My research is on one of the biggest informal settlements in Ghana, Old Fadama/Agbogbloshie, which is a host to an informal economy of electronic waste, estimated to be one of the biggest employers of male slumdwellers in Accra. Presented by local and international media as an unsalvageable eyesore, the area has been subject to repeated eviction threats by the authorities. What does it mean for an area of some 100,000 inhabitants and an economy estimated to contribute some 105-268 million USD to the national economy to be evict-able? What are the political imaginations that such areas attract? How do these signpost to the bigger dynamics of politics, economies, and histories in the place?
Electronic waste is my specific access point to consider these bigger questions. On the one hand, electronic waste contains hazardous elements that can have adverse effects on human health and environment unless recycled properly. On the other hand, it contains materials that can be recovered for profit or for creative reassembling of technologies. Informal electronic waste recycling is thus a source of livelihood in Accra, but a controversial one as its affects the health of the workers and local inhabitants and the quality of the surrounding environment. My research attempts to understand what it means for an informal economy to grow to such a considerable extent and be operated by people who inhabit and work on an informal land and as such face a consistent threat of evictions.
The circulation of electronic waste integrates the squatters in Agbogbloshie into a global network of international companies, national and local governments, a plethora of small import and export firms, London Metal Exchange, and regular people who wish to make money while disposing their electronics. The informality of the economy means that it is often the workers in Agbogbloshie, who have to creatively position themselves in this global network, rather than institutions that help them in the process.
The circulation also exists side by side a technological revolution: Ghana’s growing electrification and recent development agendas from 2003 increased the popular demand on electronics but the lower material means of the consumers mean that participating in the revolution often happens through second- and third- hand electronics that are closer to their end of life. Thus the informal vendors and informal electronic recyclers become the unexpected actors the development.
Through ethnographic examples and reflection I shall strive to address the following questions: How does electronic waste morph from objects of technological revolution (importantly the influx of electronic waste to Ghana coincides with Ghana’s adoption of a technology-driven development agenda in 2003) to electronic waste that is disassembled, recycled, repurposed by informal workers? What is the significance of the circulation taking place on an informal land characterised by a looming threat of evictions? What is the specificity of electronic waste as an object of circulation? What are the livelihoods and landscapes that are produced by electronic waste and vice versa? How are the state and formal businesses making themselves (in)visible in informal electronic waste recycling? Do the workers exist on the underside of the technological revolution or are they unexpected yet integral actors of it?
