Cars, the Customs Service, and Sumptuary Rule in Neoliberal Ghana

This essay probes the role of commodities in the crafting of state power, working from the vantage point of contemporary Ghana, a polity at once post-socialist and staunchly neoliberal, least-industrialized and highly cosmopolitan. Among the many commodities which Ghana's citizens and state bod...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Comparative studies in society and history 2008-04, Vol.50 (2), p.424-453
Main Author: Chalfin, Brenda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
19th century
African studies
Agricultural production
Automobiles
Citizens
Class
Commodities
Contesting Commodities
Corporations
Customs duties
Economic history
Economic liberalism
Economic reform
Firearms
Floating exchange rates
Foreign cars
Ghana
Government
Hybrid cars
Manufacturing
Modernity
Neoliberalism
Political systems
Politics
Postcommunist societies
Power
Regulation
Sedans
Social history
Social life & customs
Social systems
Socialism
State power
State Role
State-society relations
Textiles
Transportation
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Summary:This essay probes the role of commodities in the crafting of state power, working from the vantage point of contemporary Ghana, a polity at once post-socialist and staunchly neoliberal, least-industrialized and highly cosmopolitan. Among the many commodities which Ghana's citizens and state bodies identify with and rely upon, cars are of critical significance. In what follows, I explore the raft of interventions surrounding car importation and allocation imposed by Ghana's Customs Service, and the resulting public critique, in an effort to capture the shifting contours of state authority in the context of an electoral and economic transition spurred by neoliberal reform.
ISSN:0010-4175
1475-2999
1471-633X
DOI:10.1017/S0010417508000194