Cocoa and Gold: Ghana's Development in Global Perspective

Catalog description

This course explores Ghana’s development in historic perspective from the colonial era to the recent postcolonial period. It provides an interdisciplinary history that is attentive to political economy, social relations, geography, and politics as they congeal in particular ways throughout Ghana’s development trajectory. It traces the key forces at play in Ghanaian development through time, paying particular attention to the transformations prompted by the region’s encounter with and incorporation into a global economy.The goal of the course is to explore theories and debates in development through deep engagement with the specific trajectory of Ghana, as a sort of intensive case study. Field visits (for instance to gold mines and cocoa fields) will be used to complement class discussions and to take advantage of the location of the course in Accra.