By:
Professor Ato Quayson, FGA, FRSC, University of Toronto,
Canada, Senior Fellow – IIAS
Theme: Accra: From Ethno-Politics to Globalization
Lecture 1: Ethno-Politics, Colonial Space-Making and Town Planning
Abstract
This lecture traced the formation of the settlement of Accra from the early period of the European merchant presence to the institution of formal colonialism from the 1870s, and the implications that this had for the expansion of the town in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Lecture 2: Multiculturalism or Multi-Ethnicity?: The Afro-Brazilians (Tabon) of Otublohum and the Euro-Danish of Osu
Abstract
Focusing on the contrast in the histories of the Afro-Brazilians (Tabon) of Otubluhum and the Euro-Danish of Osu, this lecture proposed that Accra, like other postcolonial African cities like it, makes room for multi-ethnicity rather than multiculturalism. The reasons for this were traced back to the ideology of ethnicization implied in the colonial census. The colonial census created “tribes” as a means of installing allegiance to ethnic groups and establishing rights to land as deriving predominantly from notions of long-term ethnic settlement as opposed to migration.
Lecture 3: Oxford St.: Globalization and Its Discontents
Abstract
In this lecture the speaker proposed to re-tell the urban social history of Accra from the vantage point of the singular Oxford Street, which is generally acknowledged to be the economic hub of the city and its most vibrant and globalized commercial district. The varying planning systems that have shaped the city from the colonial period and been amply augmented by the effects of the IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs of the late 1980s prepared the way for the conversion of what was until the early 1990s largely a residential neighborhood into the high-intensity commercial district that we find at Oxford St today and all these were explored in this lecture. Finally, the speaker outlined the specific features of Oxford St that help to distinguish it from other high streets on other parts of the world such as London, Toronto, New York, and Amsterdam, among various others.