Research Review VS \1.2 (2001) 17-26 GHANAIAN MIGRANTS IN TORONTO, CANADA: CARE OF KIN AND GENDER RELATIONS Takyiwaa Man uit Introduction In the literature on African development, 'traditional' institutions such as extended families, land tenure systems and indigenous systems of authority have been presented as fetters on development by not allowing African societies to become more fully 'modern'. Scholars like Goran Hyden (1980) have castigated African states for being 'weak' and 'over-extended' and Hyden has coined the term 'the economy of affection' to describe such societies (1983). On the other hand, scholars like Sara Berry have brought out the continuing salience of kin relations in Africa, showing how what has often been presented as waste&l investment is actually investment in social relations and institutions that guarantees access to a range of productive and social resources (1989; 1993). Berry demonstrates how beer-drinking parties, funerals, contributions to the investiture of chiefs and the like, may act as a means to gain access to labour, which is more of a bottle-neck than land in many rural production systems. These practices also create opportunities for individuals to gain respect and to create obligations among their kin and neighbours. Berry points out that in addition to ceremonies, farmers have invested in social networks by furthering the education and careers of kin and clients and by contributing to community projects and organizations such as cooperatives, home-town improvement unions, religious associations and self-help groups (1993:160). While Berry's work focuses on farmers in rural areas, much of what she says can be extended to urban areas where the kinfolk and friends whose careers are furthered often go. Indeed, the boundaries between rural and urban areas in Africa are highly permeable, with people moving back and forth between the city and countryside, returning 'home' for visits, funerals and festivals. Many low-salaried workers in urban areas around Africa maintain farms in rural areas to which they return on weekends or during periods of vacation or leave. They may also rely on gifts of food from kin in the countryside to supplement their inadequate wages. Successful farmers in rural areas invest profits from cash crop faring into trade or build houses in towns while in turn, successful business people build houses in their 'home towns' or return to contest chieftaincy titles and other offices (cf. Miescher.) The links between town and countryside and among kinsfolk have proved important as Africans have weathered economic and social crisis for more than two decades now. Under the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPS) that many countries have implemented since the early 1980s, the role of the state in economic and social life has been reduced and demand-restraint measures have been put in place. It is to family members and social networks that most rural and urban dwellers have turned to get access to credit, capital and some form of social security. An important way by which some Africans have survived the crisis and SAPS is by increasing resort to intercontinental migration (see also Coombe and Stoller 1994 on Songhay traders in New York). The initiation and financing of migration is often a family affair. Boyd (1989) has pointed out that social networks based on family or household, friendship, community ties and relations underlie much of the recent migration of Africans to industrial nations. After their arrival and 17 settlement in their new destinations, migrants maintain links with family members and friends and set up a system of resource flows that are not only economic in its impacts, but also social. The expectation is that a migrant would facilitate the travel of another family member and in that way, help to lift them from poverty to relative prosperity. In this paper I use data from my research under taken in 1996 and 1997 among Ghanaians who live in Toronto, Canada and returned migrants in Ghana to analyze migration practices and decision- making patterns; the assistance that migrants provide to family members and friends in Ghana and some of the tensions that have arisen around this between husbands and wives. Data was collected from over 60 men and women in Toronto and Ghana using standard anthropological methods of observation attendance at social gatherings, structured interview sessions, perusal of case records of refugee applicants. The African Economic Crisis Since the late 1970s, the majority of African states have experienced severe economic crisis and social dislocation. The manifestations of this crisis have been many and varied and have led to declining gross domestic product, decreased food production, low per capita caloric intake, high infant and maternal morbidity and mortality rates and impoverished quality of life for African peoples. In addition, many countries have experienced war and civil strife, leading to huge refugee outflows and the internal displacement of populations. To compound these problems, African countries also have to deal with rising HIV infection and AIDS epidemics, all of which put a strain on scarce or non-existent resources and facilities. Many states adopted Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPS) early in the 1980s as a prerequisite for aid and resources from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other world financial institutions. Policy measures under SAPS have stressed the reduction of the role of the state in both economic and social life to allow the market and private forces to generate those resources more efficiently and cheaply, in addition to demand-restraint measures and other measures to improve the medium to long-term efficiency of the economy. With these have come cuts in provision for health, education and social services, and the divestiture of state enterprises and parastatals, leading to massive unemployment and loss of social security. SAPS have been described as 'transnational policies' crafted in Washington by multi-national experts and transported to Africa where they have caused disruptions to local economies (Coombe and Stoller 1994). There has been much debate about the appropriateness and effectiveness of these programs, among a variety of commentators and critics, including the UN Economic Commission for Africa (EGA), the World Bank and the UNDP. Ghana has provided a good case study to examine the implications of many of such policy prescriptions and what it has meant in practice for the quality of life of its population (Rimmer 1993). It was one of the first countries to adopt a SAP in 1983 and its faithful application of many aspects of SAPS earned it the reputation of star pupil and model of adjustment (Greene 1987; cf. Toye 1991). For many years, Ghana was touted as a 'success' story, although the World Bank became more muted in its praise and expressed 'doubts' about the sustainability of Ghana's reforms (World Bank 1993). While some growth has been recorded in some sectors of Ghana's economy- the mining and extractive sector, cocoa exports and the service sector and investments in infrastructure have improved roads and telecommunications- non-export agriculture has continued to stagnate and industry and manufacturing have recorded little real growth. A major disappointment of Ghana's SAP was the failure to attract foreign private investment, with 18 Research ReviewVS 17.2 (2001) 17-26 worrying implications for employment generation and the long-term regeneration of the economy. According to the World Bank, at current rates of growth, it would take the poorest Ghanaians '...50 years to cross the poverty line' (World Bank 1993). I want to suggest in this paper that migration out of Ghana and increasingly out of the African continent has been a major way in which many impoverished Ghanaians have sought to deal with economic decline and SAPS (cf. Coombe and Stoller 1994 who suggest a similar response by Songhay from Niger; also Carter 1997 for Senegalese in Turin, Italy). Contemporary Ghanaian Migrations Migration has been practised extensively within Ghana and the West African sub-region for centuries (Adepoju 1988; 1995). It re-emerged as a tried and tested strategy for many Ghanaians from the late 1970s following deteriorating economic and social conditions. The extent of out-migration was dramatized in 1983 when Nigeria expelled about one million Ghanaian nationals in response to its own escalating crisis. It has been estimated that at least one-tenth of the Ghanaian population now lives abroad in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Australia (Peil 1995). Migrants are drawn from all socio-economic groups and ethnicities from urban and rural areas in Ghana and include women who migrate with husbands or on their own. Migration may be viewed as a privatized investment scheme, to enable Ghanaians themselves to supply the necessary capital for national regeneration,1 Many Ghanaians leave despite difficulties with obtaining visas and valid documents. It is seen as an economic imperative by many and the only means for providing stability for migrants and their families left at home, and is usually undertaken with the assistance of other family members. Constant fluctuations in the value of the cedi, the national currency, make the possession of small sums of hard currency a hedge for many families at home in Ghana and allows them to survive above the margins. Migration is also seen by many as the only means to finance expensive 'projects' such as house construction in Ghana (Dike and Tipple, 1992). In a situation of high population growth and institutional inability to meet housing needs, the urban rental market has also come to depend in large part on housing construction by migrants. It has been noted that the ongoing construction of a house in Ghana is an important reason for delaying the return honie by many migrants (Peil op cii). But it is not only families that have a positive interest in out-migration. Data from the Bank of Ghana indicates that remittances from migrants are now equal to or greater than the value of official bilateral aid. In 1983, private transfers were only $16.5 million dollars, compared to $72.4 million for official transfers. Since 1991, private transfers have equalled or surpassed official transfers and were $263.2 million in 1995 compared to $260.0 million of official transfers (Bank of Ghana, 1997). Other data from the Agricultural Development Bank which is the correspondent for Western Union in Ghana showed appreciable increases in remittances that are paid to recipients in Ghanaian cedis (Agricultural Development Bank, 1997). From transfers of $3 million between March and December 1994, the figure increased to $12 million in 1995, $24 million in 1996 and in the first quarter of 1997, almost $8 million had been sent to Ghana (ibid.). These transfers do not reflect other contributions in kind that migrants make to their natal families, other relatives, friends, their alma maters and their communities. Migrants send durable consumer goods such as television sets, refrigerators, cars, gifts of doth2 and clothing to their relatives and have built houses or acquired plots of land to do so. As one of my informants confirmed: "From what you can see, I have virtually transferred back home all that I have acquired since I came here. Everything, but I don't see what has come out of it. I am 19 trying to calculate it for you- $5,000 for the plot, $4,150 for my brother (to travel to come here); $1,500 to my other brother; $1500 to my mother. The expenses on the bus I bought and sent home came to about $6,000. This is about $18,000, representing bulk sums of money I have sent home. II does not include the smaller amounts- $200 here. $300 there, for subsistence that has been sent on several other occasions. I came here in 1990. So in the six years I have been here, 1 have transferred at least US $20,000. ... First, the money I sent to rny brother to start a shop. Well, I know he is a young man and he is not working. Secondly, I know the conditions in Ghana. So I was trying to set him up so he could be doing something profitable and get the means to look after himself etc. With my older brother, the intention was to help him get here and continue with his education, but he has still not arrived here. As for my mother, when she says that she has no money to maintain herself or to eat, then 1 send her money ."(field notes - 11/96.) Through ethnic and school associations, migrants have donated money and equipment for hospitals and schools and have responded to specific requests for assistance following disasters or in times of need. They have outfitted hospitals, provided books and computers to local schools and donated electricity plants and water pumps to communities. By these means, relatives, schools and communities have been enabled to maintain a level of well-being beyond what they could themselves generate from their own resources (Manuh, 1998). Though different in scale, these activities are not much different from those engaged in by the rural farmers referred to above, who seek to build patronage and create webs of obligation with kinsmen and neighbours. It has been argued that the migrations that many Third World Nationals are engaged in have not only been internally generated, but are also a response to global processes of capital restructuring (Sassen 1988; Coombe and Stoller 1994). This restructuring has led to the emergence of what has been termed "global cities," that have been identified to include New York, Chicago, London and Toronto (Sassen 1991). Third World migrants congregate in the informal sectors that have grown alongside them and attempt to eke out a living to support numerous others back home. Ghanaians in Toronto The Ghanaian community in Toronto is reported to be 20,000 strong, although census figures give a much lower estimate of around 8,000 people. It is made up of older residents who have lived in Toronto from the early 1970s and newer residents who arrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Many of the latter came in as 'refugees' and cited political and social conditions in Ghana that put them in fear for their lives based on their political and/or religious beliefs. Since 1992 when Ghana returned to multi-party politics, such claims have been harder to sustain and some claimants on waiting lists have been sent back to Ghana. Ghanaian migrants in Toronto include nearly all social classes and ethnic groups in Ghana, although southern Ghanaian Akan tend to be in the majority. Women are also included, sometimes as wives, and sometimes as autonomous migrants. Some migrants are highly educated while others can barely communicate in English, Before their arrival in Toronto, they had many different occupations including petty trading, artisana! work, teaching and lower civil servants. The majority of Ghanaian migrants in Toronto are employed in blue-collar positions as factory hands or in assembly plants. Some also drive taxi-cabs under various arrangements. Hours of work range from 40-68 hours a week including overtime, at their regular workplace from Monday to Saturday. In addition, on Friday and Saturday evenings, some factory workers drive taxi-cabs 20 Research Review NS 17.2 (2001) 17-26 for 16-20 hours/week about 3 times a month. Some women are engaged in 'agency' work, where they stay home and are called up by an agency as work becomes available- Other women operate out of their homes as hairdressers and seamstresses. Another area of employment is food shops specializing in tropical produce and Ghanaian foods. Over all, gaining access to secure employment has been a worry for many migrants as the Canadian economy has been in recession for many years. This has made it necessary for many migrants to move from one job to the next as they are laid off temporarily or permanently. Migrants maintain close interactions with each other and this is facilitated by their living arrangements and work situations, the close family or hometown ties that exist among many of them, common church membership and other associational ties. Births and deaths are highly performative events and give rise to expressions of solidarity and gift giving according to particular Ghanaian cultural norms and affirm shared notions of cultural practice, solidarity and identity at the same time as some of these notions are contested in other realms. In addition, Canada's adherence to a policy of rrrulticulturalisrn since the 1970s and its support through local grants for community organizations encouraged the formation of organizations among Ghanaian migrants to support the cultural mosaic that is Canada. The Support of Kin and Friends As noted above, migration is often initiated with the financial and moral support of other family members and is seen as an enterprise or strategy to maximize the options available to individuals, their families and their communities of origin in a situation of continuing insecurity. The close ties and interactions that migrants maintain with each other also result in keeping Ghana in the forefront of a migrant's mind and actions. Buttressing this arc the ties that migrants maintain with their families and friends in Ghana with whom they stay in touch through phone calls, letters, cassette tapes and home visits. Migrants are kept abreast of family and community news while they also use those same channels to negotiate marriages, the acquisition of land and other property, and their eventual return to Ghana. Cassette tapes are an especially effective means of staying in touch because of the power of the spoken word and the essentially oral culture of most Ghanaian communities. They allow their senders to utilize a broad range of oral media including speech, songs, tears, laughter and prayer, and have the capacity to work on the emotions of listeners that the written word often cannot have. Mothers and other relatives at home speak constantly of 'me he ye cassette ako ma no,' ('I am sending him/her a cassette") as a way of getting the attention of an errant traveler or on hearing news of practices that they find disagreeable. In these cassettes, the listener is reminded of the circumstances of the family, the reason why s/he traveled and what expectations the family has, as a way of centering them in his/her attention and plans. To be fair, migrants also speak of their concerns for their families in Ghana and their wish to do 'something' for them. Migrants keep abreast with exchange rates of the Ghanaian cedi to the US dollar and other trends in the economy, including the price of cement, which is the popular material used for construction. They are sometimes frustrated by what they see as never-ending inflation and increases in Ihe prices of consumer goods. However, it. is not everybody in the family who gets supported, and neither are all requests for help treated with the same urgency. Moreover, tensions arise over the level of support to a man's relations as opposed to the woman's relations. To understand decision-making patterns, we need to look at the rhetoric and practice of family moralities. Gwendolyn Mikeil (1989) has examined matrilineal Akan kinship norms and the contraction over time of the inheriting group in favour of the; 'yafuno kuro,' the children of one's uterus, (i.e. 21 from the same mother). Thus while in theory, the matrilineage appears as a unified whole against the rest of the world, in practice, inheritance of property is limited to uterine siblings and their children, usually male. It is only when there are no uterine siblings or nephews that property will pass to another related group within the matrilineage. Mikell also points out the declining position of women within the matrilineage and their loss of inheritance rights over time. From talking to informants, there were particular categories of family and kin who were perceived as meriting the most support. These included children and/or wives that they had left behind in Ghana, and their mothers. Supporting children, wives and mothers were seen as obligations that could not be compromised, although there was considerable disagreement over whether the same level of support was given to one's own mother as against the support for a mother-in-law. The other source of disagreement was over the determination of the relative needs of mothers and mothers-in-law, and some women saw themselves as transferring resources to their husbands' families because their own families were perceived as being better off. The most support was sent for children. These remittances tended to be regular and were sent for school fees and living expenses at monthly or quarterly intervals. In addition, clothes and other consumer items would be sent for the children and their caregivers. Many informants reported a considerable tapering off of support after their children arrived to join them in Canada. The next category for support were mothers, and all informants stated that they would not hesitate to send money for health care expenses and daily subsistence or to have them come to Canada for medical care. Many informants aspired to build a house for their mothers, and some informants had already done so. In one situation where there were three brothers in Toronto, they had contributed money, albeit in unequal shares, to put up a house for their mother in their natal village. This house was seen as a family asset, which would belong to their branch of the matrilineage. In another case, an informant was under considerable pressure to complete a house he had begun for his mother who rented a room in her natal village, considered a rather embarrassing prospect. His problems were further compounded when he received an early morning phone call from his brother alleging that they had heard that he was building a house for his wife at the time that he had not completed his mother's house.3 The house for the mother would become an asset for their unit of the matrilineage, and it was therefore in the interest of his siblings that it be completed. While mothers in general were supported, some wives believed that the requests of their own mothers were not given the same priority as those of their mothers-in-law and this was often a source of tension. According to them, some husbands saw this as the responsibility of the woman herself even when assets were pooled, and many women expressed dissatisfaction with the practice. On the other hand, some couples had worked out a system for balancing what was sent to each side of their extended families and believed that it contributed to marital harmony. Fathers were also supported, but it was only in few cases that they were regarded with the same urgency that was expressed towards mothers. This is not surprising given that we are dealing with predominantly matrilineal people among whom fathers are not considered part of the family although children maintain important relationships with them and owe them definite obligations (see Manuh 1997). Where these fathers had supported migrants and had paid for their education or training, they were as likely to be supported as much as mothers were. Another factor tending towards their support was where they were still married to the migrant's mother and co-habited with her. However, I heard no one speak about building a house for their father because under Akan inheritance principles, such a house would pass to the father's own matrilineage and be inheritable by his successors. Support of fathers was usually in the form of 22 Research Review NS 17.2 (2001) 17-26 money, gifts of cloth and clothing and medical expenses. Sometimes fathers, like mothers, were also brought over to Canada for medical care. The concern that was expressed for mothers did not seem to extend to sisters who were often regarded by male migrants as just reproducing without much regard to the care of those children. Indeed there appeared to be some irritation at the claims or demands of sisters on the part of male migrants, although female migrants appeared more tolerant of their sisters. Some migrants had assisted in bringing over one or more of their nephews who were the sons of their sisters. They saw this as fulfilling an obligation and freeing them from direct responsibility for their sisters and their other children. In one case, a niece had been brought over to Toronto by her uncle and her subsequent misbehavior had caused her mother and her other siblings much anguish, as this was seen as blocking the chances of the remaining siblings to be brought over to Canada. The cassette that was sent to the uncle was a combination of thanks for all that he and his wife had done for them, as well as admonitions to the girl to shape up. The younger brother of the girl had contributed his own pleas to his uncle and sharp rebukes to his sister on her reported behavior. Migrants were also concerned about their brothers, particularly younger ones, although in some cases, considerable sums had also been expended to arrange the journeys of older brothers or to set them up. The ideal was to get a brother to join them in Toronto, so there would be two of them working to uplift the family. This was not only a desire of male migrants, but was also shared by female migrants who worked hard to get a brother or two over so they could secure their own futures and also contribute to the upkeep of other family members back home. There was much talk about using their papers to sponsor their brothers or sometimes their mothers, who could then file for admission for their children and grandchildren on the grounds that they were the sole source of support and caregiver.4 In a rather ingenious move, female migrants sometimes spoke of using their papers to 'marry' their brothers to secure their entry into Canada. Where a migrant had been assisted to travel by a particular family member, special obligations and debts were incurred which could not be discharged once and for all time. This is illustrated by the case of Mensah, whose travel was facilitated by his mother's sister's son, Kumi.5 Sometime after Mensah's arrival in Canada, he had sent Kumi money to buy a plot of land to build a house for him. Later, Kumi informed him that he was low on funds from helping him to travel, so he wanted to use the money for his business. About a year later, Kumi travelled abroad and called Mensah to send him money to buy a car, and US $2000 was sent to him in Britain. After about three years when Mensah went to Ghana for a visit, he brought down a Mazda pick-up truck and other gifts for him. He also bought a sheep and imported alcoholic drink and went with a party to 'thank' him. He also sent cloth on frequent basis to Kumi's wife. From these presents and demands, it can be inferred that the older 'brother' Kumi, saw his sponsorship as an investment that generated multiple obligations. Mensah's own aspiration was to be able to sponsor one of Kumi's children to Canada. In addition to direct family members, friends back in Ghana could also be supported, and friendship networks were seen as useful and enduring. A friend who had facilitated the journey could have a child named in his honor and could receive some of the gifts that Kumi received or be given assistance for specific purposes. A child of such a friend could also be facilitated to travel to Canada. But migrants do not have unlimited resources and the assistance that they give to family and friends in Ghana becomes a vicious cycle for them as it delays their own prospects at capital accumulation. As I noted above, some migrants considered that they had virtually transferred back to Ghana all that they had made, and they became frustrated when they could not see that 23 those transfers were being put to a productive use. Even more important are the tensions that such transfers generate in marital relations leading to divorce or marital disruption and acrimonious relations. Tensions in Gender Relations Women, no less than men in Toronto, are also expected to contribute to the upkeep of their families back home in Ghana. When they are unmarried and migrate on their own, there is little problem. The problem occurs with marriage and the balancing that arises between the needs and interests of the conjugal family and those of the wider extended families on both sides. These tensions are not peculiar to Canada and also occur in Akan marriages in Ghana (cf. Oppong). However, conditions are different in Ghana where financial autonomy between spouses is the norm for most couples. Men and women are responsible for specific expenses for themselves and their children and cultural norms support the fulfillment of obligations of each party to their kin. In addition, opportunities for most women to earn relatively high incomes are restricted because of their lower educational attainments and discriminatory provisions in culture and practice, and the majority of employed women work in trade, agriculture or food processing. Discursively, married women are supposed to be maintained by their husbands, but the actual level of maintenance varies considerably and few women are content to depend on a man's charity. In Canada, both men and women work, often in similar types of establishments. While most men still end up making higher wages because they work longer hours or work night shifts and sometimes do more specialized tasks, women also have the opportunity to work. Sometimes women's employment chances are more secure because they are considered more docile and less threatening, and they do not make considerably less than their husbands. This generates a number of conflicts between some wives and their husbands who resent the fact that their wives are earning incomes and are no longer as dependent on them. A key area around which contestation occurs is over control to the earnings of a wife. Some men maintain that because they brought their wives over to Canada, they are entitled to the control of their wages and demand that they hand the cheques. Many women are also told by their spouses that the norm in Canada is for couples to pool their resources and many attempt initially to conform, but the experience of many has led to some disenchantment. They allege that husbands tend to treat the account as their own and make withdrawals without their knowledge and consent to benefit themselves or their extended families in Ghana. Women also say that families in Ghana do not know that women work as hard and in similar work as their husbands and that in Canada, men do not look after women. As a result, many women refuse to maintain joint accounts, but provide money for particular items of expenditure such as rent or groceries and dispose of the rest of their income as they choose, The need for each party in a marriage to maintain their own extended families also generates its own tensions and quarrels abound over gift parcels to Ghana and what is sent by a wife to her own mother as opposed to what she sends to her mother-in-law, and vice versa. Some men have accused their wives of putting up houses in Ghana without their knowledge or of using conjugal assets to build houses for their own mothers and these often lead to the dissolution of marriages, and women also make the same allegations. There were allegations of men building houses with conjugal assets and putting them in the names of sisters, which generated tensions with wives. These accusations lead to stress and persistent quarrels in marital relations and sometimes result in divorce. The need to accumulate money and resources to support family and kin in 24 Research ReviewUS 17.2 (2001) 17-26 Ghana can also lead to the pursuit of dubious life styles with health consequences for women. The perception that their daughter or son has been unfairly treated in a relationship can also pitch families against each other in Ghana and disrupt longstanding harmonious relationships. Conclusions The continuing African crisis has challenged populations to come up with creative and sustainable ways of ensuring livelihoods and generating productive capital for the development of their societies. More and more, populations find themselves on their own as states have disengaged from many areas of social and economic life in their bid to cut budget deficits and qualify for grants and aid from international monetary and financial institutions. While aggregate figures may show some growth in African economies, these have not translated to the welfare of citizens whose access to bank credit and other sources of support have reduced as a result of high interest rates and other deflationary measures. It is to kin, family and friendship networks that people have turned to maintain access to productive resources. As this paper has shown, intra and intercontinental migration has emerged as a strategy to broaden options and it has been enthusiastically embraced by some groups in the population. The paper has brought out the contributions of migrants to the national economy and to communities and families in Ghana. But these contributions have not been without their costs and the paper also discusses the increasing tensions in gender relations and contestations over the control of the earnings of a spouse and the uses to which conjugal assets are put. The tensions over the interests of the conjugal family unit and the obligations that each spouse owes to their own lineage group are longstanding, but they also have been exacerbated by the new opportunities that migration provides. As prospects for the regeneration of African economies continue to hang in the balance, these tensions are not likely to dissipate, but in the short to medium term can be expected to increase and to cause,further disruptions in family life and the care of kin. References Adepqju, Aderanti, 1988. International Migration in Africa South of the Sahara. In Reginald T. Appleyard, ed. International Migration Today. Vol. 1 Trends and Prospects. Paris: UNESCO. Adepoju, Aderanti, 1995. Migration in Africa: An Overview. In Jonathan Baker and Tade Akin Aina, eds. The Migration Experience in Africa. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Berry, Sara, 1993. No Condition is Permanent. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Bank of Ghana 1997. Unpublished Statistics. Research Department. Berry, Sara, 1989. Social Institutions and Access to Resources. Africa 59.1: 41-55. Boyd Carte and Donald Martin, 1997. States of Grace: Senegalese in Italy and the New European Immigration, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Coombe Rosemary and Paul Stoller, 1994. X Marks the Spot: The Ambiguities of African Trading in the Commerce of the Black Public Sphere. Public Culture 15: 249-274. Diko, J. and A.G. Tipple, 1992. Migrants Build at Home: Long Distance Housing Development by Ghanaians in London. Cities: 288-94 (November). Greene, Reginald H., 1987. Ghana. Helsinki: World Institute for Development Economics Research. Hyden, Goran, 1980. Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hyden, Goran, 1983. No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Manuh, Takyiwaa, 1998. Diasporas, Unities and the Marketplace: Tracing Changes in Ghanaian Fashion. Journal of African Studies 16.1:13-19. 25 Manuh, Takyiwaa, 1997. Wives, Children and Intestate Succession in Ghana. In Gwendolyn Mikeli, editor, African Feminisms: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mikeli, Gwendolyn, 1989. Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana. New York: Paragon House. Oppong, Christine, Middle Class African Marriage Peil, Margaret, 1995. Ghanaians Abroad. African Affairs 94 (376):345-367. Rimmer, D., 1993. Staying Poor: Ghana's Political Economy 1950-1990. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Sassen, Saskia, 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. World Bank, 1993. African Adjustment Study: The Case of Ghana, Washington: The World Bank. 1 The recent homecoming summit in Accra attests to this expectation. 2 Cloth refers to cotton fabric which is standard wear for men and women in Ghana. Men wear it as a 8-10 yard piece in the form of a toga while women wear a 6 yard piece that is made up into a long skirt, a kaba or blouse and a third piece which can be worn at the waist over the skirt, wrapped on the head, or used as a stole. There is a scale of values around cloth, with the most prestigeous going to imported Dutch wax prints. These are very expensive now with a 12-yard full piece selling for more than $100, the equivalent of more than five months' wages for the average wage earner in Ghana. 3 'for his wife'- comment 4 Canadian immigration practices favouring certain types of kin and their immigration. 5 Using the Akan classificatory system, Mensah referred to Kumi as me bra- 'my brother'. 26