A body and a dream at a vital conjuncture: Ghanaian youth, uncertainty and the allure of football

This article investigates the rationale leading growing numbers of West African males to pursue a career in professional football, by taking the particular case of male youth in Accra and exploring how and why they are drawn into the football industry. Football is used as a lens to extend contemporary geographical debates over the agency, resourcefulness and entrepreneurialism of young people residing in the Global South. The transition from junior to senior secondary school is found to be a pivotal moment within many of the biographical accounts collected in Accra. I use theorisations of youth in sub-Saharan Africa to conceptualise this moment as a vital conjuncture, and shed light on how a career in football is now seen as a way to circumvent an education system considered to lead to unemployment, or unacceptable employment. Significantly, against a backdrop of neoliberal reform and an absence of state welfare, the perception that a career in professional football offers a means to create an income and be self-sufficient is very appealing. But it also offers more than that. It provides a means to demonstrate one’s masculinity, specifically, displays of wealth through conspicuous consumption, behaviour that young Ghanaians refer to as living the X-Way. It is argued that for male Ghanaian youth, the professional football player who is able to draw upon his latent sporting bodily capital and live the X-Way embodies resourcefulness. He is his own enterprise, a Foucauldian ‘entrepreneur of self’

Better off at home? Rethinking responses to trafficked West African footballers in Europe

The association between the football industry and the trafficking of West African youth has captivated academic, media and political interest. This article uses football trafficking as a case study to think through the broader conception of mobile African male bodies in football migration and trafficking discourses. I contribute to and move beyond existing literature on African football migration by stepping away from structural approaches currently used to conceptualise this migratory process. This is achieved by bringing migrants' subjectivities to the fore, and in doing so I also provide a novel critique of policy responses to irregular football migration. The article draws on data obtained from migrants who left West Africa for Europe, exploring the journeys these would-be footballers took, and their trajectories and circumstances after arrival. The central argument is that existing policy responses frame irregular football migrants as being ‘better off at home’. Problematically this creates a tension as for many of these migrants their country of origin is precisely where they do not want to be. Consequently, many remain in destination countries illegally without any means of subsistence

Savings and Savers: An Analysis of Saving Behaviour among Cape Town's Poor

This paper analyses the characteristics of low-income savers in a working class residential area of Cape Town. It uses the Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain Survey that was conducted in 2000. The survey was done at both a household and individual level for all adults over 18 years old. These household and individual datasets were merged to form the dataset used in this study. There were 4984 respondents of which 2644 were adults .The KMPS data set is a good foundation for analysing the characteristics of savers in a low income area characterised by high unemployment and poverty. Economic theory defines savings as that part of disposable

Alien Registration- Esson, Mary J. (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/23280/thumbnail.jp

Escape to victory: development, youth entrepreneurship and the migration of Ghanaian footballers

This article contributes to contemporary debates over the resourcefulness and entrepreneurialism of young people in the Global South by exploring the relationship between development and the migration of male youth within the football industry. Drawing on fieldwork in Accra, the paper reveals how young Ghanaians attempt to enact development as freedom through spatial mobility. Significantly, this is coupled with an awareness that their desired spatial mobility is difficult to attain, thereby inducing a sense of involuntary immobility. For some male youth, the solution to this predicament is to invest in their sporting bodily capital and become Foucauldian 'entrepreneurs of self' in the form of a professional footballer. Meanwhile for others, the solution to prevailing economic pressures is to embrace financial risk by becoming entrepreneurs in the form of football club owners, and attempting to profit from the movement of players. The interests of these two sets of entrepreneurs coalesce around the fact that the mobility of footballers is crucial to generating a return on their respective investments. It is argued that the construction of young Ghanaians as responsible for their future life chances, and the growing dissonance between aspirations and the ability to migrate, is a key reason why youth are trying to migrate through football. Problematically, this can foster conditions favourable for irregular migration

A One Health approach to investigating the health and prevalence of zoonotic pathogens in snow leopards, sympatric wildlife, domestic animals and humans in the South Gobi Desert in Mongolia

The endangered Snow leopard (Panthera uncia) inhabits the high mountain regions through central Asia and is subjected to numerous threats including poaching for traditional Chinese medicine, retribution killing for preying on domestic stock, and habitat fragmentation. However the occurrence and impact of disease on snow leopard populations is unknown. As emerging infectious diseases of wildlife can be an insidious yet important cause of population decline due to mortality or reproductive failure, my study aimed initially to gain knowledge of pathogens circulating among wild and domestic hosts in this region. I used a broad One Health approach to survey a range of species to collect data on disease occurrence that would be useful in improving human and livestock health, as well as snow leopard conservation. This study is set in the Tost Mountains of the South Gobi Desert of Mongolia and was prompted due to the unexplained deaths of four snow leopards detected within a short timeframe during an ecological study by members of the Snow Leopard Trust. However, investigating disease occurrence in remote, rare and endangered species is a challenge due to inaccessibility of sites, difficulty of capture, and processing samples without facilities. A One Health approach uses multidisciplinary expertise such as ecological, medical and veterinary, to understand host, pathogen and environmental disease factors. This approach is especially useful for diseases that transfer between people, domestic animals and wildlife. As snow leopards are a rare and elusive species, my surveys were aimed at assessing pathogens circulating in snow leopards as well as in sympatric wild and domestic animals. I collected samples from the following hosts: snow leopards – the target species; rodents which are ubiquitous over the study area and are a suitable sentinel species; ibex which are a native ungulate and natural prey species of the snow leopard; domestic goats which are also a prey species of the snow leopard; free-ranging domestic dogs which interact with the goats. The local indigenous people interact with all these species including snow leopards, mostly via retribution killing. Water samples were also collected from waterholes and wells, which are communal meeting places as drinking sources for all species, hence enabling pathogen exchange. Samples collected included blood samples, faecal samples or rectal swabs and ectoparasites if present. These samples were transported to laboratories in Sweden and Belgium where I conducted diagnostic assays for zoonotic pathogens that are present in other regions of Mongolia and impact the health of humans and animals. I used enzyme- linked immune assay (ELISA), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) for pathogens including Coxiella burnetii, Toxoplasma gondii, Leptospira spp., Brucella spp., Yersinia pestis and tick borne encephalitis virus. Serovars of Leptospira were elucidated using microscopic agglutination tests (MAT). The dog blood samples were also tested for canine distemper virus. Ticks, faeces, rectal swabs and water were tested for bacteria, Echinococcus, Giardia and Cryptosporidium using PCR and NGS. Health records for humans and animals in the region were not available so, in addition to testing animal samples, I used questionnaire surveys to obtain information on perceptions of the herders concerning health of their families, their domestic animals and wildlife. Questions also assessed preventative health management and treatments used. Over three field trips I caught and sampled twenty snow leopards, 177 rodents (8 species), 41 dogs and 270 goats. I also sampled 11 waterholes/wells, and preserved 18 ticks, hundreds of fleas and collected faecal samples from ibex. Most animals that were sampled and examined clinically appeared in good health, but the serosurvey revealed a moderate to high level of exposure to serious pathogens: C. burnetii, T. gondii and Leptospira spp. There were no published reports of human infections with these pathogens in the study area, which is likely due to a lack of testing. Snow leopards had the highest prevalence of C. burnetii antibodies (25%), followed by rodents (16%), dogs (10%) and goats (9.5%). Goats had the highest prevalence of T. gondii antibodies (90%), dogs (66%), snow leopards (20%) and rodents (16%). Rodents had the highest prevalence of Leptospira spp. (34%), followed by snow leopards (20%) and dogs (5%). Serovars interrogans Australis was identified in the rodents and snow leopards and interrogans Ictohaemorrhagiae was identified in the rodents and dogs. Other serovars were also present from the results of the ELISA but did not match those listed in the MAT panel, so could not be identified. Goats were not tested for infection with leptospirosis. Brucella was not identified in the goats even though it occurs at high prevalence in stock in the rest of Mongolia where it is a large health and economic concern. In rodents, the zoonotic Puumala and Seoul hantavirus were identified for the first time in Mongolia. Analysis of data from rodents showed the pathogens detected (C. burnetii, T.gondii, Hanta virus and Leptospira spp.) differed significantly in prevalence, with a strong year effect driven mainly by Leptospira, which increased in prevalence across the three year study period. Toxoplasma gondii differed slightly in prevalence among rodent species. There was no significant difference in prevalence of interaction of pathogens among years or rodent species. Poor health was detected in goats with 10 out of the 14 goats tested via haematology and biochemistry being anaemic with haematocrits less than 20%. Haematology and biochemistry values for the other animal species appeared normal. I established haematology and biochemistry reference tables for two rodent species - red-cheeked ground squirrels and jerboas. Water samples were negative for serious pathogens. Fleas were negative for Yersinia pestis. However, ticks were positive for several genera of potential zoonoses, including Anaplasma, Bacillus, Coxiella, Clostridia, Francisella, Rickettsia, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus and Yersinia. Faecal samples were also positive for genera of potentially zoonotic bacteria including those listed above plus Bacteroides, Bordetella, Campylobacter and Enterococcus. Results from the two questionnaire surveys revealed the main reported illness in people were colds and flu. However, the local doctor also reported hepatitis as common. She also said that the local people contracted brucellosis whereas I did not identify this pathogen in their livestock. The herders thought their main loss of stock was from predation, with wolves identified as the main predator and snow leopards as the second. Other causes of stock loss perceived as important were adverse climatic conditions such as drought or severe winters while infectious disease was not a concern. Results from these surveys also highlighted gaps in health care for humans and livestock, especially around vaccination and parasite treatments. In summary, I found that snow leopards and other wild and domestic animals within the study area tested positive for previous exposure to several important zoonotic pathogens. These pathogens were likely circulating among species via contamination of pasture and via predation and have potential to cause illness and reproductive loss. However, I detected no adverse effects on the health of the animals due to infection with these pathogens, and observed no related mortality or illness during my field trips. Hence the deaths of the four snow leopards that were the impetus for my study have not been explained, and monitoring and surveillance of this population should continue. My findings on wildlife and domestic animal pathogens have relative importance to improving productivity of livestock and the health of the nomadic herders. I recommend improving the health of goats through vaccination and anti-parasite programmes, which will improve their fecundity and survival and thus increase herder income. These programmes will also have flow-on effects to improve the health of the native ungulates that share the grazing areas by decreasing the risk of pathogen transfer between them and also to the snow leopards that prey on them. Demonstrating the importance of herd health may also help mitigate herder wildlife conflict as increased productivity could decrease the perceived importance of predation on herd numbers. Coxiella burnetii and Leptospires spp are a likely cause of illness in people, despite the lack of reported diagnoses. As rodents had a moderate prevalence of all pathogens tested and inhabit the gers of the local people, it is important to raise awareness of the risk of pathogen transfer to people via rodent excrement contaminating stored food and eating utensils. Risk of human exposure to pathogens during goat slaughter can also be reduced via improved hygiene practices. By identifying pathogens with broad host ranges in a variety of species in this remote mountainous region, my study provides the basis for understanding health risks to wildlife, domestic animals and humans. Consideration of likely transmission routes for pathogens between species can inform current recommendations to improve health, productivity and hence conservation, of the endangered snow leopard – The Ghost of the Mountain

You have to try your luck: male Ghanaian youth and the uncertainty of football migration

The migration of male African youth within the football industry, particularly cases involving human trafficking, has become a subject of academic and political interest. This article contributes to work on this topic and to literature on the agency of youth in the urban Global South by turning the academic gaze away from European actors and settings, and towards their African counterparts. Drawing upon research conducted in Ghana, the article reveals how youth perceive migration through football as a solution to the socio-­‐economic uncertainty and life constraints facing them in neoliberal Accra. This perception is tied to broader representations of spatial mobility as a precursor for social mobility. Youth attempt to achieve spatial mobility through football by ‘trying their luck’, a form of social navigation that is used to mediate the uncertainty associated with this strategy for realizing spatial change. Through illustrating why youth want to be spatially mobile and how they attempt to do so through football, this article demonstrates why studies of African football migration need to engage better with how conditions inside the football industry interact with those beyond it

Escape to victory: development, youth entrepreneurship and the migration of Ghanaian footballers

This article contributes to contemporary debates over the resourcefulness and entrepreneurialism of young people in the Global South by exploring the relationship between development and the migration of male youth within the football industry. Drawing on fieldwork in Accra, the paper reveals how young Ghanaians attempt to enact development as freedom through spatial mobility. Significantly, this is coupled with an awareness that their desired spatial mobility is difficult to attain, thereby inducing a sense of involuntary immobility. For some male youth, the solution to this predicament is to invest in their sporting bodily capital and become Foucauldian 'entrepreneurs of self' in the form of a professional footballer. Meanwhile for others, the solution to prevailing economic pressures is to embrace financial risk by becoming entrepreneurs in the form of football club owners, and attempting to profit from the movement of players. The interests of these two sets of entrepreneurs coalesce around the fact that the mobility of footballers is crucial to generating a return on their respective investments. It is argued that the construction of young Ghanaians as responsible for their future life chances, and the growing dissonance between aspirations and the ability to migrate, is a key reason why youth are trying to migrate through football. Problematically, this can foster conditions favourable for irregular migration

The art of reconstruction

The ‘Art of Reconstruction Research Project’ is where re-skilling of plastic surgeons by artists is already in an embryonic phase. In integrating the required network of associated skills, expertise and experience, the research collaboration brings together artists within The Drawing Research Group of The Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design (AAD) and the distinguished work of Professor Mike Esson, Director, The International Drawing Research Institute (IDRI). These will be working with members of the UK Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRA) and members of the Royal College of Surgeons through a comprehensive workshop and seminar programme. Building from the success and feedback of an initial provisional workshop for surgeons in November 2009 this project is structured as a pilot study to develop a new research network that will extend the application of the visual arts in medicine enabling the development and treatise of the intersection of art and science in respect of the new practice based ideas and concepts currently formulating in plastic surgery. This pilot study represents the first “substantiation" stage within this overarching objective and 4 strategic activities are identified: Professor Mike Esson 1. Design and delivery of a three day comprehensive workshop for surgeons in the field of reconstructive and cosmetic surgery; integrating both training and investigation of aesthetic principles, questioning canons of proportion and beauty, together with the introduction of practical skills through the languages of drawing and sculpture. Through established drawing and modelling disciplines and techniques surgeons will be introduced to formal aesthetic principles and strategies for dealing with interpretation of structure and space. It will provide an accessible, tactile and visual experience, the focus of which deals with proportion, negative space, contour, methods of graphic representation, and in three dimensions; notions of deconstruction and reconstruction. There will also be an investigation of the dynamic geometric solids of facial features and an understanding visual tension. 2. A two weeks public exhibition following the workshop, providing additional feedback and consultation to provide the starting point of the critical review assessment. 6 month follow up and review phase enabling a qualitative analyses of the benefits and outcomes of the thematic approaches adopted within the workshop. 3. A one day seminar, inviting all workshop participants and invited specialists and academics midway through the review phase to assess and develop the thematic research questions in respect of a roadmap for further progress and uptake. 4. This will be closely followed by a smaller workshop involving key partners and participants at the project end to further develop the thematic areas and best practice indicators against the perceived benefits