Stretched Familiarity: Movement of Used and Discarded Electronics Between Germany and Ghana

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Accra, Tema and Hamburg, this article examines how discarded and home-used electronics move through a transnational trading network connecting Germany and Ghana. Against the backdrop of a politicised public debate on the global ‘e-waste problem’, I use the term discarded electronics to foreground the open-ended trajectories of these goods as they move between categories of commodity, repaired good, spare part, scrap and waste. I introduce the concept of stretched familiarity to analyse how knowledge, skills, contacts and trust are extended across distance through kin-based business set-ups, connections and digital platforms. Drawing on Jane Guyer’s notion of durational assets, I further show how discarded electronics are valued for their future capacities for repair, reuse, circulation and material recovery. The article contributes a cross-cutting analysis of the relational and temporal dynamics through which both value and global movement of discarded goods is shaped.