Arts and design strategies to address climate emergency and action: the case of electronic waste in Agbogbloshie, Ghana

Drawing from the summit’s focus on untold histories (and communities), our talk, structured in three sections, will be centred around the case-study of Accra, Ghana. The city is, in the context of e-waste discourses, “infamously” known for its connection with Agbogbloshie, referred by our western media as the world’s biggest “computer graveyard”. Taking the counterpoint of this narrative, our first section will map the e-waste landfil’s hidden human infrastructure of recyclers, repairers, scrap-dealers, burners. Our second section will introduce the Agbogbloshie Maker Space Platform (AMP), empowering the community through open access to hardware modification, recycling and literacy. The third section will dive into the reflective practice of Akwasi Bediako Afrane, creatively repurposing e-waste “gadgets” for collective critical awareness and action. These three sections will enable us to shed light on the role of open-hardware, participatory design and creative repurposing to federate and amplify voices of marginalised Ghanaian e-waste workers.