Michael Stasik
Biographic Data
| ID | 136403 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Stasik |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Stasik |
| SIGNATURE | STASIK M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Society |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6354-2323 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Chop money life
In this article, I explore how older, jobless informal workers in urban Ghana's transport sector struggle to sustain their livelihoods by relying on associational solidarity, particularly the redistributive practice of 'chop money.' I situate my analysis of the social and economic implications of chop money dependence in the context of the sweeping precarization of urban labour since the 1980s, as well as the absence of public welfare provision a…
Aloneness and the terms of detachment in West African migration
In this article, I examine practices of social detachment among West African migrants in urban Ghana. Faced with pressures arising from expectations of reciprocity, especially from kin back home, some migrants exert considerable efforts to break, if temporarily, with relations of mutual recognition and support, entering what I term migratory aloneness. Far from being an individualizing endeavour linked to the corrosive effects of modernization, t…
Temporalities of waiting in Africa
Ethnographic accounts of Africa in the late 20th century described a continent in which people were seemingly waiting endlessly for a future that would not come (Ferguson 1999; Piot 2010). Driven b
Riedel, Felix. 2016. Hexenjagd und Aufklärung in Ghana. Von den medialen Inszenierungen des Okkulten zur Realität der Ghettos für Hexenjagdflüchtlinge. Köln
Author: Stasik, Michael; Genre: Book Review; Issued: 2017; Open Access; Title: [Review of:] Hexenjagd und Aufklärung in Ghana: Von den medialen Inszenierungen des Okkulten zur Realität der Ghettos für Hexenjagdflüchtlinge, by Felix Riedel. 2016. Köln
Introduction to Special Issue
Introduction to Special Issue:Bus Stations in Africa Michael Stasik (bio) and Sidy Cissokho (bio) Bus stations are among the most prominent sites of everyday social and economic activity in Africa. The lorry park, motor park, garage, gare routière, parkazy, or terminal rodoviário-to cite but a few of the names used in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone contexts, respectively-is an essential hub in the organization of mobility. The role that b…
Station Waka-Waka
Michael Stasik, Gabriel Klaeger, Station Waka-Waka: The Temporalities and Temptations of (Not) Working in Ghanaian Bus Stations, Africa Today, Vol. 65, No. 2, Bus Stations in Africa (Winter 2018), pp. 93-110
The Popular Niche Economy of a Ghanaian Bus Station
This article combines the concept of a 'popular economy' with that of a 'niche economy' to analyse the workings of a central bus station in Accra, Ghana, and, by extension, of Ghana's public transport sector at large. In doing so it departs from generic models of the 'informal sector' commonly used for describing road and roadside entrepreneurship in African contexts. At the same time, it challenges prevalent views of popular economies bent on em…
An Introduction to the African Road
How to dance to Beethoven in Freetown
Different people perceive sounds differently. Though a seemingly obvious insight at first, these differences lead to questions about how sounds are organised into patterns perceived to be music or noise. Drawing on fieldwork in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, this paper tackles this conundrum. I start with some acoustemological vignettes about Freetown’s sonic environments, juxtaposing these explorations of ‘sonic sensibilities’ with reflection…
The Making of the African Road
The Making of the African Road offers an account of the long-distance road in Africa. Being a latecomer to automobility and far from saturated mass mobility, the African road continues to be open for diverging interpretations and creative appropriations. The road regime on the continent is thus still under construction, and it is made in more than one sense: physically, socially, politically, morally and cosmologically. The contributions to this …
Rhythm, Resonance and Kinaesthetic Enskilment in a Ghanaian Bus Station
In this article, I explore the workings of a long-distance bus station in Accra, Ghana, by focusing on the relationship between rhythm and practice. In Accra's station, departures do not follow pre-designated scripts of clock-time but are timed collectively by the inflow of passengers. These inflows follow diverse rhythmic temporalities co-composed in Accra and in the destinations served from the station. I show that by attending to the rhythmici…
Market men and station women
It is impossible to understand the gendered relation between women and public space without taking into account its other, that is, male engagements with and in space. Our joint paper contrasts the public spaces of a market and a bus station in central Accra, Ghana. While the former is historically associated with female entrepreneurship, masculinity is deeply inscribed in the activities defining the latter. However, recent developments gradually…
Contingent constellations
In this article, I explore the intricate relationship between regulation and contingency in processes of urban economic organisation by focusing on the workings of a central bus station in Accra, Ghana. After introducing the position of the station in Ghana’s urban economy and transport infrastructure, I set out its internal regulative arrangements in relation to larger socio-economic and political constellations the practices of the station work…
Real Love Versus Real Life
The most popular music among youths in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown is music dealing with love. While the music, which is mainly of foreign origin, evokes idealized images of 'real love', the real-life relationships of its young audiences are characterized by chronic states of emotional uncertainty and dissatisfaction. Economic disparities lead to an increasing monetization of young people's relationships, driving them either into a fragile fl…
Vernacular Neoliberalism
Public transport in Ghana is a private enterprise. The incapacity of the Ghanaian state to adequately provide for transport services is at once capitalized on and compensated for by local entrepreneurs. Characterized principally by market-oriented entrepreneurial actions, their practices have not only been never captured by the state, but they form the basis for repelling regulative forays of the state. Manifest in the socially embedded economic …
Temporalities of waiting in Africa
Ethnographic accounts of Africa in the late 20th century described a continent in which people were seemingly waiting endlessly for a future that would not come (Ferguson 1999; Piot 2010). Driven b
Rhythm, Resonance and Kinaesthetic Enskilment in a Ghanaian Bus Station
In this article, I explore the workings of a long-distance bus station in Accra, Ghana, by focusing on the relationship between rhythm and practice. In Accra's station, departures do not follow pre-designated scripts of clock-time but are timed collectively by the inflow of passengers. These inflows follow diverse rhythmic temporalities co-composed in Accra and in the destinations served from the station. I show that by attending to the rhythmici…
The Making of the African Road
The Making of the African Road offers an account of the long-distance road in Africa. Being a latecomer to automobility and far from saturated mass mobility, the African road continues to be open for diverging interpretations and creative appropriations. The road regime on the continent is thus still under construction, and it is made in more than one sense: physically, socially, politically, morally and cosmologically. The contributions to this …
Vernacular Neoliberalism
Public transport in Ghana is a private enterprise. The incapacity of the Ghanaian state to adequately provide for transport services is at once capitalized on and compensated for by local entrepreneurs. Characterized principally by market-oriented entrepreneurial actions, their practices have not only been never captured by the state, but they form the basis for repelling regulative forays of the state. Manifest in the socially embedded economic …
Introduction to Special Issue
Introduction to Special Issue:Bus Stations in Africa Michael Stasik (bio) and Sidy Cissokho (bio) Bus stations are among the most prominent sites of everyday social and economic activity in Africa. The lorry park, motor park, garage, gare routière, parkazy, or terminal rodoviário-to cite but a few of the names used in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone contexts, respectively-is an essential hub in the organization of mobility. The role that b…
Market men and station women
It is impossible to understand the gendered relation between women and public space without taking into account its other, that is, male engagements with and in space. Our joint paper contrasts the public spaces of a market and a bus station in central Accra, Ghana. While the former is historically associated with female entrepreneurship, masculinity is deeply inscribed in the activities defining the latter. However, recent developments gradually…
Real Love Versus Real Life
The most popular music among youths in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown is music dealing with love. While the music, which is mainly of foreign origin, evokes idealized images of 'real love', the real-life relationships of its young audiences are characterized by chronic states of emotional uncertainty and dissatisfaction. Economic disparities lead to an increasing monetization of young people's relationships, driving them either into a fragile fl…
The Popular Niche Economy of a Ghanaian Bus Station
This article combines the concept of a 'popular economy' with that of a 'niche economy' to analyse the workings of a central bus station in Accra, Ghana, and, by extension, of Ghana's public transport sector at large. In doing so it departs from generic models of the 'informal sector' commonly used for describing road and roadside entrepreneurship in African contexts. At the same time, it challenges prevalent views of popular economies bent on em…
Contingent constellations
In this article, I explore the intricate relationship between regulation and contingency in processes of urban economic organisation by focusing on the workings of a central bus station in Accra, Ghana. After introducing the position of the station in Ghana’s urban economy and transport infrastructure, I set out its internal regulative arrangements in relation to larger socio-economic and political constellations the practices of the station work…
Station Waka-Waka
Michael Stasik, Gabriel Klaeger, Station Waka-Waka: The Temporalities and Temptations of (Not) Working in Ghanaian Bus Stations, Africa Today, Vol. 65, No. 2, Bus Stations in Africa (Winter 2018), pp. 93-110
Vernacular Neoliberalism
Public transport in Ghana is a private enterprise. The incapacity of the Ghanaian state to adequately provide for transport services is at once capitalized on and compensated for by local entrepreneurs. Characterized principally by market-oriented entrepreneurial actions, their practices have not only been never captured by the state, but they form the basis for repelling regulative forays of the state. Manifest in the socially embedded economic …
Market men and station women
It is impossible to understand the gendered relation between women and public space without taking into account its other, that is, male engagements with and in space. Our joint paper contrasts the public spaces of a market and a bus station in central Accra, Ghana. While the former is historically associated with female entrepreneurship, masculinity is deeply inscribed in the activities defining the latter. However, recent developments gradually…
Contingent constellations
In this article, I explore the intricate relationship between regulation and contingency in processes of urban economic organisation by focusing on the workings of a central bus station in Accra, Ghana. After introducing the position of the station in Ghana’s urban economy and transport infrastructure, I set out its internal regulative arrangements in relation to larger socio-economic and political constellations the practices of the station work…
Real Love Versus Real Life
The most popular music among youths in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown is music dealing with love. While the music, which is mainly of foreign origin, evokes idealized images of 'real love', the real-life relationships of its young audiences are characterized by chronic states of emotional uncertainty and dissatisfaction. Economic disparities lead to an increasing monetization of young people's relationships, driving them either into a fragile fl…
An Introduction to the African Road
How to dance to Beethoven in Freetown
Different people perceive sounds differently. Though a seemingly obvious insight at first, these differences lead to questions about how sounds are organised into patterns perceived to be music or noise. Drawing on fieldwork in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, this paper tackles this conundrum. I start with some acoustemological vignettes about Freetown’s sonic environments, juxtaposing these explorations of ‘sonic sensibilities’ with reflection…
The Making of the African Road
The Making of the African Road offers an account of the long-distance road in Africa. Being a latecomer to automobility and far from saturated mass mobility, the African road continues to be open for diverging interpretations and creative appropriations. The road regime on the continent is thus still under construction, and it is made in more than one sense: physically, socially, politically, morally and cosmologically. The contributions to this …
Rhythm, Resonance and Kinaesthetic Enskilment in a Ghanaian Bus Station
In this article, I explore the workings of a long-distance bus station in Accra, Ghana, by focusing on the relationship between rhythm and practice. In Accra's station, departures do not follow pre-designated scripts of clock-time but are timed collectively by the inflow of passengers. These inflows follow diverse rhythmic temporalities co-composed in Accra and in the destinations served from the station. I show that by attending to the rhythmici…
Riedel, Felix. 2016. Hexenjagd und Aufklärung in Ghana. Von den medialen Inszenierungen des Okkulten zur Realität der Ghettos für Hexenjagdflüchtlinge. Köln
Author: Stasik, Michael; Genre: Book Review; Issued: 2017; Open Access; Title: [Review of:] Hexenjagd und Aufklärung in Ghana: Von den medialen Inszenierungen des Okkulten zur Realität der Ghettos für Hexenjagdflüchtlinge, by Felix Riedel. 2016. Köln
Introduction to Special Issue
Introduction to Special Issue:Bus Stations in Africa Michael Stasik (bio) and Sidy Cissokho (bio) Bus stations are among the most prominent sites of everyday social and economic activity in Africa. The lorry park, motor park, garage, gare routière, parkazy, or terminal rodoviário-to cite but a few of the names used in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone contexts, respectively-is an essential hub in the organization of mobility. The role that b…
Station Waka-Waka
Michael Stasik, Gabriel Klaeger, Station Waka-Waka: The Temporalities and Temptations of (Not) Working in Ghanaian Bus Stations, Africa Today, Vol. 65, No. 2, Bus Stations in Africa (Winter 2018), pp. 93-110
The Popular Niche Economy of a Ghanaian Bus Station
This article combines the concept of a 'popular economy' with that of a 'niche economy' to analyse the workings of a central bus station in Accra, Ghana, and, by extension, of Ghana's public transport sector at large. In doing so it departs from generic models of the 'informal sector' commonly used for describing road and roadside entrepreneurship in African contexts. At the same time, it challenges prevalent views of popular economies bent on em…
Temporalities of waiting in Africa
Ethnographic accounts of Africa in the late 20th century described a continent in which people were seemingly waiting endlessly for a future that would not come (Ferguson 1999; Piot 2010). Driven b
Aloneness and the terms of detachment in West African migration
In this article, I examine practices of social detachment among West African migrants in urban Ghana. Faced with pressures arising from expectations of reciprocity, especially from kin back home, some migrants exert considerable efforts to break, if temporarily, with relations of mutual recognition and support, entering what I term migratory aloneness. Far from being an individualizing endeavour linked to the corrosive effects of modernization, t…
Chop money life
In this article, I explore how older, jobless informal workers in urban Ghana's transport sector struggle to sustain their livelihoods by relying on associational solidarity, particularly the redistributive practice of 'chop money.' I situate my analysis of the social and economic implications of chop money dependence in the context of the sweeping precarization of urban labour since the 1980s, as well as the absence of public welfare provision a…
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (8 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · History (4 works) · Law (4 works)