Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation - Hardcover

Hart, Jennifer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253022770 ISBN 13: 9780253022776

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2016

Synopsis

As early as the 1910s, African drivers in colonial Ghana understood the possibilities that using imported motor transport could further the social and economic agendas of a diverse array of local agents, including chiefs, farmers, traders, fishermen, and urban workers. Jennifer Hart's powerful narrative of auto-mobility shows how drivers built on old trade routes to increase the speed and scale of motorized travel. Hart reveals that new forms of labor migration, economic enterprise, cultural production, and social practice were defined by autonomy and mobility and thus shaped the practices and values that formed the foundations of Ghanaian society today. Focusing on the everyday lives of individuals who participated in this century of social, cultural, and technological change, Hart comes to a more sensitive understanding of the ways in which these individuals made new technology meaningful to their local communities and associated it with their future aspirations.

About this title

Review:

"Jennifer Hart has an acute ear for listening to stories and noticing important themes in the narratives and archives. Such fascinating material." --Jamie Monson, author of Africa's Freedom Railway

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From the Author:

Jennifer Hart is an Assistant Professor of African History at Wayne State University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0253022770
• ISBN 13: 9780253022776
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 264