Social Life, Illness, and the Marketplace in Kumasi, Ghana.

What is it about?

This essay argues that the market in Ghana, West Africa can serve as an institution in support of public health. It challenges representations of the African market as a crowed unsanitary space harboring contagion. The history of Kumasi Market, one of the largest markets in West Africa offers a case study of market functions that can advance and support health. The market's actors include traditional monarchy, mercantile classes, including many women sellers, kin groups and producers who are involved in relationships built over centuries that create and sustain livelihoods. These relationships foster sale of medicines, spread of health information, and rituals of life and death that are meant to nurture Kumasi's well-being.

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Photo by Lisheng Chang on Unsplash

Photo by Lisheng Chang on Unsplash