Market men and station women: changing significations of gendered space in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

ABSTRACTIt 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 these gendered divides. By focusing on interpersonal claims to entrepreneurial places in the two locations, 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.