Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic research on a central bus station in the Ghanaian capital Accra, in this paper I explore the conflicting concepts of order and contingency as they become manifest in the everyday life of a West African city.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic research on a central bus station in the Ghanaian capital Accra, in this paper I explore the conflicting concepts of order and contingency as they become manifest in the everyday life of a West African city.

Accra's central bus station is a site of uncertainty, unpredictability and, at times, of utter bewilderment. On its grounds a great many people interact with each other in a great many ways. Being a pivot of travel and trade, the station also serves as a haunt for a plenitude of workers, petty criminals and layabouts. For the transient traveller and trader, the experience of the station's well-established turmoil often translates into affects of anxiety and an acute sense of danger. For them, entering its yard equals exposing oneself to hazards of theft, fraud, insult and assault. For many of those who inhabit the station, however, it is the very unpredictability inscribed into the station's space that provides opportunities and shelter. For them, the station's chaos serves as a gateway to chance and, by this, as a means of livelihood.

This ambiguity in the perceptions and utilizations of the station's space is a reminder of the contingencies that rule many spheres of everyday life in contemporary West African cities. Life at the station shows us that where the 'present order of things' defies comprehension, evoking limits of control and knowledge, both fear and chance proliferate. In this context, ideas of order and contingency coincide with each other, and so do feelings of safety and danger and expectations of opportunity and threat.