NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. The National Archives (UK): Public Records Office (hereafter cited as TNA: PRO) CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

2. TNA: PRO CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

3. TNA: PRO CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

4. Parker, Making the Town.

5. As such, colonial regulatory regimes and practices in Accra were part of a broader imperial project in which, as T. J. Tallie argues for the “global nineteenth century Anglophone settler project” (2) and its particular incarnation in colonial Natal, colonial governments around the world sought to “cordon off indigenous land reserves and enshrine African custom in a static and separate legal code” (1). Tallie illustrates the important ways in which white settler presence and power shaped the particular execution of these aspirations in colonies like Natal, but in attempting to realize a new form of order and control land, they also evidence an important connection with other “commercial” colonies as part of a larger imperial project. See Tallie, Queering Colonial Natal.

6. Parker, Making the Town, xvii.

7. Dakubu, Korle Meets the Sea, 100–101.

8. Odotei, “External Influences on Ga Society and Culture,” 61; Dakubu, Korle Meets the Sea, 101; Parker, Making the Town, 8.

9. Dakubu, Korle Meets the Sea, 101; Parker, Making the Town, 8.

10. Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 23.

11. Parker, Making the Town, 6; Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 23.

12. Parker, Making the Town, 9–10.

13. Odotei, “External Influences on Ga Society and Culture,” 61; Parker, Making the Town, 9–10.

14. Parker, Making the Town, 9–10; Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 28–30.

15. Parker, Making the Town, 9–10.

16. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra: 41–42; Parker Making the Town, 2, 4.

17. Parker, Making the Town, xviii.

18. Parker, Making the Town, 2.

19. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 28–30.

20. Barbot, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.

21. Parker, Making the Town, 10.

22. Parker, Making the Town, 6; Kilson, Kpele Lala: Ga Religious Songs and Symbols, 238.

23. Parker, Making the Town, 6; Kilson, Kpele Lala, 10.

24. Barbot, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, 70–72. Barbot noted that “could the Akim and Akwamu blacks agree, as they are continually at variance, about the annual tribute the former demand of the latter, by virtue of their feudal right over them, the trade would yet be greater at Accra than it is: but the Akwamus will by no means submit to it, lest a concession of this nature might, in time, cost them the loss of their whole country; and their king is such a politician, as to sow discord between the governors of Akim, by means of fair words and large gifts, whereby he preserves his country in peace, and in a condition to enjoy a beneficial trade” (70–72).

25. Barbot, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, 70–72.

26. Hawthorn, Journal of an African Cruiser in Wolfson, Pageant of Ghana, 123–124.

27. Huntley, Seven Years’ Service of the Slave Coast of Western Africa, in Wolfson, Pageant of Ghana.

28. Kilson, Kpele Lala, 7.

29. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 28–30.

30. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 28–30; Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 47.

31. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 28–30.

32. Parker, Making the Town, xvii.

33. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 41–42; Parker, Making the Town.

34. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 38.

35. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 54, 57; Parker, Making the Town, 14; Brooks, EurAfricans in Western Africa; Dumett, “African Merchants of the Gold Coast,” 1860–1905; Ray, Crossing the Color Line; Ipsen, Koko’s Daughters.

36. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 121.

37. Parker, Making the Town, 14, 16.

38. Osei-Tutu, Asafoi (Socio-Military Groups) in the Histoyr and Politics of Accra (Ghana) from the 17th to the 20th Century.

39. Parker, Making the Town, 22.

40. Parker, Making the Town, 17.

41. Parker, Making the Town, 22–23.

42. Parker, Making the Town, 19.

43. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 28–30.

44. Parker, Making the Town, 7.

45. Kilson, African Urban Kinsmen, 3.

46. Parker, Making the Town, 7.

47. Parker, Making the Town, 7.

48. Parker, Making the Town, 6.

49. Kilson, African Urban Kinsmen, 3.

50. Parker, Making the Town, 6; Kilson, Kpele Lala, 238.

51. Parker, Making the Town, 16.

52. Kilson, Kpele Lala, 7.

53. Parker, Making the Town, 16.

54. Kilson, Kpele Lala, 7; Parker, Making the Town.

55. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 41–42.

56. Dumett, “African Merchants of the Gold Coast”; Murillo, Market Encounters.

57. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 32.

58. Parker, Making the Town, xviii.

59. Parker, Making the Town, xviii.

60. Parker, Making the Town; Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity; Field, Search for Security.

61. See for example: White, Comforts of Home; Cooper, Struggle for the City; Cooper, On the African Waterfront.

62. White, Comforts of Home; Lyons, The Colonial Disease; Cooper, On the African Waterfront; Mamdani, Citizen and Subject; Demissie, Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa, 2. The garden city movement was arguably the most ordered and well-documented example of technocratic urban form, which Bigon and Katz argue highlights “the relationship between colonialism and modern planning.” See Bigon and Katz, Garden Cities and Colonial Planning, 3.

63. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa; Crowder, “Indirect Rule – French and British Style,” 197–205.

64. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 37–61.

65. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public.

66. TNA: PRO CO 96/740/1 1937 Municipal Affairs: A Petition by the Ratepayers of Accra regarding the Appointment of Mr. D. McDougall as Town Clerk.

67. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar.

68. Fair, Reel Pleasures, 9; Lefebvre, Le Droit à la ville.

69. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 1.

70. As Dalston notes in her commanding history of rules in the Western world, “We are, all of us, everywhere, always, enmeshed in a web of rules that supports and constrains” (1). However, she notes that “the universality of rules does not imply their uniformity, either across cultures or within historical traditions” (2). Rules, then, predated the expansion of British government in Accra, even if they looked quite different from British understandings. And the choice of which rules to create and how they should be implemented and enforced represented distinct and intentional choices on the part of government leaders, as “rules can either be thick or thin in their formulation, flexible or rigid in their application, and general or specific in their domain” (3). As “rules with their sleeves ruled up, the ones that get things done on the ground,” regulations generate particular attention both from the governing and the governed since “we bark our shins against regulations almost every day” (152). Daston, Rules: A Short History of What We Live By.

71. Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt, ix.

72. Stanley, Coomassie and Magdala quoted in Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 40; Sackeyfio, The Politics of Chieftaincy, 1.

73. Horton, West African Countries and Peoples, British and Native, 137.

74. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, chap. 1.

75. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men, 263.

76. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men, 261–262.

77. Adas, Machines as the Meassure of Men, 263–264.

78. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men; Headrick, The Tools of Empire; Headrick, Power over Peoples; Mitchell, Rule of Experts. As Daston argues, the vision of modernity as articulated through and embodied in the science and technology of the nineteenth century was predated by an earlier definition of modernity that was fixated on orderliness, predictability, and rules; colonial officials and other Western observers just as often fell back on this older definition in talking about modernity (or the lack thereof) in African cities like Accra (Daston, Rules, 181).

79. Myers and Muhair, “Afterlife of the Lanchester Plan,” 113; Mitchell, Rule of Experts.

80. Rankin, After the Map. Daston argues that the rise of regulation in Western cities was driven by three factors: “First, quickening trade swelled purses and kindled new desires. . . . Second, burgeoning urban populations strained old infrastructures of streets and sanitation. . . . Third, the political consolidation of nation-states from the seventeenth century to the present day enforced uniformity on what were previously disparate territories, not only legally but culturally” (Daston, Rules, 153).

81. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa”; Mitchell, Rule of Experts; Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men; see also Scott, Seeing Like a State, 55.

82. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight; Fyfe, By Accident or Design; Bigon and Katz, Garden Cities and Colonial Planning, 54–55.

83. Porter, Unlearning the Colonial Cultures of Planning, 52.

84. Wright, “Tradition in the Service of Modernity,” 322–45; Stoler, “Tense and Tender Ties,” 848; Bigon and Katz, Garden Cities and Colonial Planning, 20; Silva, “Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa,” 9–10. See also Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory.

85. In the realm of architecture, Kuukuwa Manful argues that “colonial architectural domination was realized in a number of ways, four of which I discuss in detail. . . . These are (1) the diminishing, erasure and demolition of existing African architectures; (2) the erection of imposing and intimidating European architectures; (3) the juridical and bureaucratic control of the built environment through planning, permits and licenses and; (4) the influence and imposition of European hegemonies of aesthetic taste” (233). While the scope of this book extends well beyond architecture, Manful’s schematic provides a helpful framework here to think about the strategies of spatial governance. Manful, “Afterword: Theorizing the Politics of Unformal(ized) Architectures.”

86. Quoted in Home and King, “Urbanism and Master Planning,” 82.

87. Bigon and Katz, Garden Cities and Colonial Planning, 15–16, 83.

88. Silva, “Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa,” 9–10.

89. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 62; Demissie, Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa, 3–4; Manful, “Afterword,” 233.

90. de Boeck, “Infrastructure: Commentary from Filip de Boeck”; Harvey and Knox, Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise, 5.

91. Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space, 11.

92. Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 73.

93. Myers, Verandahs of Power, 88; Silva, “Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Overview,” 11–18; Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 22.

94. Bissell, Between Fixity and Fantasy, 225–226. In a Western, noncolonial context, Daston also argues that this is, in many ways, inherent in the nature of rules and regulations because they are always seeking to “bridge the chasm between the universal idea of good order and the most minute particulars in real life” (Rules, 154).

95. This reflected a broader strategy among colonial powers across the continent. As Silva writes, “Even when the planning law was not openly segregationist, plans tended to gradually introduce a functional and a social zoning, and what can be termed a defacto racial segregation. Besides the application of basic principles related to public hygiene, urban planning was expected to promote the separation of lifestyles. Racial segregation was also present in the annual budgetary decisions related to the location of the new infrastructures, and in the level of infrastructures and social equipments, frequently different in the European and in the African quarters: water inside home versus public fountains; WC versus public latrines; water collection systems versus open air disposal of dirty waters.” Silva, “Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Overview,” 18.

96. Mitchell, Rule of Experts, 4–5.

97. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 6. See also Myers, who argues that elite actors in British colonial states in East Africa developed city plans by “ignoring the everyday spatial life-world of the majority of the residents” (Verandahs of Power, 160), which resulted in the constant reframing of the city—a process that highlighted the failures of “orders without framework” and guaranteed a “persistence of disorder.”

98. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert, 15–17.

99. Njoh, Planning Power, 10–11.

100. Mavhunga, What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?, 4–5.

101. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 6.

102. Cooper, Struggle for the City.

103. Mavhunga, Transient Workspaces, 4; Mavhunga, What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?; Oliver, “Vernacular Know-How,” 113–126.

104. For an example of a similar process in a more rural area of Ghana, see Konadu, Our Own Way in This Part of the World. Daston argues that this sort of failure represents the failed transitions of rules into norms that are internalized as implicit conventions that have become second nature (Rules, 154–155).

105. Murunga, “Review of Verandas of Power,” 210.

106. Mavhunga, What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa, 9.

107. Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt, 165.

108. See also Janet Roitman, who argues that “economic knowledge about and of the economy is always organized against other, contending orderings”; See Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience, 8–9.

109. Bigon, “From Metropolitan to Colonial Planning,” 84.

110. Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience, 3.

111. Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience, 3. Daston likewise describes regulations as “rules in action” (Rules, 154).

112. Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience, 3.

113. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 53–54; Home, Of Planting and Planning, 3.

114. As Dirks argued, “Colonial knowledge both enabled colonial conquest and was produced by it.” See Dirks, Colonialism and Culture, 3.

115. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 54.

116. Njoh, Planning Power, 59–60; Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 54.

117. Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt, 13.

118. Burton, “Unfinished Business of Colonial Modernities,”3.

119. Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt, 33; Myers, Verandahs of Power, 3.

120. Sharan, “In the City, Out of Place,” 4906.

121. Parker, Making the Town.

122. McFarlane, “Governing the Contaminated City,” 415–435.

123. Simone, “Straddling the Divides,” 102–117; Meagher, “Introduction: Special Issue on ‘Informal Institutions and Development in Africa,” 405–418.

124. Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,” 61.

125. Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,” 68.

126. Examples of such studies in Ghana include, for example: Clark, Onions Are My Husband; Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl; Pellow and Chazan, Ghana: Coping with Uncertainty.

127. Mayne, Slums, 8.

128. Mayne, Slums, 16.

129. Mayne, Slums, 9–11.

130. Perera, “Planners’ City,” 57–73; Marris, “Meaning of Slums and Patterns of Change,” 419–441; Manful, “Afterword,” 232.

131. Mavhunga argues that “the dilemma of knowledge production in Africa centers on how its structures, practices, and concepts came to be informalized while inbound European ones were rendered formal.” Mavhunga, What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?, 10.

132. Mitchell, Rule of Experts, 7.

133. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory.

134. See, for example: Gandy, “Planning, Anti-planning and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” 371–396. There is a persistent reliance on these binaries even when the analysis disproves them.

135. As Roitman argues in Fiscal Disobedience, “By looking at the institutionalization of certain concepts and practices—for instance, the institutionalization of ‘tax’ and ‘price’ in Cameroon—we can glimpse the various ways in which specific economic concepts and metaphors have been assumed and performed by local actors. And by studying the institutionalization of these concepts or historical institutions, we see how their practices involve various modalities, or how they are both assumed and yet disputed as forms of knowledge, which carry political and socioeconomic consequences for those involved. Instead of presenting representations and metaphors of the economy as an underlying generative system that induces behavior and leads to certain forms of organization, I show how, despite their efficacy, they tend to instability due to their fundamental ambivalence as institutions or political techniques” (7).

136. Marr, “Worlding and Wilding,” 3–21.

137. Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South, 7; Marr, “Worlding and Wilding,” 6.

138. Stoler, Along the Archival Grain, 2; Plageman, “Colonial Ambition, Common Sense Thinking, and the Making of Takoradi Harbor, Gold Coast,” 321; Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” 87–109.

139. Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” 87–109.

140. Writing about economic regulation in the midst of significant instability in Chad, Roitman similarly argues that multiple histories of the economy “are most evident to us in times of conflict, when the terms of logical practice are interrogated and the intelligibility of the exercise of power is not necessarily taken for granted” (Fiscal Disobedience, 3).

141. Plageman, “Colonial Ambition, Common Sense Thinking, and the Making of Takoradi Harbor, Gold Coast”; Daston, Rules, 176.

142. Clifford, Our Days on the Gold Coast in Ashanti; Coe, Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools.

143. Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: “How to Play the Game of Life.” Paul Schauert uses the Ghanaian concept of “managing” to describe the way that individuals utilized the state for the purpose of self-fashioning. See Schauert, Staging Ghana.

144. For additional analysis of colonial petitions as historical sources elsewhere in other British colonies in Africa, see Korieh, “May It Please Your Honor,” 83–106.

145. Korieh, “May It Please Your Honor,” 97.

146. Korieh, “May It Please Your Honor,” 97; Lawrance, Osborn, and Roberts, Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks.

147. Korieh, “May It Please Your Honor,” 88.

148. Plageman, “Accra Is Changing Isn’t It?”; Newell, “Newspapers, New Spaces, New Writers: The First World War and Print Culture in Colonial Ghana,” 2.

149. Newell, “Newspapers, New Spaces, New Writers,” 2; Lorang, Writing Ghana, Imagining Africa: Nation and African Modernity.

150. Barber, Africa’s Hidden Histories.

151. Tania Murray Li describes at least some of these groups as “parties beyond ‘the state’ that attempt to govern,” particularly in the context of high modernism. (“Beyond ‘The State’ and Failed Schemes,” 383–394).

152. Satia, Time’s Monsters; Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory; Mitchell, Rule of Experts; Scott, Seeing Like a State; Pels, “Anthropology of Colonialism: Culture, History, and the Emergence of Western Governmentality,” 163–183.

153. Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 8–9; Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience, 7.

154. Appadurai, Social Life of Things.

155. Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience, 10.

1. “FRUITY” SMELLS, CITY STREETS, AND THE POLITICS OF SANITATION

1. Gold Coast Leader, July 12, 1902, 2.

2. Gold Coast Leader, July 12, 1902, 2.

3. Parker, Making the Town, 99–100.

4. Grace, “Poop.”

5. Parker, Making the Town, 99–100.

6. Parker, Making the Town, 99–100.

7. Bissell, “Between Fixity and Fantasy,” 220.

8. Bissell, “Between Fixity and Fantasy,” 216.

9. Bissell, “Between Fixity and Fantasy,” 225–226; Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar.

10. Berry, “Hegemony on a Shoestring,” 327–355.

11. Casely-Hayford, Gold Coast Native Institutions.

12. Griffith, “1892 Towns and Public Health Ordinance,” in Ordinances of the Gold Coast Colony, 738.

13. Griffith, “1892 Towns and Public Health Ordinance,” in Ordinances of the Gold Coast Colony, 739.

14. Casely-Hayford, Gold Coast Native Institutions, 382–388.

15. Casely-Hayford, Gold Coast Native Institutions, 382.

16. Griffith, “1892 Towns and Public Health Ordinance,” in Ordinances of the Gold Coast Colony, 746–747.

17. Griffith, “1892 Towns and Public Health Ordinance,” in Ordinances of the Gold Coast Colony, 748.

18. While they may exist somewhere in the archive in Accra, there are currently no archival records available that comprehensively track the outcome of inspections, fines, or other forms of regulatory enforcement. Our sense of their power can only be gleaned from rare moments of debate or discussion within the Town Council minutes.

19. TNA: PRO CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

20. TNA: PRO CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

21. “Municipality for Accra,” Gold Coast Chronicle, September 19, 1896, 2.

22. “(Official) Municipality Ordinance,” Gold Coast Chronicle, October 16, 1896.

23. In some cases, the editorial boards of newspapers that had been publishing articles in favor of the “Municipality Ordinance” changed their tune in response to public outcry. As the editors of the Gold Coast Chronicle noted: “On the press, it came to our knowledge that the Kings, chiefs and the townsmen of Accra and Christiansborg have expressed their unwillingness to accept the ‘Town Council Ordinance’ in any shape or form, as it will prove a great hardship to the majority, if not to all of them. We have thought it prudent therefore to discontinue the insertion in our columns, of the remaining and unpublished portion of the letter of our correspondent that has appeared in our columns under the above heading [The (Official) Municipality Ordinance].” November 28, 1896.

24. Gold Coast Chronicle, November 25, 1899, 3.

25. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd, the Asafo, and the Opposition to the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924–25,” 351; Parker, Making the Town.

26. Dumett, “African Merchants of the Gold Coast”; Fortescue, “Accra Crowd, the Asafo, and the Opposition to the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924–25.”

27. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd, the Asafo, and the Opposition to the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924–25.”

28. Hart, Ghana on the Go, 58–59.

29. Hart, Ghana on the Go, 59; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/2/126 1932–1933 Boundary Road, Accra.

30. Casely-Hayford, Gold Coast Native Institutions, 382–388.

31. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar.

32. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 2.

33. The nom de plume Vortigern likely referenced Arthurian stories in which a series of kings called Vortigern make consistently foolish decisions with disastrous consequences for themselves and their kingdoms. Lupack, “Vortigern.” https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/theme/Vortigern.

34. Gold Coast Chronicle, July 28, 1894.

35. Gold Coast Chronicle, November 15, 1898, 2.

36. “We ask the Colonial Office authorities in England to follow us further on to the time in 1887 when Colonel B.P. White, the mention of whose name is associated with some pleasurable feelings, was administering the Government. We remember that he employed a large number of women to carry water from Beulah in the dry season, but the times are changing and who can predict what the prospect of the dry season will be in 1894.” Gold Coast Chronicle, July 28, 1894.

37. Gold Coast Chronicle, July 28, 1894; Gold Coast Chronicle, November 15, 1898, 2.

38. Gold Coast Leader, March 20, 1909, 3.

39. “The (Official) Municipality Ordinance,” Gold Coast Chronicle, October 16, 1896, 3.

40. Gold Coast Chronicle, March 29, 1901, 2.

41. Gold Coast Chronicle, March 29, 1901, 2.

42. Gold Coast Chronicle, September 10, 1896.

43. “Governor’s Address on the Annual Estimates,” Gold Coast Leader, December 25, 1909, 2–3.

44. “Governor’s Address on the Annual Estimates,” Gold Coast Leader, December 25, 1909, 2–3.

45. “Extract of the Minutes of the Legislative Council Held at Accra, 28th October 1910,” Gold Coast Leader, January 21, 1911, 3.

46. Gold Coast Leader, November 22, 1913, 4. This critique was part of a broader condemnation of the Public Works Department in the colony: “It seems to us that there is a great deal of energy, mental and physical, misdirected and wasted in the public works due partly to want of interest by the officers of the Public Works Department in their business and mainly to the absence of co-ordinated and well arranged plans or schemes of work.”

47. Gold Coast Leader, November 22, 1913, 4.

48. Gold Coast Leader, January 4, 1913.

49. Gold Coast Leader, January 4, 1913.

50. TNA: PRO CO 96/730/1 1936 Water Supply—Extension of Accra Water Works.

51. Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917; TNA: PRO CO 96/387/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra, Gold Coast Sessional Paper III 1916–1917.

52. TNA: PRO CO 96/775/11 1942–1943 Accra Sewerage Scheme.

53. TNA: PRO CO 96/730/1 1936 Water Supply—Extension of Accra Water Works.

54. TNA: PRO CO 96/730/1 1936 Water Supply—Extension of Accra Water Works.

55. TNA: PRO CO 96/730/1 1936 Water Supply – Extension of Accra Water Works.

56. TNA: PRO CO 96/730/1 1936 Water Supply – Extension of Accra Water Works.

57. TNA: PRO CO 96/730/1 1936 Water Supply – Extension of Accra Water Works.

58. TNA: PRO CO 96/730/1 1936 Water Supply – Extension of Accra Water Works.

59. Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917 TNA: PRO CO 96/387/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra, Gold Coast Sessional Paper III 1916–1917.

60. Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917 TNA: PRO CO 96/387/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra, Gold Coast Sessional Paper III 1916–1917.

61. Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917 TNA: PRO CO 96/387/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra, Gold Coast Sessional Paper III 1916–1917.

62. TNA: PRO CO 96/389/2 Gold Coast Colony Korle Lagoon Reclamation Scheme Report and Estimate, Percy Hall, Director of Public Works 3–1-29.

63. Public Records and Archives Administration Department: National Archives of Ghana (ACCRA) (hereafter cited as PRAAD: NAG (Accra)) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

64. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

65. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

66. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

67. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

68. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

69. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

70. Pexbroke Playfair, “The Public Health and Sanitation,” The Gold Coast Independent, August 26, 1922, 12.

71. “Our Town Councils,” Gold Coast Leader, June 21, 1913, 4.

72. “In the year 1911 the receipts of the Accra Town Council amounted to £7,780.4.11. £1,000 of this amount was grant-in-aid from the Government and the balance is derived from revenue got from licences on spirit, wine, and beer, etc., taxes on houses and wheels, fees derived from slaughter houses, market dues, penalties on prosecutions, sale of water, etc. The expenditure for the year 1911 totalled £7,558.18.9. In the items under Receipts in 1911 we note that the penalties on prosecutions yielded the sum of £348.18.0 or about 22% of the total receipts of the Town Council. We consider the policy as very unsound which makes collection of penalties a principal source of revenue of the Town Council. The native Sanitary Inspectors employed by the Council in 1911 received all put together £433 in salaries and this is about £84 less than the total sum collected from sanitary prosecutions, or in other words the revenue derived from sanitary prosecutions yield about 80% of the salaries paid to all the native Sanitary Inspectors combined. Or if we take as a basis of comparison the salaries paid to the Municipal and Assistant Municipal Inspectors who received £425 as wages in 1911, we find that the revenue derived by Town Council from sanitary prosecutions yielded a little over 82% of the cost of the employment of these two European officers. There are complaints all over the Colony of unnecessary sanitary prosecutions and excessive fines for sanitary offences. Natives are being ground down, persecuted, and oppressed in the name of Sanitation. ‘They do not keep their places clean,’ ‘they allow water receptacles to breed mosquitoes, and so on and so forth,’ say the Sanitary Inspectors. Little or nothing is done to teach the people what is required of them, and it does appear that the object of the Sanitary authorities in subjecting the people to merciless prosecution for sanitary offences is not to correct insanitary habits, but by an irregular method to make people pay additional taxes for the upkeep of the Town Council, or contribute in non-Town Council towns towards the salaries of Sanitary officers.” Gold Coast Leader, May 25, 1912, 5.

73. Pexbroke Playfair, “The Public Health and Sanitation,” Gold Coast Independent, August 26, 1922, 12.

74. “Another Latrine Incident,” Gold Coast Chronicle, September 19, 1896, 3.

75. “Notes and Comments,” Gold Coast Nation, December 9, 1915, 4; see also Gold Coast Leader, June 22, 1912, 2.

76. “Notes and Comments,” Gold Coast Nation, December 9, 1915, 4.

77. Gold Coast Leader, May 25, 1912, 5.

78. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

79. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

80. Gold Coast Sessional Paper III, 1916–1917, Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917 TNA: PRO CO 96/387/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra.

81. TNA: PRO CO 96/775/11/1942–1943 Accra Sewerage Scheme.

82. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

83. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

84. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

85. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

86. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

87. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

88. Gold Coast Chronicle, September 8, 1894, 4.

89. Gold Coast Chronicle, September 8, 1894, 4.

90. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

91. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

92. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

93. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

94. The most extreme and contentious example of this division was seen in debates over the malfeasance (embezzlement of council funds) by the appointed town clerk, who had long been an African employee. African councillors joined together as a bloc to protest the president’s appointment of a European as a replacement clerk because the action seemed to unjustly ascribe criminality to the entire African population based on the actions of one person and because the appointment of a European represented a loss of one of the only pensionable positions for Africans within the ATC. The president of the ATC and other official members consistently pointed to the regulations to justify his upholding of the rights and responsibilities of his office and denied the accusations of discrimination levied by African councillors, but the conflict tainted the work of the council for a number of years and spilled over into other debates throughout 1935–1936. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20–1-1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council, PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

95. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

96. Parker, Making the Town, 222.

97. Parker, Making the Town, 222; Fortescue, Accra Crowd, the Asafo, and the Opposition to the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924–25.

98. TNA: PRO CO 96/381/1 1929 Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917, Sewerage Scheme for Accra, Gold Coast Sessional Paper III 1916–1917.

99. TNA: PRO CO 96/381/1 1929 Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917, Sewerage Scheme for Accra, Gold Coast Sessional Paper III 1916–1917.

100. TNA: PRO CO 96/381/1 1929 Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917, Sewerage Scheme for Accra, Gold Coast Sessional Paper III 1916–1917.

101. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

102. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

103. TNA: PRO CO 96/775/11 1942–1943 Accra Sewerage Scheme.

104. TNA: PRO CO 99/8 1894 Gold Coast Gazette; CO 1018/15 1943 The Accra Town Council Ordinance; TNA: PRO CO 96/772/20 Municipal Affairs: Accra Town Council Legislation.

105. Grace, “Poop.”

106. TNA: PRO CO 96/687/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra; Joshua Grace, “Poop,” Somatosphere http://somatosphere.net/2017/poop.html/.

107. Gold Coast Sessional Paper III, 1916–1817, Report on Accra Drainage Scheme, Gold Coast (Government Press, 1917), TNA: PRO CO 96/387/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra.

108. Grace, “Poop.”

109. Bissell, “Between Fixity and Fantasy,” 2–3.

110. Bissell, “Between Fixity and Fantasy,” 4.

111. Grace, “Poop.”

112. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

113. All road construction and maintenance was placed under the control of the Director of Public works in 1895. See Jennifer Hart, Ghana on the Go, 44.

114. Jennifer Hart, Ghana on the Go, 48.

115. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/76 1933 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates, 1933–34.

116. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/75 1931 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates, 1932–33.

117. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/76 1933 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates, 1933–34.

118. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/75 1931 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates, 1932–33.

119. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/75 1931 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates, 1932–33.

120. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

121. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

122. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

123. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

124. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

125. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

126. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

127. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

128. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

129. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

130. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

131. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

132. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

133. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

134. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

135. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

136. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

137. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

138. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/75 1931 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates, 1932–33.

139. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/2/115 1932–35 Roads in Accra—Drainage and Maintenance of.

140. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

141. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

142. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

143. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

144. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

145. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

146. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

147. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council. It took several more years for construction to actually begin after the DPW and Government approved the proposal. Warrants were executed for the extension in 1940. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/78 1934 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates 1935–36; PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/79 1936 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates 1936–37; PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/80 1937 Public Works Extraordinary Estimates 1937–38; PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 14/1/361 1940 Special Warrants Under Head—Public Works Extraordinary: Special Warrant Under Head—Public Works Extraordinary, Sub-Head – Extension of Hansen Road to Hero Cemetery, Accra.

148. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

149. de Boeck, “Infrastructure”; Harvey and Knox, Roads, 5.

150. Gold Coast Nation, April 10, 1913, 270.

151. Gold Coast Leader, April 22, 1922, 9.

152. Gold Coast Nation, September 2, 1915, 7.

153. Gold Coast Leader, June 21, 1913, 4.

154. Gold Coast Aborigines, January 31, 1900, 2.

2. “HEALTH IS THE FIRST WEALTH”

1. “Sanitary Instructions for the Tropics,” Gold Coast Leader, February 17, 1912, 2.

2. Newell, Histories of Dirt.

3. Fielding-Ould, “Observations at Freetown, Accra, and Lagos.” Quoted in Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 251–268.

4. Fielding-Ould, “Observations at Freetown, Accra, and Lagos,” Quoted in Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana.”

5. Vaughan, Curing Their Ills:2.

6. Collingwood, Imperial Bodies, 1–2.

7. Collingwood, Imperial Bodies, 6.

8. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 7–9; Amoako-Gyampah, “Household Sanitary Inspection,” 278–301.

9. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 19–21, 236–237; Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory.

10. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 143–151; Newell, Histories of Dirt, 7–9.

11. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 17–18.

12. Festus Cole, “Sanitation, Disease, and Public Health in Sierra Leone, West Africa, 1895–1922,” 240.

13. “Gold Coast Colony,” Gold Coast Aborigines, March 5, 1898, 4 (Paper on the Gold Coast Colony read by Mr. T. H. Hatton Richards, late assistant colonial secretary of the colony, at the Royal Colonial Institute, November 23, 1897).

14. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 35; Echenberg, Plague Ports, 11–12.

15. Francis Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 239.

16. Amoako-Gympah, “Inherently Diseased and Insanitary?,” 1–25.

17. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria and the Expansion of Scientific Medical and Sanitary Services in British West Africa, 1898–1910,” 167.

18. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 107–110.

19. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 344–346.

20. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 344–346; Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness; Newell, Histories of Dirt, 19.

21. Roberts, “Medical Exchange on the Gold Coast during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” 484.

22. Roberts, “Medical Exchange on the Gold Coast during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” 484.

23. Curtin, “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa,” 596–597.

24. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 21.

25. Curtin, “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa,” 596–597.

26. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 8–11.

27. Roberts, “Medical Exchange on the Gold Coast,” 490; Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 239.

28. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 155–156.

29. Roberts, “Medical Exchange on the Gold Coast,” 490.

30. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 156–157; Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 239.

31. Sir Patrick Manson, “The Royal Colonial Institute,” The Gold Coast Commerce, November 24, 1900.

32. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 158–159.

33. “Notes on Current Events,” Gold Coast Chronicle, May 11, 1895, 2. A similar sentiment was echoed in the August 7, 1895 issue of the Gold Coast Chronicle in an article titled “A Mystery” (see p. 2).

34. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 155–156.

35. Rankin, Healing the African Body, 49.

36. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 155–156.

37. Vaughan, Curing Their Ills, 29–30.

38. Festus Cole, “Sanitation, Disease and Public Health in Sierra Leone,” 253; Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 167.

39. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 7–9.

40. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 158–159; Hart argued, for example, that colonial officials should remove “native huts” when they are a menace to European residents, following the advice of leading public health, medical, and scientific officials (see Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 238).

41. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 7–9.

42. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 38–40.

43. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 6; Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 239.

44. Rankin, Healing the African Body, 6–7.

45. Manson, “The Royal Colonial Institute.”

46. Manson, “The Royal Colonial Institute.”

47. These movements were part of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century definitions of national identity through a politics of difference at home and throughout the empire. Bashford argues that “the pursuit of ‘health’ has been central to modern identity formation. It has become a way of imagining and embodying integrity and, problematically, homogeneity or purity of the self, the community, and especially in the early to mid 20th century, the nation” (Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 4). “Public health,” she argues, “is historically contemporaneous with, and part of, modern rationalities of government: political economy, liberal rule, nationalism, new politics of citizenship” (7).

48. Chamberlain claimed that he wanted “to show the colonies that the days of apathy and indifference” were over. See Festus Cole, “Sanitation, Disease and Public Health in Sierra Leone,” 239–240.

49. Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 236–237.

50. Manson, “The Royal Colonial Institute.”

51. Manson, “The Royal Colonial Institute.”

52. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 4–5; Collingwood, Imperial Bodies, 3–4.

53. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 4–5, 9.

54. Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 238–239.

55. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 161. Manson made a similar argument in his call for the development of the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1900: “This school strikes, and strikes effectively, at the root of the principal difficulty of most of these tropical colonies – disease. It will cheapen government and make it more effective. It will encourage and cheapen commercial enterprise. It will conciliate and foster the native.” Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 236–237.

56. “The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Second Annual Report—1900,” Gold Coast Chronicle, 3.

57. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 161.

58. Francis Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 236–237.

59. “Recognition by the Government,” Gold Coast Chronicle, 3.

60. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 9.

61. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 1.

62. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 11–12.

63. Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation.

64. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 7.

65. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 11.

66. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 12–13.

67. Quoted in Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 11.

68. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 11–12.

69. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 11.

70. Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 239–240.

71. Tilley, Ordering Africa, 3–4.

72. Tilley, Ordering Africa, 6–7.

73. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 4–5.

74. “Health is the First Wealth,” Gold Coast Aborigines, January 31, 1900, 2.

75. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Healing, 82–83; Swanson, “Sanitation Syndrome.”

76. “Health Is the First Wealth,” Gold Coast Aborigines, January 31, 1900, 2.

77. “Health Is the First Wealth,” Gold Coast Aborigines, January 31, 1900, 2.

78. John Parker, In the Time of Dying.

79. Balakrishnan, “Building the Ancestral Public,” 1–25; Parker, In the Time of Dying.

80. “Health Is the First Wealth,” Gold Coast Aborigines, January 31, 1900, 2.

81. Gold Coast Chronicle, July 6, 1897, 4.

82. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory.

83. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 3; Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 9.

84. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 3; Hart, Gold Coast: Its Health and Its Wealth.

85. Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 19; Curtin, “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa.”

86. “The Gold Coast Colony,” The Gold Coast Aborigines, March 5, 1898, 4. This is a paper on the Gold Coast Colony read by Mr. T. H. Hatton Richards, late assistant colonial secretary of the colony, at the Royal Colonial Institute, November 23, 1897.

87. “The Gold Coast Colony,” 4.

88. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana.

89. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 166–167.

90. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 166–167.

91. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 11–12.

92. Rankin, Healing the African Body, 5.

93. Headrick, Tools of Empire.

94. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 2–4.

95. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 11–12; Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness; Konadu, Our Own Way in this Part of the World.

96. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 8–11.

97. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 15–18.

98. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 21.

99. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 20.

100. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 19–21.

101. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 278.

102. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 11–12; Myers and Ali Muhair, “Afterlife of the Lancaster Plan,” 106.

103. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 27–28. For further discussions about the politics of soap in the empire, see Timothy Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption, and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996); Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995).

104. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 19, 35.

105. While there is some elision in colonial discourse, I seek to distinguish sanitation from medicine in this chapter and the one preceding. While both might fall under the umbrella of “public health,” and may sometimes reinforce one another, they generally represented different spheres of expertise and authority.

106. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 20.

107. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 20–21.

108. Fielding-Ould, “Observations at Freetown, Accra, and Lagos,” quoted in Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana: The Case of Accra 1900–1940.”

109. Francis Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 236.

110. Francis Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 236.

111. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 107.

112. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 109–110.

113. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 110–111; White, Speaking with Vampires.

114. Francis Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 242.

115. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 257.

116. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

117. “Public Hygiene in Its Relation to the Medical Profession,” Gold Coast Independent, August 3, 1918, 3–4.

118. That is, “whether he likes it or not.”

119. “Public Hygiene in Its Relation to the Medical Profession,” Gold Coast Independent, August 3, 1918, 3–4.

120. “Public Hygiene in Its Relation to the Medical Profession,” Gold Coast Independent, August 3, 1918, 3–4.

121. Roberts, “Medical Exchange on the Gold Coast,” 507–509.

122. Roberts, “Medical Exchange on the Gold Coast,” 507–509.

123. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 27.

124. Roberts, “Medical Exchange on the Gold Coast,” 507–509; Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 27.

125. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness.

126. Konadu, Our Own Way in This Part of the World, 3–12; Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 27.

127. Kilson, African Urban Kinsmen, 89.

128. Kilson, African Urban Kinsmen, 94.

129. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 158.

130. For other scholarship on African science and medicine, see Osseo-Asare, Bitter Roots; Osseo-Asare, Atomic Junction; Mika, Africanizing Oncology; Livingston, Improvising Medicine.

131. Similar conditions were noted across British West Africa. See, for example, Cole, “Sanitation, Disease and Public Health in Sierra Leone,” 238–266.

132. Cole, “Sanitation, Disease and Public Health in Sierra Leone,” 238.

133. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council. A year earlier, Kitson-Mills drew parallels between the acculturation of Africans into hospital care and what he argued was a necessary education process to encourage the use of new market spaces and trading practice (PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council). For more information on leprosy in the Gold Coast, see Gundona, Coping with This Scourge.

134. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 173.

135. War and depression created new kinds of constraints for funding and often led to reductions, as well as more autocratic forms of policy and practice in order to combat disease. See Cole, “Sanitation, Disease and Public Health in Sierra Leone,” 245.

136. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 192, 197.

137. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 252–253.

138. Gold Coast Leader, January 25, 1908, 2.

139. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 281–282; Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 47–49.

140. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 13.

141. Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 12.

142. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 13; Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 12.

143. Simpson, A Treatise on Plague; Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 12.

144. Gold Coast Leader, January 25, 1908, 2.

145. “Bubonic Plague,” Gold Coast Leader, January 25, 1908, 3.

146. “Professor Simpson on the Plague,” Gold Coast Leader, March 7, 1908, 3.

147. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 47–49.

148. As other articles in the same issue of the Leader noted, it is more difficult to exterminate insects like fleas than to get rid of rodents. “Rats and Disease,” Gold Coast Leader, March 7, 1908, 4.

149. “Professor Simpson on the Plague,” Gold Coast Leader, March 7, 1908, 3.

150. Gold Coast Leader, March 28, 1908, 3.

151. Gold Coast Leader, November 29, 1913, 5.

152. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 119.

153. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 119.

154. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 121.

155. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 121; Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 17–18.

156. “Concerning Accra and Plague,” Gold Coast Leader, June 20, 1908, 3.

157. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 122.

158. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 122.

159. “Concerning Accra and Plague,” Gold Coast Leader, June 20, 1908, 3.

160. “Concerning Accra and Plague,” Gold Coast Leader, June 20, 1908, 3.

161. “Concerning Accra and Plague,” Gold Coast Leader, June 20, 1908, 3.

162. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 123.

163. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 49.

164. Curtin, “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa,” 608.

165. Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 4–5.

166. Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 4–5; Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 35, 27–28.

167. Curtin, “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa,” 596.

168. Curtin, “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa,” 595–596.

169. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 1–2. As Curtin notes, segregation was “only one thread among many” in Western town planning and segregation was motivated by both sanitary, social, economic, and racial concerns. While sanitary segregation was a common justification in West African cities, it was not the only concern: race and class were also important. (“Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa,” 613).

170. Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 49.

171. Curtin, “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa,” 605.

172. Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 50–52.

173. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 47–49; Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 118–125.

174. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 252–253; Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation.

175. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 118–125.

176. Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 28–30.

177. “Some Extracts from the Minutes of a Meeting of the Legislative Council Held on the 26th March Last,” Gold Coast Leader, July 19, 1913, 4.

178. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 20.

179. Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 30–31.

180. “Government Gazette of January 6, 1912,” Gold Coast Independent, July 27, 1918, 3–4; “Legislative Council Debates,” Gold Coast Independent, August 3, 1918, 4.

181. Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 162; “The Accra Town Council and the Towns Ordinance 1894,” Gold Coast Independent, July 27, 1918, 3.

182. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 22–23.

183. “Sanitary Progress,” Gold Coast Nation, April 10, 1913.

184. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 255–256.

185. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 255–256.

186. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 115–118. The half-mile separation was “calculated to be more than a mosquito flight away from the Korle Lagoon,” a standard that was later questioned by medical researchers (Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 348–350).

187. Quoted in Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 170–171.

188. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 170.

189. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 170–171.

190. Gold Coast Leader, January 13, 1906, 5; Gold Coast Leader, December 25, 1909, 3.

191. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 348–350.

192. Quoted in Newell, Histories of Dirt, 40–41; Bin-Kasim argues for a more nuanced interpretation of Clifford’s position: he was not inherently opposed to residential segregation but was skeptical about the medical arguments for segregation and concerned about the effects on African neighborhoods and opposition from Ga landowners (Sanitary Segregation, 61–65).

193. “Who Are Responsible?,” Gold Coast Nation, June 26, 1913, 335.

194. “Destruction of Mosquitoes Bill,” Gold Coast Leader, April 15, 1911, 3.

195. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256; “Destruction of Mosquitoes Bill,” Gold Coast Leader, April 15, 1911, 3.

196. “Destruction of Mosquitoes Bill,” Gold Coast Leader, April 15, 1911, 3.

197. “Destruction of Mosquitoes Bill,” Gold Coast Leader, April 15, 1911, 3.

198. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256.

199. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256.

200. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 29.

201. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256.

202. Gold Coast Leader, May 25, 1912, 5.

203. “Editorial Notes,” Gold Coast Leader, May 10, 1913, 4.

204. “Some Extracts from the Minutes of a Meeting of the Legislative Council held on the 26th of March Last,” The Gold Coast Leader, July 19, 1913, 4.

205. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 151–153.

206. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 151–153.

207. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

208. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

209. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

210. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

211. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 21.

212. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 20–21. Wolé means “enter” in Yoruba; wolé wolé evokes the sanitary officers’ practice of entering houses and compounds for inspections.

213. For more detailed accounting of the rates of sanitary inspection and the relative effectiveness of larval control, see: Akwasi Kwarteng Amoako-Gyampah, “Household Sanitary Inspection, Mosquito Control and Domestic Hygiene in the Gold Coast [Ghana] from the Late-Nineteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Century,” Social History of Medicine 35, no. 1 (2021): 278–301.

214. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Gold Coast Leader, May 25, 1912, 5.

215. Gold Coast Leader, May 25, 1912, 5.

216. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

217. Quoted in Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 38–40.

218. “Letters to the Editor,” Gold Coast Leader, July 27, 1943, 7.

219. “Health Week Propaganda,” Gold Coast Independent, October 14, 1922, 12.

220. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 38–40.

221. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 38–40.

222. “The Unofficial Members on the Governor’s Address on the Estimates,” Gold Coast Leader, February 24, 1912.

223. “Yellow Fever,” Gold Coast Leader, January 9, 1915, 2.

224. “Yellow Fever,” Gold Coast Leader, January 9, 1915, 2.

225. F. V. Nanka-Bruce and C. E. Reindorf, “Yellow Fever at Accra,” The Gold Coast Leader, July 15, 1911, 5.

226. F. V. Nanka-Bruce and C. E. Reindorf, “Yellow Fever at Accra,” Gold Coast Leader, July 15, 1911, 4.

227. F. V. Nanka-Bruce and C. E. Reindorf, “Yellow Fever at Accra,” Gold Coast Leader, July 15, 1911, 4.

228. “Yellow Fever Panic in the Making,” Gold Coast Nation, July 3, 1913, 341–342.

229. “The Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for 1919—The Governor’s Message. Address to the Legislative Council,” Gold Coast Leader, March 9–April 5, 1919, 4. Governor Hugh Clifford had assessed the situation quite differently. Upon taking office in 1912, Clifford argued that the senior sanitary officer was an obstruction to governance and had acquired too much power, emboldening him to act outside of or in defiance of the governor’s orders (Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 61–65).

230. “The ‘Mosquito Propaganda’ and Segregation,” Gold Coast Leader, August 12, 1911, 3, 26; Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 38–40; Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 41–42; Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 151–153.

231. “Some Extracts from the Minutes of the Legislative Council Held on the 26th of March Last,” Gold Coast Leader, July 19, 1913, 4.

232. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 38–42.

233. Bin-Kasim, Sanitary Segregation, 41–42.

234. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 143–151.

235. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 38–40.

236. Gold Coast Chronicle, January 22, 1897, 3.

237. Gold Coast Chronicle, January 22, 1897, 3. For a similar position, see Governor F. M. Hodgson, “The Gold Coast—Its Present Conditions and Prospects,” Gold Coast Aborigines, May 13, 1899, 3. Also an address to the Africa Trade Section of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce.

238. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 33–34; Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 243.

239. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 157–158.

240. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 164.

241. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 35–36.

242. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 165.

243. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 40–41.

244. Echenberg, Plague Ports, 11–12.

245. “Tropical Malaria and the Mosquito Theory,” Gold Coast Aborigines, November 11, 1899, 3.

246. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 33–34.

247. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 40–41.

248. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 33.

249. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 167–169.

250. “Sir William MacGregor at the Glasgow University,” Gold Coast Leader, January 10, 1903, 3.

251. Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 36–37.

252. “Prevention of Malaria,” Gold Coast Nation, April 10, 1913, 272; “Homeopathic Treatment for the Malarial Fevers of West Africa. Dr. Hayward’s Address to the African Trade Section of the Incorporated Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool,” Gold Coast Chronicle, February 5, 1897.

253. Hart, Gold Coast: Its Wealth and Health, 243; Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 115–118; 143–151.

254. Gold Coast Leader, September 6, 1913, 6.

255. “The Accra Town Council,” Gold Coast Chronicle, March 29, 1901.

256. “Report on Accra Drainage Scheme (Government Press), 1917, Gold Coast Session Paper III 1916–1917,” PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 96/387/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra.

257. TNA: PRO CO 96/689/2 Gold Coast Colony, Korle Lagoon Reclamation Scheme.

258. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 348–350; Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256.

259. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 346–347.

260. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 226–228; Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 348–350.

261. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256.

262. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 226–228; “Letter from the Governor to LS Amery (Colonial Office) 7th May 1929,” “Minutes 7/5/29,” TNA: PRO CO 96/689/2 1929 Accra (Korle) Lagoon Reclamation Scheme.

263. “Letter from the Governor to LS Amery (Colonial Office) 7th May 1929,” “Minutes 7/5/29,” TNA: PRO CO 96/689/2 1929 Accra (Korle) Lagoon Reclamation Scheme.

264. “Extract from Report by the Acting Director of Public Works to the Acting Colonial Secretary 25/9/28” TNA: PRO CO 96/687/1 1929 Sewerage Scheme for Accra.

265. “Minutes 7/5/29,” PH Morris, 4/6/29 TNA: PRO CO 96/689/12 1929 Accra (Korle) Lagoon Reclamation and Deepening Scheme.

266. “Minutes 7/5/29,” Draft Letter from Sidney Webb to Governor of the Gold Coast, 17/6/29, TNA: PRO CO 96/689/2 1929 Accra (Korle) Lagoon Reclamation Scheme.

267. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 226–228.

268. Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256.

269. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 346–347.

270. For a more detailed accounting of this incident, see Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito.”

271. Quoted in Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 256–257.

272. Quoted in Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 359.

273. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 359.

274. Roberts, “Korle and the Mosquito,” 344–346.

275. Roberts, “Black Death in the Gold Coast,” 30–31.

276. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 24–26.

277. Dumett, “Campaign against Malaria,” 172–173; Newell, Histories of Dirt, 24–26; Patterson, “Health in Urban Ghana,” 252.

278. Gold Coast Nation, December 9, 1915, 1172.

279. “Current Events,” Gold Coast Independent, August 19, 1922, 9.

280. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 143–151; Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 11–12.

281. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 143–151.

282. “Current Events,” Gold Coast Independent, August 12, 1922, 9.

283. Bashford, Imperial Hygiene, 7.

284. Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness, 171–175.

285. Vaughan, Curing Their Ills, 11, 25.

286. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 4–5.

287. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 7–8; Vaughan, Curing Their Ills, 6.

288. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 13.

289. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 14. See also Vaughan, Curing Their Ills; Luise White, Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000); Nancy Rose Hunt, Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); Livingston, Improvising Medicine; Roberts, Sharing the Burden of Sickness; Konadu, Our Own Way In This Part of the World; Osseo-Asare, Bitter Roots; Osseo-Asare, Atomic Junction; Mika, Africanizing Oncology.

290. Quoted in Patterson, Health in Colonial Ghana, 15.

291. Newell, Histories of Dirt, 13, 19.

292. Newell argues that this sort of quiet resistance was common throughout towns in British West Africa (Histories of Dirt, 22–26).

3. AFRICAN TRADE AND EXPATRIATE ENTERPRISE IN THE COLONIAL CITY

1. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 8, 1940. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/8 1941 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

2. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 8, 1940. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/8 1941 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

3. H.S. Newlands, Report on the Objections Lodged with the Colonial Secretary against the Application of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924, to the Town of Accra with Minutes of Evidence (Gold Coast: Government Printing Office, Accra, 1925).

4. Sharan, “In the City, Out of Place,” 4906.

5. Parker, “Making the Town.”

6. McFarlane, “Governing the Contaminated City.”

7. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 349.

8. Murillo, Market Encounters.

9. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 351.

10. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 351.

11. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 352.

12. Parker, Making the Town, 222.

13. GH PRAAD ADM 11/1/889 Municipal Corporations Ordinance—Protests against Application of to Accra, 1924.

14. GH PRAAD ADM 11/1/889 Municipal Corporations Ordinance—Protests against Application of to Accra, 1924.

15. CO 966/56 Municipal Corporations Ordinance Protests H.S. Newlands, Report on the Objections Lodged with the Colonial Secretary Against the Application of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924, to the Town of Accra with Minutes of Evidence (Gold Coast: Government Printing Office, Accra, 1925).

16. CO 966/56 Municipal Corporations Ordinance Protests “Minutes of Evidence,” Adjabeng Lodge, Accra, November 20, 1924. H. S. Newlands, Report on the Objections Lodged with the Colonial Secretary against the Application of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924, to the Town of Accra with Minutes of Evidence (Gold Coast: Government Printing Office, Accra, 1925).

17. CO 966/56 Municipal Corporations Ordinance Protests “Minutes of Evidence,” Adjabeng Lodge, Accra, 20 November 1924. H. S. Newlands, Report on the Objections Lodged with the Colonial Secretary against the Application of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924, to the Town of Accra with Minutes of Evidence (Gold Coast: Government Printing Office, Accra, 1925).

18. CO 966/56 Municipal Corporations Ordinance Protests “Minutes of Evidence,” Adjabeng Lodge, Accra, 20 November 1924. H. S. Newlands, Report on the Objections Lodged with the Colonial Secretary against the Application of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924, to the Town of Accra with Minutes of Evidence (Gold Coast: Government Printing Office, Accra, 1925).

19. GH PRAAD ADM 11/1/889 Municipal Corporations Ordinance—Protests against Application of to Accra, 1924.

20. GH PRAAD ADM 11/1/889 Municipal Corporations Ordinance—Protests against Application of to Accra, 1924; Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 197; Parker, Making the Town, 222.

21. Quoted in Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 354–355.

22. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 353.

23. Quoted in Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 355.

24. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 356.

25. Emmanuel Akyeampong, “Bukom and the Social History of Boxing in Accra: Warfare and Citizenship in Precolonial Ga Society,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 35, no. 1 (2002): 44.

26. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd”; Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 12–17; Pellow, Women in Accra, 38–63.

27. Fortescue, “Accra Crowd,” 359–360.

28. Guggisberg, Keystone.

29. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 8, 1940. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/8 1941 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

30. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 8, 1940. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/8 1941 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

31. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 8, 1940. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/8 1941 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

32. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl.

33. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 8, 1940. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/8 1941 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

34. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council

35. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl, 82.

36. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

37. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

38. Parker, Making the Town, 120–222.

39. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, November 9, 1931. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

40. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

41. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

42. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

43. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

44. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

45. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

46. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

47. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

48. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

49. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

50. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

51. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

52. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

53. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

54. “Motion by the Medical Officer of Health,” Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, December 11, 1939. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/7 1938–1940 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

55. “Motion by the Medical Officer of Health,” Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, December 11, 1939. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/7 1938–1940 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

56. “Motion by the Medical Officer of Health,” Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, December 11, 1939. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/7 1938–1940 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

57. “Motion by the Medical Officer of Health,” Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, December 11, 1939. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/7 1938–1940 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

58. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, May 12, 1930. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

59. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, August 10, 1936. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, September 14, 1936. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

60. As Keith Hart’s foundational 1973 article notes, these categories often overlap in the “informal economy,” broadly construed. See also Jennifer Hart 2014.

61. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, May 14, 1934. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/5 1933–35 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

62. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, May 11, 1936. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, June 13, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of the Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, July 7, 1930. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

63. Parker, Making the Town, 141–142.

64. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, December 8, 1930. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

65. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, May 12, 1930. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

66. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, November 9, 1931. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, October 12, 1931. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, April 13, 1931. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, March 9, 1931. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, June 11, 1935. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council, March 11, 1935. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, September 12, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, August 10, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, July 11, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, April 11, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, March 14, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, February 8, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, August 13, 1934. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/5 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 8, 1934. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/5 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, December 11, 1933. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/5 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

67. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, March 14, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

68. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, March 14, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, June 11, 1934. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/5 1933–35 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

69. Asante, “Nested Patriotism,” 347–364; Murillo, Market Encounters.

70. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31, Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

71. As Parker (2000) notes, early incarnations of the Town Council did include an occasional African “Official Member,” appointed by the colonial governor. By the 1920s, however, this practice had ceased altogether.

72. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, August 12, 1935. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, November 14, 1932. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

73. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, January 13, 1936. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, July 13, 1936. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, September 13, 1936. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3/ 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

74. Minutes of the General Monthly Meeting, September 21, 1931. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/2 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

75. de Boeck, “Infrastructure: Commentary from Filip de Boeck.”

76. Anand, “Pressure: The Politechnics of Water Supply in Mumbai,” 542–564.

77. L. Val Vannis on behalf of the Freedom Defence Society, April 30, 1948 CO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

78. “The Riots of 28th February 1948,” Today in History, https://praad.gov.gh/index.php/the-riots-of-28th-february-1948/.

79. BNA: PRO CO 964/1 1948 Commission of Enquiry—Composition of the Committee and Administrative Arrangements.

80. BNA: PRO CO 964/1 1948 Commission of Enquiry—Composition of the Committee and Administrative Arrangements.

81. Memorandum by Dr. JB Danquah on his Apprehension, Removal, and Detention, and Reply to the Reasons so Far Assigned by Government for Such Action, BNA: PRO CO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

82. Memorandum by Dr. JB Danquah on his Apprehension, Removal, and Detention, and Reply to the Reasons so Far Assigned by Government for Such Action, BNA: PRO CO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

83. BNA: PRO CO 964/9 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Labour and Resettlement.

84. “Ex-Servicemen Rally Hist Arms Collection” BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

85. BNA: PRO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

86. BNA: PRO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

87. BNA: PRO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

88. V.B. Annan, Proprietor and Managing Director V.B. Annan & Co Ltd., Accra BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district; L. Val Vannis on behalf of the Freedom Defence Society, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district; Joseph Meyers, BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

89. BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

90. BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district; G. N. Alema BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

91. G. N. Alema BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

92. L. Val Vannis on behalf of the Freedom Defence Society, 30 April 1948, BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

93. Eugene C. Kingspride Ugboma, African Morning Post, 21 April 1948, BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

94. Gbese Mantse Nii Ayitey Adjin III BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

95. BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

96. BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

97. The Gold Coast Merchants’ Association BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

98. BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

99. “The Insatiable Pool,” Ashanti Pioneer, 24 September 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

100. Verity, “AWAM Should Go: How Long Will the Government Live Under Its Charm?,” Spectator Daily, 22 December 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

101. “One More River to Cross,” Ashanti Pioneer, 1 August 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations; Leo Silberman, “The Evolution of Entrepreneurship in the Process of Economic Development,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 305 (May 1956): 35; Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Conduct and Management of the Supplies and Customs Departments (Martindale Commission), Accra, 1947; G. N. Alema BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

102. Quoted in Bauer, West African Trade, 82, 83, 248. Cited in Winder, “The Lebanese in West Africa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 4, no. 3 (April 1962): 315, ft. 77; Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Representations Made by Mr. WE Conway, Esq, ADW Allen Esq., AG Leventis Esq., and AG Leventis & Co Ltd. Repudiating Allegations Made in the Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Conduct and Mismanagement of the Supplies and Customs Dept (Sachs Commission), Accra, 1948.

103. “Past Performance,” Spectator Daily, 18 June 1947, BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

104. “One More River to Cross,” Ashanti Pioneer, 1 August 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations; John Gilpin, Daily Echo, 12 November 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

105. “Half-Hearted Measures,” Daily Echo, 17 October 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

106. Nii Kwabena Bonne III Osu Alata Mantse and Oyokohene, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

107. John Gilpin, Daily Echo, 12 November 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations; Verity, “AWAM Should Go: How Long Will the Government Live Under Its Charm?,” Spectator Daily, 22 December 1947 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

108. Nii Kwabena Bonne III Osu Alata Mantse and Oyokohene, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

109. Nii Kwabena Bonne III Osu Alata Mantse and Oyokohene, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

110. Madam Eugenia Kai Sasraku and Madam Dora Afuah Quarshie, representatives of the women retail traders at Makola Market, conveyed by Ako Adjei BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

111. Nii Kwabena Bonne III Osu Alata Mantse and Oyokohene, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

112. Nii Kwabena Bonne III Osu Alata Mantse and Oyokohene, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

113. Nii Kwabena Bonne III Osu Alata Mantse and Oyokohene, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

114. Nii Kwabena Bonne III Osu Alata Mantse and Oyokohene, 30 April 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

115. “Anti-Inflation Campaign,” Star of West Africa, 21 February 1948 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

116. La Manche Nii Adjei Onano BNA: PRO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

117. “Mass Meet Calls Off Boycott,” Spectator Daily, March 3, 1948, 1; BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

118. Madam Eugenia Kai Sasraku and Madam Dora Afuah Quarshie, representatives of the women retail traders at Makola Market, conveyed by Ako Adjei BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district.

119. “After Boycott: Gambolling Crowd Shout at, Denounce UAC Staff,” Spectator Daily, March 1, 1948, 1; BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

120. “After Boycott: Gambolling Crowd Shout at, Denounce UAC Staff,” Spectator Daily, March 1, 1948, 1; BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

121. “After Boycott: Gambolling Crowd Shout at, Denounce UAC Staff,” Spectator Daily, March 1, 1948, 1; BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

122. “Nii Bonne Denounces Looting,” Spectator Daily, March 3, 1948, 3; BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

123. “Memorandum by Dr. J.B. Danquah on his Apprehension, Removal, and Detention, and Reply to the Reasons so Far Assigned by Government for Such Action,” I. His Background BNA: PRO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

124. J. K. Appiah, Pensioner, Korle Woko, 27April, 1948 BNA: PRO 964/15 1948 Memoranda received from members of the public—Accra and district; “Memorandum by Dr. J. B. Danquah on his Apprehension, Removal, and Detention, and Reply to the Reasons so Far Assigned by Government for Such Action,” I. His Background BNA: PRO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

125. BNA: PRO 964/1 1948 Commission of Enquiry—Composition of the Committee and Administrative Arrangements.

126. BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations; Gold Coast is Slipping Away, I. Enoch, West African Monitor, 2 March 1948; BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

127. Gold Coast is Slipping Away, I. Enoch, West African Monitor, 2 March 1948 BNA: PRO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

128. BNA: PRO 964/22 1948 Commission of Enquiry—Correspondence with Accra Town Council.

129. BNA: PRO 964/1 1948 Commission of Enquiry—Composition of the Committee and Administrative Arrangements.

130. BNA: PRO 964/32 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry – Report and Statement by HMG on the Report.

131. Statement by His Majesty’s Government on the Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Disturbances in the Gold Coast, 1948 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office), 1948: 3 BNA: PRO 964/32 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Report and Statement by HMG on the Report.

132. Bayart, “African in the World: A History of Extraversion,” 217–267.

133. Mayne, Slums, 12.

134. Simone, “Straddling the Divides”; Meagher, “Crisis, Informalization, and the Urban Informal Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa,” 259–284.

135. Keith Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities,” 61.

136. Keith Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities,” 68.

137. Examples of such studies in Ghana include, for example: Clark, Onions Are My Husband; Roberts, Sharing the Same Bowl; Pellow and Chazan, Ghana.

4. OF PIRATE DRIVERS AND HONKING HORNS

1. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/8/4 1940–47 By-laws for the regulations of Municipal bus service Accra, “Letter from PATC to CS,” May 31, 1940.

2. This was certainly not unusual. Rather, the experiences of drivers and passengers in the Gold Coast were representative of a much broader process throughout the imperial world—British or otherwise. See, for example, Fair, Pastimes and Politics.

3. Jennifer Hart, Ghana on the Go.

4. While the archival documentation on these incidents does give us a great sense of the drama of these debates, compared with the relatively dry formality of regulatory and policy debates that form much of the colonial archival record, there are some things we do not and cannot know given what sources are available. Records do not show police interactions or testimony from drivers and passengers, for example, and we do not have systematic surveys of drivers and passengers that might disaggregate the ethnic makeup of the city’s driving population. As I have written about elsewhere, we do know that driving was gendered male in striking ways (see J. Hart, Ghana on the Go, 95–120); however, the gender of drivers does not seem relevant to these debates. While men who began driving during this period do remember these contestations, their memories are imprecise. Unfortunately, this lack of detail might mean that we cannot answer all questions, but it does not invalidate the exercise of asking some questions.

5. Myers, Verandahs of Power, 13.

6. Mavhunga, “Which Mobility for (Which) Africa? Beyond Banal Mobilities,” 73.

7. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 23. See also Larkin, “Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure,” 327–343.

8. Mavhunga, Transient Workspaces, 13.

9. Interviews were collected by the author during two periods of fieldwork in 2007 and again in 2009. Interview subjects were identified in collaboration with leadership from the Accra branch of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, the largest drivers’ union in the country. Interviews began in areas where we had the strongest personal connections but quickly shifted in response to driver recommendation, focusing on areas of the city with the oldest histories and traditions of driving work, including La, Teshie, Tema, Mamprobi, Salaga, Accra Post Office, Korlebu, and Bukom. Drivers ranged in age from 19 to 90, but the vast majority of interviews were conducted with drivers who began their work in the 1930s and 1940s. Interviews were often conducted in Ga, with the help of a translator, Apetsi Amenumey.

10. Myers, Verandahs of Power, 2.

11. Parker, Making the Town, 170.

12. Moses Danquah, “The Romance of Our Roads,” Daily Graphic, August 6, 1955; PRAAD: Accra, Minutes of the Gold Coast Legislative Council, 16 January 1901. See also, Dickson, A Historical Geography of Ghana, 221. For comparative examples, see Gewald, “Missionaries, Hereros, and Motorcars,” 257–285.

13. The National Archives (TNA): Public Records Office (PRO) DO 35/359/7 Development of Transport Services in the colonies, 1930–1932; Tsey, From Head-Loading to the Iron Horse.

14. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/2/150 1929–47 Road Policy; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/2/123 1932–33 Scheduling of Roads; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/2/157 1935–39 Accra-Sekondi Road; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/2/200 1939 Closing of roads in connection with control of transport and fuel supplies, “Letter from JB Danquah, General Secretary of the Gold Coast Youth Conference to the Colonial Secretary, 20th October 1939” and “Letter from Secretary of the Accra & Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce to the Colonial Secretary, 21 October 1939”; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/2/150 1929–47 Road Policy. The British colonial government did, in fact, build a few major trunk roads in the early twentieth century—most famously, the Accra-Kumasi Road, which ran nearly parallel to the railway. However, when Africans began utilizing motor transport and road technologies to bypass the railways altogether, officials quickly halted road construction and began a campaign of systematic disrepair and sabotage of existing roads, with particular focus on the trunk roads that provided direct competition for the railway. This campaign continued well into the 1930s and early 1940s, aided (or exacerbated) by the financial pressures of the global depression and the World Wars I and II, which strained colonial finances and left little money for even the most basic infrastructural construction and repair.

15. Guldi, Roads to Power; Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies.

16. Seiler, Republic of Drivers.

17. See, for example, Aguiar, Tracking Modernity.

18. PRAAD-NAG (Accra) CSO 15/1/65 1932–40 Registration Statistics of Motor Vehicles Abroad—forms for.

19. PRAAD-NAG (Accra) CSO 17/4/9 1945 Vehicle Census.

20. “The Gold Coast Times,” Gold Coast Times, August 12, 1882, 2; Gold Coast Times, December 10, 1881, 2.

21. “Accessories,” Gold Coast Independent, August 3, 1918, 2.

22. “Accessories,” Gold Coast Independent, August 3, 1918, 2.

23. “Accessories,” Gold Coast Independent, August 3, 1918, 2.

24. “Letters to the Editor,” Gold Coast Independent, July 13, 1918, 4.

25. “The Accra Town Council and the Town Councils Ordinance 1894,” Gold Coast Independent, July 27, 1918, 3.

26. Gewald, “Missionaries, Hereros, and Motorcars.”

27. Dickson, A Historical Geography of Ghana, 221; Hill, Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana, 235 fn1.

28. Hill, Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana, 234.

29. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 17/1/33 1933 Rail and Road Competition—Economic Situation of the Railway.

30. Jennifer Hart, Ghana on the Go, 74–88.

31. Ibrahim Ato, Anum Sowah, Yii O. Yem, J. F. Ocantey, La Drivers’ Union Group Interview, Accra, March 26, 2009, interview by author; Hart, Ghana on the Go, 104.

32. Abraham Tagoe, Teshie Linguist, Accra, August 5, 2009, interview by author; Anon Circle Odawna Driver, Accra, August 27, 2009; Hart, Ghana on the Go, 103–105.

33. “Topical Jottings by Screech-Owl. Our Bush Roads,” Gold Coast Independent, June 15, 1918, 1.

34. “Current Events,” Gold Coast Independent, August 19, 1922, 9.

35. Jennifer Hart, “Motor Transportation, Trade Unionism, and the Culture of Work in Colonial Ghana,” 185–209.

36. Much of the demand for regulation from British officials was rooted in a concern about road safety and the danger and risk of motor transportation. See, for example, Packer, Mobility without Mayhem, 13; Masquelier, “Road Mythographies,” 831; Klaeger, “Introduction: The Perils and Possibilities of African Roads,” 359.

37. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 17/1/15 1934 Motor Traffic Regulations, 1934; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/94 1936–38 Motor Traffic Regulation No. 2 of 1934—Ashanti, Amendment to; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/97 1937 Regulation 21 of the Motor Traffic Ordinance, 1934—Amendment to; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/93 1936 Regulation 26 (6) of the Motor Traffic Regulation No. 31 of 1934—Amendment of.

38. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 17/1/39 1935–1938 Ashanti Motor Transport Union, “Petition from Motor Transport Union Ashanti (WW Taylor, Secretary) to the Chief Commissioner of Ashanti, November 29th, 1937”; PRAAD-NAG (Accra) CSO 17/1/24 1935–1937 Motor Traffic Ordinance and regulations 1934—petitions against; Jennifer Hart, “Motor Transportation, Trade Unionism, and the Culture of Work in Colonial Ghana.”

39. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 70.

40. Cooper, Africa Since 1940.

41. The National Archives (TNA): Public Records Office (PRO) CO 96/773/20 1942–1943 Municipal Affairs: Accra Town Council legislation; Kumasi Town Council legislation.

42. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

43. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

44. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

45. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

46. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

47. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

48. Quarshie Gene (chairman), P. Ashai Ollennu (“vice” chairman), and Simon Djetey Abe (secretary), La Drivers’ Union Officers Group, La, Accra, March 23, 2009, interview by author; Abraham Tagoe, Teshie Linguist, Accra, August 5, 2009, interview by author.

49. “Letters to the Editor,” Gold Coast Independent, July 13, 1918, 4.

50. Pellow, Landlords and LodgersAccra, 27.

51. The National Archives (TNA): Public Records Office (PRO) CO 96/712/10 “Report on the Accra Town Council, 1932–1933,” Municipal Annual Reports, 1932–1933; The National Archives (TNA): Public Records Office (PRO) CO 96/767/11 “Annual Report of the Accra Town Council for the Year 1938–1939,” Municipal Affairs: Annual Reports, 1940–1946.

52. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/6/78 1931–39 Street Lighting, Accra.

53. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 14/1/270 1938–39 Lorry Parks, Accra.

54. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

55. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

56. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

57. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

58. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

59. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

60. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

61. Alan Ryan argues that “liberal imperialism, or liberal interventionism, is the doctrine that a state with the capacity to force liberal political institutions and social aspirations upon nonliberal states and societies is justified in so doing.” Ryan, “Liberal Imperialism,” The Making of Modern Liberalism.

62. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

63. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

64. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

65. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

66. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

67. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

68. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

69. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

70. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

71. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

72. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

73. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

74. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

75. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

76. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

77. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

78. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

79. Andrews A. C. Quaye (Chairman), Kobla, Tawiah Adjetey, and Tetteh, Tema Union Group, Accra, August 13, 2009, interview by author. In the 1960s, Minister of Transportation and Communication Krobo Edusei announced that taxis were to be painted “yellow-yellow,” which, in addition to the light on the top of the taxi, required drivers to paint the front and back portions of their vehicle bright yellow. Such policies not only brought Ghanaian taxi services more closely in line with international practices, but they also helped to differentiate taxis from the increasing numbers of private vehicles on urban roads. Rumors circulated that the policy was the result of an unfortunate encounter in which a mistaken passenger seeking a taxi flagged down the car of Krobo Edusei himself who was driving his own private car in Accra.

80. Felicia, New Town Market Woman, Accra, August 18, 2009, interview by author; Ame, Ayo, Mary Yemokae Laryea, Rita Akoko Laryea, Labadi Market Women Group, Accra, August 18, 2009, interview by author.

81. Felicia, trader. New Town, Accra. August 18, 2009, interview by author.

82. The AAccraTC’s archives are not currently open to the public, making it impossible to track revenues in any detail over time. Available documentation from town council reports in the 1930s, however, give the following figures (which apparently covered the running costs and drew a small profit): 1931–1932 (£9,288.19.7d, with £742.11.4d profit); 1932–1933 (£8,619.16.6d, with £676.18.2d profit); 1937–1938 (£12,348.11.2d, with £3,990.17.5d profit); 1938–1939 (£12,056.4.6d, with £3,817.12.1d profit). By comparison, in 1938–1939, the ATC contributed £1,000 to the Public Works Department toward the cost of maintaining town roads during the year. Profits from the municipal bus service were the primary source of Town Council revenue during the period beyond the taxes collected from ratepayers.

83. Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown.

84. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject; Lawrance, Locality, Mobility, and “Nation.”

85. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 16–27.

86. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/94 1936–1938 Motor Traffic Regulation No. 2 of 1934—Ashanti, amendment to (speed limit in Kumasi); PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/108 1935–1938 Motor Traffic on Roads in Accra—control of.

87. PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

88. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/16 1934 Yaw Kumah, motor driver, petition praying for restoration of his driving license.

89. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) “Minute 3,” Inspector General of Police, 4 January 1936, CSO 15/7/91 1936 Noise from traffic in residential areas—measure for the mitigation of.

90. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) “Letter from the Conservator of Forests to the Director of Public Works,” 1 July 1936, CSO 15/7/91 1936 Noise from traffic in residential areas—measure for the mitigation of.

91. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/91 1936 Noise from traffic in residential areas—measure for the mitigation of.

92. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) “Minute 3,” Inspector General of Police, 4 January 1936, CSO 15/7/91 1936 Noise from traffic in residential areas—measure for the mitigation of.

93. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) “Letter from Commissioner Western Province to the Colonial Secretary,” 14 August 1936, CSO 15/7/91 1936 Noise from traffic in residential areas—measure for the mitigation of.

94. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 15/7/91 1936 Noise from traffic in residential areas—measure for the mitigation of.

95. Ibrahim Ato, Anum Sowah, Yii O. Yem, J. F. Ocantey, La Drivers’ Union Group Interview, Accra, March 26, 2009, interview by author; Quarshie Gene (chairman), P. Ashai Ollennu (vice chairman), and Simon Djetey Abe (secretary), La Drivers’ Union Officers Group, La, Accra, March 23, 2009, interview by author.

96. Hart, Ghana on the Go, 78–79.

97. Feld, Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra, 159–198. This book details the history of the La Drivers’ Union Por Por Group, a musical group formed by drivers who use horns and tire irons to perform in La and throughout Accra.

98. The Accra Municipal Omnibus Services by-laws of 1927 forbid other vehicles competing for passenger hire along Accra streets, which are covered by municipal buses. This restriction applied only to Accra, which had an Omnibus Authority, and was not a general authority of all town councils. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 17/1/172 1943–1944 bus services legislation regarding.

99. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 17/1/172 1943–1944 bus services legislation regarding.

100. Fair, Pastimes and Politics.

101. Nate Plageman, Highlife Saturday Night: Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012); Stephanie Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to Play the Game of Life (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Catherine Cole, Ghana’s Concert Party Theatre (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).

102. Robertson, Sharing the Same Bowl; Clark, Onions Are My Husband.

103. Felicia, New Town Market Woman, Accra, August 18, 2009, interview by author; Ame, Ayo, Mary Yemokae Laryea, Rita Akoko Laryea, Labadi Market Women Group, Accra, August 18, 2009, interview by author.

104. Ibrahim Ato, Anum Sowah, Yii O. Yem, J. F. Ocantey, La Drivers’ Union Group Interview, Accra, March 26, 2009, interview by author; Quarshie Gene (chairman), P. Ashai Ollennu (vice chairman), and Simon Djetey Abe (secretary), La Drivers’ Union Officers Group, La, Accra, March 23, 2009, interview by author.

105. 8–8-32; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) “Letter from President, Accra Town Council to Colonial Secretary,” 16 August 1935, CSO 15/7/108 1935–38 Motor Traffic on roads in Accra—control of.

106. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) “Letter from President, Accra Town Council to Colonial Secretary,” 16 August 1935, CSO 15/7/108 1935–38 Motor Traffic on roads in Accra—control of.

107. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/8/4 1940–47 By-laws for the regulations of municipal bus service Accra.

108. The bomb failed to detonate, and the governor remained safe. However, La residents claim that this event darkened the reputation of La in the eyes of colonial officials. The damage to La’s reputation, they argued, is evidenced in the colonial renaming of La as “Labadi” (or La Bad). It is still unclear what elements of this story are true and what others remain apocryphal. It is, at least, unclear in archival records on motor transportation that such a reputation impacted motor traffic regulations geared toward La. To the contrary, the first African driver in the Gold Coast was said to have come from La, chosen to drive Governor Guggisberg. La also established a reputation as a center for driver training and La drivers were widely known to be excellent. However, the negative perception about the residents of the town seems to be widely held both within and outside of La.

109. Mavhunga describes this as a form of extraversion (see also Bayart, “Africa in the World,” 219) that has long been a part of African life and through which Africans engage and exchange with a broader world: “This behavior of incoming things in local hands does not necessarily represent the far-reaching tentacles of globalization; in fact, it also involves Africans themselves initiating the movements—of technology, capital, commodities, and other cultural goods. They are not necessarily appropriating modernities external to them, but are involved in a process of exchange, emitting their own things in exchange for those of the outside world. The goods are not just coming to them; they are actively constructing transnational networks through their own mobilities in the world—or those of their goods. Far from being a peculiar feature of today’s cyber-connected world, this extraversion has been a persistent feature of African life, whether within the continent itself or beyond it, for millennia. It is within this global engagement that Africa has provincialized or tamed not just the cell phone and, more recently, revolutionized its applications, but before it guns, bicycles, cars, and so on. This is not particular to Africans but to colonized subjects elsewhere as well.” (Mavhunga, Transient Workspaces, 11–12).

110. Mavhunga, Transient Workspace, 10.

111. Mavhunga, Transient Workspaces.

112. Myers, Verandahs of Power, 14/.

113. Larkin, Signal and Noise, 7.

5. BUILDING HOMES IN THE “NEW ACCRA”

1. Harold Cooper, Assistant Colonial Secretary, Gold Coast, “Emergency in Africa: The Gold Coast Earthquake,” Times, 11/7/39 CO 96/762/3 1939 Earthquakes.

2. John Cadbury, H. L. Galway, Picton H. Jones, Trenchard, “The Gold Coast Earthquake: Opening of Relief Fund,” Times, 8 June 1939 CO 96/762/3 1939 Earthquakes.

3. Despatch from Governor Arnold Hodson to Secretary of State Malcolm MacDonald, 2 August 1939 CO 96/762/4 1939 Earthquake—restoration of Accra rehousing.

4. Despatch from Governor Arnold Hodson to SOS Malcolm MacDonald, 5 July 1939 CO 96/762/4 1939 Earthquake—restoration of Accra rehousing).

5. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 64–71.

6. CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

7. CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

8. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 186.

9. Parker, Making the Town, 144–145.

10. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 90.

11. Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 43–44; Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 97; Parker, Making the Town.

12. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 97.

13. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 87–88; Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 126–128.

14. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public; Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 132–133.

15. See, for example, Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 57–61, 126–128, 135; Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra.

16. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 102–103.

17. Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 43–44.

18. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 37–63.

19. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 102–103.

20. Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 43–44.

21. Samuel Quarcoopome, cited in Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Politics of Chieftaincy, 57–61.

22. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 113–115.

23. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 133.

24. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 192.

25. CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

26. “Accra Town Council vs. Various Rate Payers,” 11/9/30, PRAAD: NAG (Accra) SCT 17/4/51 Civil Record Book 20/5/30-23/10/31; In doing so, Blankson was following the processes laid out in the Town Councils Ordinance. See: CO 99/8 1893–1894 Gold Coast Gazette.

27. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/2 1931–32 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

28. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council; PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/1 1930–31 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

29. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 171–172.

30. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 190.

31. Sarah Balakrishnan cites a 1910 letter from the Ga mantse in which he protests that “‘Our people [are] homeless and wandering till out of despair they are obliged to seek shelter somewhere out of the town, probably in the villages.’ The colonial secretary did not deny the motive. He noted: ‘proceedings under [the Infectious Disease Ordinance] are simpler and quicker than the acquisition of the houses under the Public Lands Ordinance.’” (Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 190).

32. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

33. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

34. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

35. R.D. Pearce, The Turning Point in Africa: British Colonial Policy 1938–48 (London: Frank Cass), 1982: 4. Cited in Harris and Parnell, “Turning Point in Urban Policy for British Colonial Africa, 1939–1945,” 127.

36. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

37. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

38. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

39. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

40. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

41. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

42. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 145–146.

43. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 146; Parker, In My Time of Dying, 191–209.

44. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 152–153.

45. Balakrishnan, Anticolonial Public, 152–153.

46. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 173–175.

47. Mayne, Slums, 132.

48. Mayne, Slums, 76–79.

49. Mayne, Slums, 74–75.

50. For similar language in a European context see: Mayne, Slums, 91–92.

51. E. Maxwell Fry, Town Planning Adviser to the Resident Minister for West Africa, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report,” October 1945 PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra.

52. As Fry notes in his report: “Unofficial census increases in this labor population during the middle of the war or as follows: Sabon Zongo: population increased in 1942 by 3993 of which 3077 are all casual or full-time imported laborers. Adabraka: Increased by 2211 in 1942 by 782 on a population of 7849. Agbogbloshi: Increased in 1942 by 782 on a population of 1187. Christiansborg: Increased in 1942 by 3129 on a population of 8495. To a slight degree this local overcrowding in poor conditions was balanced by a small exodus from other localities far removed from sites at which work is obtainable. In addition to the above, villages outside the municipal boundary, over which no sanitary control is exercised, except for larvae breeding, can be enforced, have deteriorated greatly by untoward labor immigration. This is noticeable at Malam Futa which has increased in population by about 2000” (Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report,” October 1945 PRAAD: NAG (ACCRA) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra).

53. Grier, “Cocoa Marketing in Colonial Ghana,” 89–115; Rhodie, “Gold Coast Cocoa Hold-Up of 1930–31,” 105–118; Austin, “Capitalists and Chiefs in the Cocoa Hold-ups in South Asante, 1927–1938,” 63–95.

54. Parker, Making the Town; Dumett, “African Merchants of the Gold Coast, 1860–1905”; Murillo, Market Encounters.

55. McCaskie, Asante Identities.

56. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

57. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

58. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

59. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

60. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/1/3 1932–36 Minutes of Meetings, Accra Town Council.

61. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 67–68.

62. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 70–71.

63. Appendix to the Report from NR Junner, Director of the Geological Survey to the Director of Public Works, 19 March 1935 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/3 1939 Earthquakes.

64. Appendix to the Report from NR Junner, Director of the Geological Survey to the Director of Public Works, 19 March 1935 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/3 1939 Earthquakes.

65. Minute 18/9/39 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/3 1939 Earthquakes.

66. Harold Cooper, assistant colonial secretary, Gold Coast, “Emergency in Africa: The Gold Coast Earthquake,” Times, 11/7/39 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/3 1939 Earthquakes.

67. “The Accra Earthquake of 22 June 1939 by N. B. Junner—Recommendations for Rebuilding Accra,” PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/9 1939–40 Rebuilding of Accra. This proposal was ultimately deemed “impracticable” due to cost.

68. Minute 2/8/39 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/4 1939 Earthquake—restoration of Accra rehousing.

69. “The Accra Earthquake of 22 June 1939 by N.R. Junner—recommendations for Rebuilding Accra,” PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/9 1939–40 Rebuilding of Accra.

70. Minute 31/7/39 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/4 1939 Earthquake—restoration of Accra rehousing.

71. Minute from GLM Ransom 3/8/39 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/4 1939 Earthquake—restoration of Accra rehousing.

72. Minute from GLM Ransom 3/8/39 TNA: PRO CO 96/762/4 1939 Earthquake—restoration of Accra rehousing.

73. G. Orde Browne, “Notes on Rebuilding Projects for Accra” TNA: PRO CO 96/762/4 1939 Earthquake—restoration of Accra rehousing.

74. Despatch from Governor Hodson to the Lord Lloyd of Dolobran, SOS, 14 September 1940 TNA: PRO CO 96/769/1 1940 Earthquake restoration of Accra—rehousing.

75. Despatch from Governor Hodson to The Lord Lloyd of Dolobran, SOS, 14 September 1940 TNA: PRO CO 96/769/1 1940 Earthquake restoration of Accra—rehousing. The Governor proposed to build one Grade I (only as an example), 20 Grade II (5 rooms) and 135 Grade III (3–4 rooms) houses with self-contained kitchens, washing accommodations, etc.

76. Despatch from SOS Malcolm Macdonald to Governor Hodson, 30 March 1940 TNA: PRO CO 96/769/1 1940 Earthquake restoration of Accra—rehousing.

77. Dispatch from Governor Hodson to SOS MacDonald 29 December 1939 TNA: PRO CO 96/769/1 1940 Earthquake restoration of Accra—rehousing.

78. Pearce, Turning Point in Africa, 4. Cited in Harris and Parnell, “Turning Point in Urban Policy for British Colonial Africa, 1939–1945,” 127.

79. Minute from Eastwood, 29/1/40 TNA: PRO CO 96/769/1 1940 Earthquake restoration of Accra—rehousing.

80. Letter from Sir Alan Burns to Oliver Stanley (secretary of state for the colonies?), 18 April 1945, TNA: PRO CO 96/803/5 Town and Country Planning Legislation 1945–1948.

81. As Quayson notes, these standards did exist for European housing, even if they were high-cost. But African communities were primarily designed with small-size, low-cost houses with shared latrines, built in close proximity. (Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 70–71). Acquah noted similar inequalities in the 1950s. See Acquah, Accra Survey, 50–51, 62.

82. E. Maxwell Fry, Town Planning Adviser to the Resident Minister for West Africa, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report,” October 1945 PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra.

83. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 70–71.

84. Fry, “Town Planning in West Africa,” 203–204.

85. E. Maxwell Fry, Town Planning Adviser to the Resident Minister for West Africa, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.” October 1945 PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra.

86. Fry, “European Importation,” 83–86; Whyte, “Modernism, Modernization and Europeanization in West African Architecture, 1944–94.”

87. Fry and Drew, Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone (London, 1956), 20. Cited in Whyte, “Modernism, Modernization and Europeanization in West African Architecture, 1944–94.”

88. Fry, “European Importation,” 80–82. Cited in Whyte, “Modernism, Modernization and Europeanization in West African Architecture, 1944–94.”

89. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra.

90. Harris and Parnell, “Turning Point in Urban Policy for British Colonial Africa, 1939–1945,” 141.

91. Harris and Parnell, “Turning Point in Urban Policy for British Colonial Africa, 1939–1945,” 142; Acquah, Accra Survey, 53–54.

92. Acquah, Accra Survey, 46.

93. Acquah, Accra Survey, 54–57; Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 79–81.

94. Minute 5/6/45 TNA: PRO CO 96/803/5 Town and Country Planning Legislation 1945–1948.

95. Minute 5/6/45 TNA: PRO CO 96/803/5 Town and Country Planning Legislation 1945–1948.

96. Fry, “Town Planning in West Africa,” 199–200.

97. Fry, “Town Planning in West Africa,” 199–202.

98. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 197–200.

99. For a study of modernism and its role in the shaping of social order and form in cities, see Holston, Modernist City.

100. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 206.

101. Harris and Parnell, “Turning Point in Urban Policy for British Colonial Africa, 1939–1945,” 138–139.

102. Uduku, “Modernist Architecture and ‘the Tropical’ in West Africa,” 397–398; Harris and Parnell, “Turning Point in Urban Policy for British Colonial Africa, 1939–1945,” 138–139; Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 205.

103. This debate about the compound house dates back to at least 1908 when a committee of the ATC, including African barristers Thomas Hutton Mills and A. B. Quartey-Papafio, recommended the acquisition of “congested areas” and the abolition of the compound house. They argued that these houses were located on land that would be better for building stores and businesses because they were close to the harbor. Early visions for a new plan for Accra embraced the idea that only rich Ga people would be able to build within the town, and poorer residents would have to live outside the town. These plans were never realized—and it was often the wealthier Ga residents who relocated, rather than the poor ones so criticized by colonial officials (Parker, Making the Town, 198–201).

104. Quoted in Iain Jackson and Rexford Assasie Oppong, “The Planning of Late Colonial Village Housing in the Tropics: Tema Manhean, Ghana,” Planning Perspectives 29, no. 4 (2014): 487–488.

105. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 195–196.

106. Fry, “Town Planning in West Africa,” 203.

107. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 188.

108. Uduku, “Modernist Architecture and ‘the Tropical’ in West Africa,” 400. In doing so, Fry and Drew, along with other modernist architects, evinced a fundamental ethnocentrism. As Jennifer Robinson notes, “Modernity could be understood as imply the West’s self-characterization of itself in opposition to ‘others’ and ‘elsewheres’ that are imagined to be not modern, an opposition that was strongly reinforced through the mundane practices of colonization” (Quoted in Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 24–25).

109. Petros Phokaides, “Detropicalizing Africa: Architecture Planning and Climate in the 1950s and 1960s,” docomomo 48 (2013/1): 78.

110. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 204; Fry, “European Importation,” 83–86, 84.

111. Quoted in Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 194.

112. Quoted in Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 204.

113. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 194.

114. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

115. Murillo, “Ideal Homes and the Gender Politics of Consumerism in Postcolonial Ghana, 1960–70,” 563–564; Holston, Modernist City, 4. Holston highlights CIAM’s “premise of social transformation: that modern architecture and planning are the means to create new forms of collective association, personal habit, and daily life” (31).

116. Phokaides, “Detropicalizing Africa,” 77. As Phokaides notes, not all architects working during this period embraced the tropical style. Constantinos Doxiadis’s “ekistics” sought to capture “the science of human settlements,” connected more to “scientific planning theory” than imperial ideologies. The modernist presumptions in both, however, were remarkably similar (79).

117. Jackson and Oppong, “Planning of Late Colonial Village Housing in the Tropics,” 493; Phokaides, “Detropicalizing Africa,” 79.

118. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 196.

119. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 219.

120. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

121. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar, 269–270.

122. Liscombe, “Modernism in Late Imperial British West Africa,” 208.

123. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

124. Margaret Peil, Cities and Suburbs: Urban Life in West Africa (New York: Africana Publishing, 1981), 135.

125. Uduku, “Modernist Architecture and ‘the Tropical’ in West Africa,” 402.

126. Pellow, “Group and Grid: Zongos and the British,” 80–93.

127. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

128. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

129. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

130. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

131. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

132. Fry, “Accra Town Planning Scheme Report.”

133. Letter from the President of the Accra Town Council to the Acting Colonial Secretary, 28 July 1944, PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra.

134. Quoted in Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 82.

135. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra.

136. Letter from Sir Alan Burns to Oliver Stanley (secretary of state for the colonies?), 18 April 1945, TNA: PRO CO 96/803/5 Town and Country Planning Legislation 1945–1948.

137. Minute from the Acting Colonial Secretary, 14 November 1946, PRAAD: NAG (Accra) CSO 20/12/20 1944–47 Town Planning Schemes for Accra.

138. TNA: PRO CO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

139. TNA: PRO CO 964/2 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Causes of the Disturbance.

140. Gold Coast is Slipping Away, I. Enoch, West African Monitor, 2 March 1948 TNA: PRO CO 964/5 1948 Gold Coast Commission of Enquiry—Press and Public Relations.

141. Acquah, Accra Survey, 28.

142. Acquah, Accra Survey, 46.

143. Acquah, Accra Survey, 47.

144. Plageman, “Accra Is Changing Isn’t It?,” 138.

145. Plageman, “Accra Is Changing Isn’t It?,” 139, 148.

146. Plageman, “Accra Is Changing Isn’t It?,” 148.

147. Plageman, “Accra Is Changing Isn’t It?,” 153.

148. Murillo, “Modern Shopping Experience,” 376–377.

149. Inkumsah, “Introduction,” in Trevallion and Hood, Accra: A Plan for the Town.

150. Inkumsah, “Introduction,” in Trevallion and Hood, Accra: A Plan for the Town.

151. Barrett, “Preface,” in Trevallion and Hood, Accra: A Plan for the Town.

152. Barrett, “Preface,” in Trevallion and Hood, Accra: A Plan for the Town.

153. Trevallion and Hood, Accra: A Plan for the Town, 4.

154. Trevallion and Hood, Accra: A Plan for the Town, 23–31.

155. Trevallion and Hood, Accra: A Plan for the Town, 87.

156. Acquah, Accra Survey, 54–57.

157. Acquah, Accra Survey, 54–57.

158. “Mr. Mensah Builds a House,” Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire, http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/615; “Mr. Mensah Builds a House,” Colonial Film Archive, YouTube, December 13, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_FXmC1Niwk.

159. Bloom and Skinner, “Modernity and Danger,” 121–153.

160. “Mr. Mensah Builds a House,” Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire, http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/615; “Mr. Mensah Builds a House,” Colonial Film Archive, YouTube, December 13, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_FXmC1Niwk.

161. Plans for the Development of Accra, 28 May 1954, Notes of a meeting attended by A.F. Greenwood, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Govt; AES Alcock, Town Planning Adviser; C. Williams, Commissioner of Lands; L. Britton, Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Govt and Housing PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/195 1954–1955 Improvement of Accra Vol. 1.

162. Johnson Appiah, “Vote to Improve Accra Is Cut Down,” extracted from Daily Graphic of Saturday, September 24, 1955, PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/196 1955–56 Improvement of Accra Vol. 2.

163. Plans for the Development of Accra, 28 May 1954, Notes of a meeting attended by A. F. Greenwood, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Govt; AES Alcock, Town Planning Adviser; C. Williams, Commissioner of Lands; L. Britton, Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Govt and Housing PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/195 1954–1955 Improvement of Accra Vol. 1. These priorities reflected only thirteen out of forty-six submitted proposals that had been forwarded by the Accra Municipal Council to the working party planning the Independence Day celebrations. They specifically focused on those projects they thought “could be completed by the end of 1956 and which would improve parts of Accra which might figure prominently in the celebrations.” (PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/195 1954–1955 Improvement of Accra Vol. 1).

164. Johnson Appiah, “Vote to Improve Accra Is Cut Down,” in Daily Graphic of Saturday, September 24, 1955, PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/196 1955–56 Improvement of Accra Vol. 2.

165. Acquah, Accra Survey, 31.

166. Acquah, Accra Survey, 28.

167. Acquah, Accra Survey, 28–29, 31.

168. Acquah, Accra Survey, 47.

169. Attoh Quarshie, interview with author, August 24, 2009; October 17, 2009.

170. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/170 1957–1961 Towns Ordinance.

171. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/170 1957–1961 Towns Ordinance.

172. PRAAD: NAG (Accra) RG 5/1/170 1957–1961 Towns Ordinance.

173. Bissell, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar.

174. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 85–86; Manful, “Afterword,” 232.

175. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 86.

CONCLUSION

1. John Spaull, “World’s Biggest E-dump, or Vital Supplies for Ghana?,” The Trust Project, May 10, 2015, https://www.scidev.net/global/multimedia/electronic-waste-dump-supplies-ghana/.

2. Paul Stacey, State of Slum: Precarity and Informal Governance at the Margins in Accra (London: Zed, 2021).

3. Nil Ayikwe Okin, “Agbogbloshie Scrap Dealers Ask for Alternative Space after Demolition Exercise,” CNR Citi Newsroom, July 7, 2021, https://citinewsroom.com/2021/07/agbogbloshie-scrap-dealers-ask-for-alternative-space-after-demolition-exercise/.

4. The campaigned kicked off with a massive clean-up operation on April 22, 2021 in four constituencies (Ayawaso Central, North, East, and West-Wuogon) executed by various members of the security service and employees of the waste management service, Zoomlion, with which the city contracts for waste removal. Okin, “Agbogbloshie Scrap Dealers Ask for Alternative Space after Demolition Exercise,” CNR Citi Newsroom, July 7, 2021, https://citinewsroom.com/2021/04/lets-make-accra-work-campaign-kickstarts-with-clean-up-exercise-in-four-constituencies/.

5. Daisy Palinwinde Jacobs, “We Didn’t Know Relocation to Adjen Kotoku Included Us—Agbogbloshie Scrap Dealers,” CNR Citi Newsroom, July 7, 2021, https://citinewsroom.com/2021/07/we-didnt-know-relocation-to-adjen-kotoku-included-us-agbogbloshie-scrap-dealers/.

6. Jacobs, “We Didn’t Know Relocation to Adjen Kotoku Included Us—Agbogbloshie Scrap Dealers.”

7. For articles addressing Agbogbloshie dating back to 2015, see: https://qamp.net/press/.

8. Church of Pentecost, “Agbogbloshie Redevelopment Scheme Ready,” April 20, 2022, https://thecophq.org/agbogbloshie-redevelopment-scheme-ready/.

9. Church of Pentecost, “Agbogbloshie Redevelopment Scheme Ready.”

10. Church of Pentecost, “Agbogbloshie Redevelopment Scheme Ready.”

11. Church of Pentecost, “Agbogbloshie Redevelopment Scheme Ready.”

12. Spaull, “World’s Biggest E-dump, or Vital Supplies for Ghana?”

13. Muntaka Chasant, “Agbogbloshie Demolition: The End of an Era Or Injustice?” Muntaka: A Journal of Emerging Issues, https://www.muntaka.com/agbogbloshie-demolition/.

14. Kwame Asare Boadu, “Agbobloshie Redevelopment Scheme Ready,” Graphic Online, https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/ghana-news-agbogbloshie-redevelopment-scheme-ready.html; https://thecophq.org/agbogbloshie-redevelopment-scheme-ready/.

15. Stoler, Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times 3–6; see also Mitchell, Rule of Experts, 1.

16. Stoler, Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times, 3–4.

17. Porter, Unlearning the Colonial Culture of Planning; Demissie, Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa; Jacobs, Edge of Empire.

18. Porter, Unlearning the Colonial Culture of Planning, 2.

19. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men; Hodge, Triumph of the Expert.

20. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 1992); Porter, Unlearning the Colonial Culture of Planning; Parker, Making the Town; Hodge, Triumph of the Expert, 7–8.

21. McFarlane, “Governing the Contaminated City,” 418; Srivastava, Entangled Urbanism, 4; Demissie, Colonial Architecture and Urban Planning in Africa, 3; Home and King, “Urbanism and Master Planning,” 74–75.

22. McFarlane, “Governing the Contaminated City,” 419.

23. Crinson “Imperial Modernism.”

24. Gandy, “Planning, Anti-Planning and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” 371–396.

25. Murray, Urbanism of Exception, 11–12; On nuisance, see Sharan, “In the City, Out of Place,” 4906.

26. Murray, Urbanism of Exception, 11–12.

27. Perera, “Planners’ City,” 61; Myers and Muhair argue that “it often seemed that the real concern of the British was simply with having things under control. To use Mitchell’s words, having the place ‘contained’ meant translating it into a special language that could ‘read like a book’” (Myers and Muhair, “Afterlife of the Lanchester Plan,” 113). On containment see also, Porter, Unlearning the Colonial Culture of Planning, 75–76.

28. Home and King, “Urbanism and Master Planning: Configuring the Colonial City,” 51; Porter, Unlearning the Colonial Culture of Planning, 70–71; G. A. Bremner, “Introduction: Architecture, Urbanism, and British Imperial Studies,” in Architecture and Urbanism in the British Empire, ed. G. A. Bremner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Ambe J. Njoh, Planning Power: Town Planning and Social Control in Colonial Africa (London: UCL Press, 2007).

29. Jacobs, Edge of Empire, 20.

30. Sharan, “In the City, Out of Place,” 4096.

31. Perera argues that “from a knowledge standpoint, colonial cities were orientalized through their absorption into the metropolitan discourse of town planning. Bernard Cohen emphasizes that the British believed they could explore and conquer the epistemological space through translation. In regard to planning, too, colonial authorities and experts ‘translated’ urban conditions into knowledge by means of exported ordinances. They employed a combination of, in Cohen’s terms, historiographic, observational, survey, enumerative, and investigative modalities. . . . Socially, this perception also promoted the view that there are physical solutions to urban ills and poverty. Within the town planning discourse, it was not poverty and its causes that were not acceptable, but the way the poor live in their environments and the problems they caused to (middle class) city life” (Perera, “Planners’ City,” 68).

32. For a study of a similar process in Sri Lanka, see Perera, “Planners’ City,” 69.

33. Perera, “The Planners’ City,” 64; Demissie, Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa, 3–4; Myers and Muhair, “Afterlife of the Lanchester Plan,” 102–103.

34. Home and King, “Urbanism and Masterplanning,” 82; Jackson and Uduku, “Sub-Saharan Africa,” 407; Hodge, Triumph of the Expert, 8–14.

35. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 53–54.

36. Gandy, “Planning, Anti-Planning, and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” 376–77.

37. Perera, “Planners’ City,” 58.

38. Lefebvre, Production of Space; Porter, Unlearning the Colonial Culture of Planning.

39. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 62.

40. Home, “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa,” 62.

41. Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 73.

42. McFarlane, “Governing the Contaminated City,” 417; Edwards, “Infrastructure and Modernity: Force, Time, and Social Organization in the History of Sociotechnical Systems,” 186.

43. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert, 19–20; Silva, “Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Overview.”

44. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert, 19–20. King argues that “modern planning in postcolonial states is a European product and that colonialism was the vehicle of transfer” (cited in Perera, “Planners’ City,” 59). Van Beusekom argues that we should trace the roots of “development” back to at least the interwar period when colonial states began consolidating investments in colonies and crafting new models and theories of “improvement” on a large scale (Monica van Beusekom, Negotiating Development: African Farmers and Colonial Experts at the Office du Niger, 1920–1960. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002, xxii).

45. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 4–5.

46. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory, 7–12.

47. Murray, Urbanism of Exception, ix–x, 1–2; Perera, “Planners’ City,” 69–70; Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 167.

48. McFarlane, “Governing the Contaminated City,” 431–432; Srivastava, Entangled Urbanism, 88.

49. Murray, Urbanism of Exception, 23–24; Manful, “Afterword,” 239.

50. Sharan, “In the City, Out of Place,” 4910. Gandy also argues that technocratic conceptions of urban governance have also shaped a focus on “good governance” about NGOs and other international and local observers, which obscures important questions about “the reasons why rent-seeking, clientelist, and ‘neo-patrimonial’ states have emerged across much of sub-Saharan Africa.” (Gandy, “Planning, Anti-planning and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” 372–373).

51. David Woode, “Artful Accra: Ghana’s 60th Marked by the Birth of an Ambitious Gallery,” Guardian, March 1, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/mar/01/accra-ghana-ano-art-gallery-opening-60-anniversary.

52. To see images of these project plans see Talkingdrums, “Construction Projects in Accra and the Rest of Ghana” (blog), https://talkingdrumsblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/largest-african-ethnic-groups-or-nationalities-in-america/.

53. Playing Accra Monopoly feels like you’re jumping feet first into the development game in the city. Similar games have apparently been developed for cities elsewhere on the continent, including Lagos and Cairo with cooperative licensing from Monopoly’s parent company, Hasbro.

54. Congress for the New Urbanism, “What is New Urbanism?” https://www.cnu.org/resources/what-new-urbanism (accessed August 4, 2023).

55. Michael Vanderbeek and Clara Irazabal, “New Urbanism as a New Modernist Movement: A Comparative Look at Modernism and New Urbanism,” TDSR 19(1) (2007): 41–58; Sonia A. Hirt, “Premodern, Modern, Postmodern? Placing New Urbanism into a Historical Perspective,” Journal of Planning History 8, no. 3 (August 2009): 248–273.

56. Abourahme, “Of Monsters and Boomerangs,” 106–115.

57. Alexander Lobrano, “Ghana’s Capital of Cool,” New York Times, July 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/t-magazine/travel/accra-ghana-travel.html.

58. Manful describes this kind of architecture as “unformal,” “all the buildings and structures that occur outside of state purview and formalized design and construction industries” and argues that we should think beyond the scholarly focus on urban poverty in defining these processes (“Afterword,”232).

59. Sharon Benzoni, “Accra, Ghana,” The Rockefeller Foundation’s Informal City Dialogues, accessed August 4, 2023, https://nextcity.org/informalcity/city/accra.

60. Osei-Boateng and Ampratwum, “The Informal Sector in Ghana,” 4.

61. Schauert, Staging Ghana, 8.

62. Schauert, Staging Ghana, 8.

63. Srivastava, Entangled Urbanism, xviii–xix.

64. Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 17–18.

65. Murray, Urbanism of Exception, 7; Marr, “Worlding and Wilding”; Srivastava, Entangled Urbanism, xxxvi; Myers, Rethinking Urbanism, xx–xxi, 5; Home and King, “Urbanism and Master Planning,” 55–56; Gandy, “Planning, Anti-Planning, and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” 390.

66. Murray, Urbanism of Exception, x–xi. Manful similarly argues that we could “look for an even more fundamental challenge to the politics of architecture, one that included studies of the informal and unformal, not solely as a lens through which to talk about struggles between states, governments, elites, and the common person, but as architectures in their own right, on their own terms, worth studying, worth theorizing about” (Manful, “Afterword,” 241).

67. Murray, Urbanism of Exception, x–xii; Gandy, “Planning, Anti-Planning, and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” 390.

68. Jacobs, Edge of Empire, 4.

69. Jacobs, Edge of Empire, 4; Murray, Urbanism of Exception, 24–25.

70. Jacobs, Edge of Empire, 6; Srivastava, Entangled Urbanism, xxi; Gandy, “Planning, Anti-Planning, and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” 390.

71. Enwezor, Under Siege, 2002: 6–7.

72. Keith Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,” 68.

73. Quayson, Oxford Street, Accra, 199.

74. Keith Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,” 68.