A Room in the City, a House in the Village: The Translocal Logic of Migrant Housing in Ghana

Access to decent and affordable housing is a major source of distress for migrants in many cities in Africa. For translocal migrants, there are limited housing pathways, further constrained by various socio-cultural practices. Using translocal migrants in Kumasi as a case, we posed and answered three key questions: (i) What housing pathways do translocal migrants pursue? (ii) How do they access and finance them? and (iii) What socio-cultural support systems shape these processes? Multiple qualitative methods were adopted, including in-depth interviews with seventy-one translocal migrants and engagement with translocal migrant associations. We find that translocal migrants initially live in shared rentals or with relatives. Ethnic networks are the core mechanism for finding and financing housing. For them, the ebbs and flows of life, capital and what is termed as a ‘progressive housing pathway' are influenced greatly by the pull of home as by the host city's housing market. Therefore, we advocate for tailored housing policies that acknowledge the duality of migrants’ lives.