Reordering labour, value, and informality in Accra’s e-waste economy: Circuits of persistence and precarity

Source abstract

The demolition of the Agbogbloshie scrapyard in 2021 disrupted Accra’s central hub of electronic waste (e-waste) processing, displacing thousands of workers. This study examines how these informal economies persist and adapt to this territorial reordering through mobility, role-combination, and increased reliance on intermediaries. The reorganisation of these economies reveals the economic interdependence of formal and informal systems. We draw on interviews with informal and formal stakeholders, site observation, and relevant secondary materials to advance a 3-part framework for understanding demolition-driven displacement in e-waste economies. First, we show how informal practices persist through improvisation, sustaining material circulation under conditions of heightened precarity. Second, we demonstrate how demolition intensified new forms of mediated interdependence between informal labour and formal institutions, as access to markets, training, and safer practices became more gatekeepered. Third, we analyse the plural rationalities of value that structure e-waste economies, contrasting repair and reuse logics oriented to use-value with extraction logics prioritising exchange-value, and show how displacement reweighted the viability of these strategies under more uncertain spatial and market conditions. We argue for an inclusive governance framework that promotes environmental justice and supports more equitable integration of informal recyclers into formal systems. The study contributes to debates on urban informality, waste economies, and economic geography by theorising demolition as both a political technology of (re)ordering and an enclosure/dispossession mechanism. It also shows how displacement reorganises waste livelihoods while workers’ responses sustain circulation in more fragmented and precarious geographies.