Signs of the times: Discourse ecologies and street life on oxford St., accra

Abstract

What happens when we stop seeing streets merely as geographical locations and rather interpret them as archives? What if, in focusing on an African street such as Oxford Street in Accra, we interpret this archive not as static, but as providing a transcript of dynamic transformations of discourse ecologies? The elaboration of a method for understanding the African street as an archive of discourse ecologies will be the main subject of this paper, with a particular focus on cell phone advertising on the street from 2006-2007. I do not stop at an examination of cell phone advertizing billboards but relate these to the veritable galaxy of other cultural inscriptions to be seen in mottoes and slogans on lorries, cars, pushcarts and other mobile surfaces that can be encountered on the street. Such mobile slogans are a distinctive feature of Accra and of many African urban environments. The central mark of these mottoes and slogans is an improvisational character that is specifically tied to the local cultural mediations that have historically been drawn upon for them. Taken together the two dimensions of inscription - billboard and slogans - hint at the arc of urban social histories, while also invoking a rich and intricate relationship between tradition and modernity, religion and secularity as well as local and transnational circuits of images and ideas. © 2010 by the American Anthropological Association.