Food for Thought: Urban Market Planning and Entangled Governance in Accra, Ghana

The Konkomba Yam Market in Accra, Ghana, is one of West Africa's largest agricultural markets. This article undertakes a multi-dimensional analysis focusing on contests between unsuccessful government efforts to relocate the market, and local efforts to remain in place, culminating in indeterminacy. Publicly, the relocation debate pivots around competing rationales: those of government driven ‘market’ and ‘formal’ logics versus locally-based ‘rights’ and ‘informal’ urban governance. Conceptually, the article highlights how the imbroglio around the failed relocation is driven and perpetuated by both antagonistic and productive relationships between different formal and informal actors and institutions. Empirically, the case draws attention to how urban policy omissions of contextual socio-political and economic interests and power relations result in the informalisation of urban governance.