Labor Transformation Through the Prism of Communities

Abstract

Most villages of Coastal Ghana have lost their traditional livelihoods and their labor never entered global supply chains, i.e., a local working class never formed. There is a consensus in tourism literature, pointing towards tourism as a vehicle for development. However, tourism requires transformation of labor which cannot be seen in isolation from existing social and economic structures. In this chapter, the authors take a point of departure in data collected at a tourist resort in Ghana to understand why tourism has not created prosperity for the local community. Since young employees interviewed, as well as owners of the resort, expressed tension between the culture of their workplace and the culture of their communities, this case suggests that not merely transformation of labor, but transformation of communities is called for if tourism is to support livelihoods in rural Ghana.