Malls, modernity and consumption: Shopping malls as new projectors of modernity in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Shopping malls in the global South have been expanding rapidly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, since 2000. Among others, they are seen as part of the processes of globalization, modernization and modernity. Using a mixed-methods approach based on case study of malls in Accra, Ghana, this study argues that malls in the global South, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, project images of modernity on account that they are framed as multiple loci of collective consumption and, as well, tend to represent nodes of global convergence.