ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to overcome the anti-material and anti-technological bias of our discipline, as well as the typically Western, taken-for-granted attitude towards cars which we appeared to reproduce in our reaction to the Ghanaian mechanics, and investigate cars in their mundane as well as symbolical, material-technological as well as spiritual dimensions. Kwaku’s story reveals a tremendously powerful will and capacity – at least on the part of ordinary people – to keep the engine working by all means, even at a time when the West tends to forget Africa as much as its old, cast-off cars. Ghana is almost fully dependent on lorries and cars for the transport of goods and people, for it does not have an elaborate railway system. When one wants to travel in Ghana, one travels by car. Though the state maintains particular bus lines between big cities with rather good material, this kind of public transport is of minor importance compared to the private sector.
