Winter 2025 UMAPS Research Colloquium Series:
Planning, Power and Sugar: Ghana's Troubled Sugar Factory and Rural Transformations
Colloquium
March 28, 2025
3 - 6pm
University of Michigan
1010 Weiser Hall
500 Church St
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Speakers: Michael Gameli Dziwornu
A highlight of the U-M African Presidential Scholars (UMAPS) program, the Research Colloquium Series offers the scholars an opportunity to formally present their work.
Michael Gameli Dziwornu’s research proposal posits an interdisciplinary investigation into the multifaceted transformations—social, spatial, and environmental—that are currently transpiring in the environs of the Asutsuare sugar factory in Ghana, situated within the broader context of evolving political-economic paradigms.
Initially conceptualized and erected during the era of Kwame Nkrumah's socialist development agenda in the 1960s, the Asutsuare sugar factory and its concomitant infrastructure were envisioned as vehicles for rural modernization, executed through the implementation of expansive irrigation schemes, industrial employment opportunities, and social welfare initiatives. Intriguingly, a diachronic analysis of the contemporary landscape uncovers a series of unexpected repurposing and adaptive reuse of these postcolonial industrial vestiges, all carried out under the aegis of neoliberal governance. To cite specific instances, agricultural lands initially earmarked for sugarcane cultivation have undergone a metamorphosis, now being utilized for the cultivation of rice, bananas, and the development of aquaculture. Moreover, the factory structure itself has been subject to various reconfigurations—portions have been transformed into a Chinese manufacturing facility, while others have been repurposed as an educational institution serving the local community.
Employing a methodologically rigorous approach that integrates archival data analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions with long-term residents, the project aims to examine these reimagined material realities and the collective imaginaries of the future that they engender. Importantly, the research transcends reductionist narratives that solely depict socialist undertakings as failures. Instead, it seeks to elucidate the intricate interplay between neoliberal policy frameworks, global market forces, and Ghana's unique postcolonial heritage. By offering critical insights into the complex sociospatial dynamics surrounding this emblematic industrial site, the project aspires to contribute substantively to the formulation of more equitable and sustainable development policies that can be applicable to rural regions across the African continent.
Topics:
Asutsuare, Globalization, Industrial reuse, Postcolonial heritage, Socialist development
Friends: University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars (UMAPS) Program
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