Market relations: Retailing, distribution, and the politics of consumption in Ghana, 1930-1970s

This dissertation explores the politics of consumption in the Gold Coast/Ghana from 1930-75, a period that encompasses British colonialism, global depression, war, political independence, military rule, and severe economic decline. By "politics," I refer not only to the conflicts over power and authority that surround access to goods and systems of distribution, but also the regulation of consumer practices and the organization of consumer space. My research examines how shifting relationships among foreign capital, colonial and postcolonial governments, and groups of African retailers and consumers shaped these processes within a particular West African consumer society and its interaction within a larger global economy.;Part I of this dissertation analyzes the relationships between the United Africa Company (UAC), one of the largest trading firms in twentieth-century West Africa, and local retailers and consumers. It argues that the persistence of older marketing systems, deep-rooted critiques of colonial trading policies, and cultural understandings of wealth and accumulation limited the UAC's attempts to control Gold Coast markets. Part I also analyzes the activities of intermediaries, including African storekeepers credit customers, who played a crucial role in company-consumer relationships by mediating between older and newer ways of selling. Since advertising and public relations campaigns focused mainly on the elite, the majority of the African consuming public relied on these intermediaries for access to and knowledge about goods.;Part II of this dissertation focuses on the social, cultural, and political implications of an expanding consumer society in postcolonial Ghana. Following independence in 1957, the country's first Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah linked ideologies of consumerism to notions of freedom, equality, modernization, and development. He hoped that a flourishing consumer society, among other things, would help legitimize Ghana as a new independent nation. In the mid-1960s, a declining economy, outstanding foreign debts, and increased militarization of the state challenged the idea that consumerism would equal greater freedom or improve standards of living in postcolonial Ghana. Government-imposed import and price controls echoed colonial attempts to control the market. Coercive state measures increased black market trading and local retailers created their own marketing systems where they operated, like they always have, on their own terms.