Seminar: The road to development: The construction and use of Ghana's Great North Road, 1900-2000

This seminar is about the 'Great North Road' linking the north of the Gold Coast (present day Ghana) to the south. Historians concerned with routes and trade in nineteenth century Gold Coast, usually end their accounts at the onset of colonial rule, while studies that concentrate on transport development in modern periods make little reference to the motor road linking Kumasi to Tamale and beyond.

Scholars and public commentators who do make reference to the road, discuss it mainly in terms of the role it played in the movement of northern goods (such as cattle, cotton and Shea butter) to the south and the movement of kola nuts and European goods (such as cloth, beer, soap and bicycles) from the south to the north. The focus of this presentation by Samuel Ntewusu of the University of Ghana will be on the road itself. Ntewusu will discuss labour issues and the development of settlements on the road, as well as important religious rituals and trajectories of diseases that emerged on the road.