Fragments of affinity: Photographic archives and the material performance of personhood in a zongo community of Ghana

Abstract

In Accra's migrant neighbourhoods called zongos, personal photo archives are carefully kept in plastic bags or albums, revealing the migratory biographies of living and late family members and the various social activities in which they engage. This paper unpacks the archives of three women in the zongos, interweaving the indexical values of the photographs with an analysis of their material historicity of exchange and haptic encounters. I argue that in the collections, fragments of the zongo women's personhood are both materially and ontologically diffracted, as such performing personhood in line with gendered zongo grammars and values of extended networks of affiliation, affect, and generosity. Such performance is controlled by the owners of the collections, thus creating openings for self-representation and social mobility, but also for contesting gendered grammars.