The Sociology of Digital Dreams: Getting a Job in a Ghanaian Start-up, and Keeping It

In the recent past, sociological theory has been obsessed with the concept of the future, of imagining and designing possible ways of being that are yet to come. Such imaginations are closely tied to digital technologies and the promises associated with them. In my contribution, I explore how fantasies, ideas and understandings around digital work shape employment trajectories and work in Ghana. I zoom in on such forms of becoming through the analysis of the employment biographies of people working in a digital enterprise in Ghana. My argument is that the sociology of the future needs to be more firmly embedded in the analysis of digital capitalism and interrogate the ways in which digital capitalism stimulates its own forms of futuring that leave their marks on the nature of work and careers. My contribution is based on a mix-method project on the dynamics of job change in Ghana, involving a survey and 200 qualitative interviews. In this contribution, I focus on interviews carried out with employees and management in a tech start-up in Western Ghana.