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A phoenix rising? The regeneration of the Ghana garment and textile industry

2023; Oxford University Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ser/mwad022

1475-147X

David Sarpong, George Ofosu, David Botchie, Dirk Meissner,

Crafts, Textile, and Design

Abstract Some African countries’ premier industries, such as textiles, garments and agro-processing, which floundered in the face of market liberalization and stiff competition from cheap imports, are now going through regenerative changes, with some beginning to tell a cautionary tale of a leap upwards. Focusing on the Ghana garment and textile industry, we draw on a framework that integrates social practices and everyday general-purpose technologies to explore the rise, decline and regeneration of the industry. Explicating a fine analysis of how the performative reconfiguration of social practices and functional sources of innovation and technologies may combine to support innovation-driven growth, our study sheds light on how loosely connected actors within a hitherto floundering industry can learn to transform their situated practices to drive their ‘industrial regeneration’. Implications for the theory and practice of industrial regeneration are outlined.