Market men and station women : changing significations of gendered space in Accra, Ghana / Michael Stasik; Alena Thiel
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Discovery
1020141115
URN
urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:2-90932
DOI
ISBN
ISSN
Autorin / Autor
Erschienen
Leipzig / Halle : DFG Priority Programme 1448 Adaptation and Creativity in Africa, 2014
Umfang
Online Ressource (28 S.) : Ill., Lit. S. 24-27
Ausgabevermerk
Sprache
eng
Anmerkungen
Inhaltliche Zusammenfassung
It is impossible to understand the gendered relation between women and public space without taking into account its other, that is, male engagements with and in space. Our joint paper contrasts the public spaces of a market and a bus station in central Accra, Ghana. While the former is historically associated with female entrepreneurship, masculinity is deeply inscribed in the activities defining the latter. However, recent developments gradually undermine this gendered divide. Evermore men enter into the predominantly female occupation of market trade. Simultaneously, the public space of the bus station, complementary to many of the market’s economic activities and to its gendered significations, is increasingly shaped by intensive negotiations between male station personnel and ‘intruding’ female entrepreneurs over the scarce resource ‘space’. By focusing on interpersonal claims to entrepreneurial places in these two locations, we contest that structural determinants such as trade liberalization and employment strictures sufficiently explain the complex renegotiation of gendered entitlements to space. We illustrate how the configurations (and co-constructions) of gender and space are exposed to on-going, often subtle shifts, which are impelled by dialectically grounded transformations of quotidian spatial practices and social relations. Expanding upon the notion of viri-/uxorilocality, we explore shifts in the gendered strategies of newcomers establishing their presence in the two spaces and the extent to which these practices may alter gendered spatial significations.
Schriftenreihe
Working paper series ; Nr. 5 ppn:1020138807