Migrants and citizens: Economic crisis in Ghana and the search for opportunity in Toronto, Canada

Estimates are that more than ten per cent of the Ghanaian population now lives abroad, in response to economic and social crisis in Ghana for more than two decades now. Toronto in Canada has emerged as one of the favored destination for migrants. This study is based on ten months of fieldwork in Toronto, and in Accra and Kumasi in Ghana, among continuing and returned migrants respectively. It focuses on pragmatic issues of survival and accumulation and the intersubjective experience of migration and argues that migration is a social system that links people and their practices across space and time. The study makes references to music and song-texts produced by other Ghanaian migrants that have become a cultural shield against the alienating conditions that they confront.;Findings from the study are that migrants have actively sought Canadian citizenship for the benefits it offers them. But the Canadian state is also experienced as an over-arching system of laws that regulates work, leisure and family relationships. There is deep contestation among men and women and with children over the rights that the Canadian state grants them. Migrants have also maintained multi-stranded links to Ghana through visits and resource flows and they have succeeded in gaining the recognition of dual citizenship in Ghana citing their increasing economic contributions. Through their importation of the Ghanaian institution of chieftaincy, migrants are forging important links to traditional authority-holders in Ghana and make claims to citizenship that is not dependent on the nation-state. But migrants also face many tensions and vulnerabilities in their lives as they seek to accumulate capital sometimes without valid documents; respond to the demands of family members in Ghana; and marry, give birth and raise their children in a foreign place. The study explores the discourse of witchcraft among migrants and the role that religion and churches play in countering the evil forces that many migrants perceive as threatening their efforts.