Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the way that young Ghanaians are interpreting and taking advantage of seemingly global discourses of "new urbanism”, tracing the influence of longer histories of precarity on the newest forms of urban development and urban culture in Ghana's capital, Accra.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the way that young Ghanaians are interpreting and taking advantage of "new urbanism". The city of Accra has grown rapidly in recent years through processes embraced by a wide range of actors, including the Accra municipal government, NGOs, and international actors. While Accra's urban development has attracted the attention of international media like the New York Times, which has anointed Accra one of the most exciting cities in the world, this development is experienced much more unevenly among the city's residents. Luxury apartment buildings, fast food restaurants, coffee shops, shopping malls, gyms, clubs, and bistros define a new form of urban culture in Accra, alongside a group of new art galleries and artistic movements that incorporate both visual and performing arts. While this new form of urban culture appeals to a growing group of young, cosmopolitan (or Afropolitan) returnees, depicted most clearly in the YouTube show "An African City" and displayed on Instagram and Facebook, it is also inaccessible for many of the city's residents who survive on meager incomes. This paper focuses its attention on people who exist in between these large income inequalities - highly educated young people who do not have the same access to wealth but who are nonetheless connected to these communities of cosmopolitan discourse and practice. In particular, it interrogates the way that personal and social histories of precarity influence the way this group of young people engages with and creates opportunities for themselves within a vision of the "new Accra"