants and Petty African Entrepreneurs – Local Impacts of Interaction in Urban West Africa’ funded by the DFG Priority Programme 1448 ‘Adaptation and Creativity in Africa’ and conducted by the two authors and Laurence Marfaing. Publisher Copyright: ©2015, Taylor & Francis.

PY - 2015/5/19

Y1 - 2015/5/19

N2 - Migrating from northern Ghana to the coastal capital Accra in search of work, female head porters (‘kayayei’) find themselves in social structures and spatial orders that are imbued with various relations of seniority and power that constrain newcomers' entrepreneurial options. Yet, with the recent arrival of Chinese entrepreneurs in the social arena of Accra's marketplace, these power relations and gate-keeping mechanisms have begun to change. In this article, we analyse how female head porters perceive and appropriate the opportunities that arise as a result of the Chinese being seen by both they themselves and others as outsiders to Ghanaian society. By unintentionally enabling head-load carriers to extend their actual and symbolic claims to spatial realms that they were previously excluded from, the Chinese traders are facilitating head porters' expanded role within the social construction of place and space in Ghana's main urban market centre. They are therefore altering the patterns of everyday interactions between these head-load carriers and their environment.

AB - Migrating from northern Ghana to the coastal capital Accra in search of work, female head porters (‘kayayei’) find themselves in social structures and spatial orders that are imbued with various relations of seniority and power that constrain newcomers' entrepreneurial options. Yet, with the recent arrival of Chinese entrepreneurs in the social arena of Accra's marketplace, these power relations and gate-keeping mechanisms have begun to change. In this article, we analyse how female head porters perceive and appropriate the opportunities that arise as a result of the Chinese being seen by both they themselves and others as outsiders to Ghanaian society. By unintentionally enabling head-load carriers to extend their actual and symbolic claims to spatial realms that they were previously excluded from, the Chinese traders are facilitating head porters' expanded role within the social construction of place and space in Ghana's main urban market centre. They are therefore altering the patterns of everyday interactions between these head-load carriers and their environment.

KW - China–Africa relations

KW - gender

KW - head porters (‘kayayei’)

KW - place

KW - spatial orders

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84926109457&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/14649365.2014.998266

DO - 10.1080/14649365.2014.998266

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84926109457

VL - 16

SP - 444

EP - 464

JO - Social & Cultural Geography

JF - Social & Cultural Geography

SN - 1464-9365

IS - 4

ER -