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

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.