Methods

This project employed linguistic and ethnographic methods: 45 interviews with market traders, shop owners, and farmers, participant observation of trading activities, a survey of 200 market traders, and 12 audiovisual recordings of market bargaining interactions.

My Role

As the lead researcher and Fulbright-Hays Fellow, I was responsible for all aspects of research: scoping, preparing documents for approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB), developing interview and survey questions in Asante-Twi and English, recruiting participants, conducting interviews in Asante-Twi and English, assembling and leading a survey team, observing consumer behavior, and coding and analyzing data. I also worked as an apprentice shop keeper at a small neighborhood shop to acquire insights into the business of trade.

Key Findings

Survey results indicated that 75% of market traders are female, 74% rely on regular customers, and 52% require $25-200 start-up capital. Data from interviews and participant observation of trading activities revealed that the traders use a persuasive market speech genre—“sweet talk” (kasadɛ)—to acquire and “pamper” (krɔkrɔ) customers. Securing customer relationships helps temper the risks and precarity brought on by acute economic hardship. Risk occurs not just transaction by transaction but even within a single interaction, obliging traders to continually (re)assess their economic and talk strategies on a moment by moment basis. Consequently, successful traders are those who demonstrate adeptness in a broad range of linguistic strategies used to protect profit margins and avert potential losses.

Application

Analyses of women’s trading activities in the “informal” economic sector typically applies an economic methodological and theoretical lens which privileges a macro-level understanding of trade. A linguistic and ethnographic approach to investigating market traders’ everyday business practices yields a micro-level understanding of people’s experiences with, and strategies for, navigating the effects of global-level economic phenomena in everyday life.

Publication

Monson, Sarah. 2020. “We use our mouths to trade.” Anthropology News website. Feb. 20, 2020. https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2020/02/20/we-use-our-mouths-to-trade/

Presentations

Monson, Sarah. “Krɔkrɔ (‘pampering’) customers using kasadɛ (‘sweet talk’): material advantages and disadvantages in Ghanaian market interactions,” Presentation at the 116th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington DC, November 29, 2017.

Monson, Sarah. “Krɔkrɔ (‘Pampering’) One’s Customers: Managing Social Networks, Safeguarding Against Volatility,” Presentation at the 60th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association in Chicago, IL November 18, 2017.

Monson, Sarah. “If You Don’t Have Sweet Talk, You Can’t Do Business,” Presentation sponsored by the Public Affairs Section and the Information Resource Center, U.S. Embassy in Accra, Ghana, December 13, 2016.

Monson, Sarah. “Discourse Strategies and Economic Advantage: Exchange in Ghana’s Kumasi Central Market,” Presentation at the 114th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Denver, CO November 21, 2015.

Monson, Sarah. “An Investigation of Market Discourse in Ghana’s Kumasi Central Market,” Presentation at African Studies Program Noon Talk Series, Indiana University Bloomington, October 28, 2014.

Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant. Language training was supported by Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships for Akan (Asante-Twi). I gratefully credit David Adu-Amankwah for translation assistance with IRB documents. Juliana Afriyie, Ida Assem, and Samuel Obeng provided invaluable assistance with language transcription and translation.