Where have all the Workers Gone? Labour and Work in Ghana, 1951-2010

• Applicant: Dr. Lamine Doumbia
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History ; African, American and Oceania Studies
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468343487

This project is an extension of the one that had started from the combination of two observations, historiographical and historical analysis of labour in Ghana. During the first funding period the project systematically combined economic and social history perspectives on the post-colonial era in Africa; a period of labor history so far lacking long-term studies. Taking the example of Ghana, it tries out a distinctive blend of approaches, combining the systematic use of both qualitative and quantitative sources, addressing recent debates both in labor and economic history, and combining a range of local studies with a national overview. The project is developing a national overview but focuses in detail on three areas – the capital city Accra; a cocoa-growing area recently affected by small-scale gold mining; and a rice-growing area in the northern savanna region – selected to represent different aspects of the experience of labour. Research questions under investigation include the changing size and composition of the workforce, the changing structure of forms of occupations and employment, the real earnings of labour, trade union struggles, labour market integration, the structure of informal work and entrepreneurship, migrant flows and regional inequality, and the relation between poverty, precariousness and work. The extension aims at adding the ethnographic aspect as a method that sees labour and work as a holistic process within with the actors’ actions are highlighted and of course historicised.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants