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Research ArticleArticle

“Nifa Nifa”

Technopolitics, Mobile Workers, and the Ambivalence of Decline in Acheampong’s Ghana

JENNIFER HART
African Economic History, January 2016, 44 (1) 181-201; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.44.1.181
JENNIFER HART
Jennifer Hart () is a professor of African history at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of articles in the and the . Her book, , was published by Indiana University Press in October 2016. She also writes a blog () and tweets at @detroittoaccra and @accramobile.
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Abstract

This article explores the events surrounding Ghana’s successful transition to the right side of the road in order to shed light on one of the longest periods of military dictatorship in Ghanaian history. In particular, this paper traces the ways in which drivers, as mobile workers, coordinated with and supported state officials to achieve major technological and infrastructural transformation. These large-scale projects challenge an image of postcolonial dictatorships as ineffective, authoritarian, and isolationist regimes. Instead, the success of what the government called “Operation Keep Right” highlighted the close relationship between the Acheampong state and Ghana’s large class of mobile workers in achieving visions of technopolitical progress, national development, and regional integration. Even in the context of increasing economic crisis in the 1960s and 1970s, projects like “Operation Keep Right” complicate a narrative of seemingly inevitable postcolonial decline and push scholars to revisit the politics of postcolonial dictatorship through the experiences of citizens.

  • © 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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African Economic History: 44 (1)
African Economic History
Vol. 44, Issue 1
1 Jan 2016
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“Nifa Nifa”
JENNIFER HART
African Economic History Jan 2016, 44 (1) 181-201; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.44.1.181

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“Nifa Nifa”
JENNIFER HART
African Economic History Jan 2016, 44 (1) 181-201; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.44.1.181
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    • “Economic War”: Self-Reliance and State Power under the NRC
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