Feature
Photography
GBLOSHIE
f being both Ghanaian and
ormed by how we experience our
nd mostly media outlets describing
for me illustrated how I was made
A
s a second generation Ghanaian,
I felt a personal and moral
obligation to begin to challenge
our current understandings of
Africa. Growing up, I often felt
a slight sense of shame about
being of African descent as the
connotations of Africanism
attributed to poverty,
humanitarian intervention and
disorder. Until I visited Africa for myself, I too
believed there was no hope for the land and
that they would continue needing western aid
to prolong its survival. The e-waste dumpsite
illustrated the west’s direct production of
economic and social crisis in Agbogbloshie
which exemplifies the west contribution to the
problems faced in Africa. However, the current
framings of this issue are far more long lasting
and thus damaging to our ideas of Africa and
to further its detriment. These implications
urged the importance of this enquire; a
motivation to uncover a voice that I believe is
widely ignored in our relationship with African
issues. This personal connection was both
beneficial and difficult as it gave me a strong
work ethic regarding the ethnography but left
me emotionally affected by the discrepancies in
what I discovered about life in Agbogbloshie in
the city of Accra.
The area receives regular visits from European
journalists, academic researchers and
photographers who frame their works according
to a historical distortion of the African identity.
The young boys who reside on the site are the
most exploited group in the informal hierarchy
of the recyclers. Images, interviews and even
africandesignmagazine.com
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