Accumulation by urban dispossession: struggles over urban space in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

This article draws on original empirical research in Accra, Ghana to explore the particular dynamics that contemporary processes of class-based dispossession assume at the urban scale, posing the concept of 'accumulation by urban dispossession'. It responds to recent calls to shift the focus of urban theory from North to South and demonstrates how widely used concepts must be interrogated and reworked as they travel from place to place. Accra is home to a large informal proletariat that is excluded from formal wage labour and housing markets and therefore has to create urban commons in order to reproduce itself. Since these commons place limits to capital's ability to valorise the urban fabric, state-led accumulation by urban dispossession is a strategic response that employs a range of physical-legal and discursive mechanisms to overcome these limits through the enclosure of the urban commons and the expulsion of the informal poor. This argument problematises Harvey's capitalcentric theory of accumulation by dispossession, which treats enclosure as a fix for capital's inherent crisis tendencies. Furthermore, it demonstrates that primitive accumulation in this context differs from the classic form described by Marx on the grounds that it is based on the expulsion of the dispossessed rather than their incorporation into the capital relation as labour power.

From quiet to bold encroachment: contesting dispossession in Accra’s informal sector

“…At the launch of NCIE, Fiifi Kwetey, Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, publically criticized repressive policies that lead to the destruction of capital for small enterprises, such as those being pursued by Vanderpuije's AMA (Statesman, 2010). Whereas Ghana's national government is concerned with addressing structural unemployment by producing an entrepreneurial working population, however, the AMA is characteristic of city authorities in the Global South in that it is primarily concerned with controlling and "transforming urban space" (Schindler, 2015, p. 7) with a view to attracting tourism and investment (Gillespie, 2016).…”

“…GHAFUP aims to challenge the authorities' consistent discursive framing of Old Fadama as "Sodom and Gomorrah", a den of criminality and vice that poses a threat to law and order in the city (Gillespie, 2016). When Vanderpuije publically reiterated his plan to demolish the settlement in 2009, GHAFUP called a mass press conference to counter the Mayor's demonization of the squatters:…”

“…Led by Mayor Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, the AMA has responded aggressively to practices of quiet encroachment by launching a "decongestion exercise" to evict squatter settlements and clear the streets of informal traders in order to transform Accra into a modern, business-friendly "Millennium City". This can be understood in terms of the state-led enclosure of the urban commons or "accumulation by urban dispossession" (Gillespie, 2016).…”

“…The AMA has an ingrained antipathy towards squatters and hawkers, who it views as a threat to its entrepreneurial plans for Accra (Brown et al, 2010;Gillespie, 2016;Mitullah, 2003;Obeng-Odoom, 2011). Both IHVAG and GHAFUP have sought to counter this antipathy by building the confidence and capacity of their members to enable them to engage with the state and challenge the marginalization of the informal sector in urban governance.…”

Economia política das remoções forçadas urbanas: expropriação, espoliação e exploração na produção do espaço urbano (o caso da Comunidade Aldaci Barbosa, Fortaleza/CE)

“…O caso demonstra que o processo de definição da indenização é essencialmente político e que a barganha desempenha um papel central na negociação do preço (financeiro e/ou em espécie) final, frequentemente muito superior ao estipulado na avaliação inicial. Na África, os casos recentes "espetaculares" da Nigéria (das centenas de milhares de remoções em Abuja [a Capital Federal] Em Gana, Acra é uma das metrópoles que mais crescem no continente africano, principalmente pela ampliação do abundante "proletariado urbano informal" e tem sido palco de um processo de "acumulação por espoliação urbana" (Gillespie, 2015). A presença de um grande grupo de "proletários informais", que é excluído do mercado assalariado formal e do mercado de habitação, resulta na necessidade e criação de "comuns urbanos" (ocupações informais de terra) de modo e poder sobreviver e se reproduzir (idem); que por sua vez limitam a capacidade do capital de "valorizar o tecido urbano" (idem: 67; grifo nosso) [ou, como preferimos interpretar, a capacidade de ampliação dos preços e das rendas fundiárias urbanas].…”