Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article draws on Asef Bayat’s theory of “quiet encroachment” to analyse the political agency of street hawkers and squatters in Accra, Ghana. It demonstrates how squatters and street hawkers in Ghana’s capital city are engaged in everyday practices of quiet encroachment, whereby they occupy urban space as a means to reproduce themselves. It then explores how encroachers take collective action to defend their access to urban space from state-led dispossession. In a context of competitive partisan politics where the management of urban space has become highly politicized, hawkers and squatters organizations have been empowered to seek active engagement and dialogue with the authorities. Whereas Bayat argues that the informal proletariat in authoritarian contexts desire autonomy and invisibility from the institutions of the state, therefore, the particular characteristics of Ghana’s multiparty system have created the possibility for bold acts of encroachment on urban space.
Highlights
It is a Thursday afternoon in June 2011 and I am chatting to Fuseini, a street hawker selling clothing close to Accra’s central Makola Market
Whereas Bayat argues that those engaged in quiet encroachment in the authoritarian Middle East do so because they seek invisibility from the institutions of the state, both Informal Hawkers and Vendors Association of Ghana (IHVAG) and Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GHAFUP) are motivated by a desire to openly engage the authorities in a process of dialogue in order to challenge the marginalization of the informal sector in urban governance
PD and GHAFUP in particular have sought to capitalize on the division between central government and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA): Interviewees reported engaging in constructive dialogue with the National Patriotic Party (NPP) government over the possible relocation of the residents of Old Fadama and with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidency over the drafting of national policy on urban development issues
Summary
It is a Thursday afternoon in June 2011 and I am chatting to Fuseini, a street hawker selling clothing close to Accra’s central Makola Market. It demonstrates how squatters and street hawkers in Ghana’s capital city are engaged in everyday practices of quiet encroachment, whereby they occupy urban space as a means to reproduce themselves.
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