THE POWER OF SPACE IN THE EVOLUTION OF AN ACCRA ZONGO

This article examines the culture of space and its relationship to community development and leadership, using an Accra zongo (stranger community) as a case example. The situation of Accra's Muslims in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries was one of social and spatial unity, even as they fought to maintain ethnic distinctiveness. One Hausa faction formed a separate enclave, known as Sabon Zongo. As a "stranger" group, they had no inherent rights to land but were granted rights by the local Ga, which were confirmed by the British. Over the years, the chieftaincy and the status of the original chiefly family have changed. The community's social and spatial history demonstrates how these are ordered by and reflect the power structures to which the community is subordinated.