As a Ghanaian by birth and parentage, I have a longstanding interest in urban dynamics in West Africa, particularly in exploring the social relations that shape how young people navigate contemporary urban life. My research also investigates transport systems and everyday mobility. More recently, I have focused on highlighting the experiences of older populations living in African cities—an often overlooked group in geographical research. This work builds on research conducted as part of the EU-FP7 African Rural-City Connections project.
Articles
This article has been a long time in the making. But it makes a really important intervention. How do older people navigate African cities? This paper addresses that question through vernacular accounts of everyday mobility in Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana. By engaging with geographies of later life, it challenges the Southern urban critique to better reflect the plurality of marginality, and contributes to reimagining how knowledge is produced with and about cities in the Majority World.
This is probably one of my favourite articles! It examines the lives of young men in Accra, Ghana, through the lens of Guru’s popular song “Boys abrƐ [Boys are tired],” uncovering how the phrase serves as both a critique of precarious urban living and a reinforcement of patriarchal norms. The article introduces the concept of “retaliatory patriarchy,” defined by entitlement, resentment, and obliviousness, to describe shifting gender dynamics in the city. It also explores why some young men resist feminist action and suggests ways to address this, contributing valuable insights to discussions on gender equity and youth agency in urban Africa.
In this article, we explore how mobility shapes the livelihoods of urban residents in Accra, Ghana, highlighting its central role in daily life and income generation. Through in-depth qualitative research, we examine how Accra’s transport system supports or limits mobility and how this impacts residents’ strategies for making a living. By connecting these findings to the broader “mobility turn” in the social sciences, we challenge dominant perspectives and contribute to a new mobilities paradigm that centres insights from the global South, where mobility has been a long-standing focus of research.
This paper extends research on geographies of ageing in relation to urban academic and policy debates. We illustrate how older people in urban African contexts deploy their agency through social and spatial (im)mobilities, intergenerational relations and (inter)dependencies. Through doing so, we reveal how urban contexts shape, and are shaped by, older people’s tactics for seizing opportunities and navigating the urban terrain. Our analysis demonstrates how a more substantive dialogue between insights on ageing in African contexts and urban ageing policy can create new forms of knowledge that are more equitable and just, both epistemologically and in their policy impacts.
This paper examines the lives of elderly people in the Ghanaian cities of Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi. By investigating how older residents navigate urban environments, the study reveals their active roles in shaping social and economic processes. Using an innovative framework that combines mobilities and social infrastructure approaches, it highlights the spontaneity, diversity, and informality of African urbanism as experienced by older adults. The findings challenge dominant narratives that portray older people solely as caregivers or care receivers, demonstrating their strategies and contributions to urban life.
James Esson 