The most critical question of the era of independence and during the decolonisation process was: Which globally and industrially relevant natural resources do Sub-Saharan African countries possess, which ones are recoverable, who could benefit from their exploration, and what would a broadened international cooperation mean for the logic of the Cold War? In this instance, Ghana, as a darling of the developing world, became the centre of geological scrutiny and a mecca for technical assistance, a meeting place for various interests and actors, many of them coming from the socialist East.

Such international mapping efforts in Ghana are the focus of this project. By using the field of geological technical assistance as its object of investigation and, at the same time, as its analytical lens, this study asks how the idea of the connection between raw materials and power was materialised, what shared world understanding was produced in this process and how the geologically produced new international relationality affected the political and societal transformation of Ghana and its (Eastern) European partners. Following the Ghanaiain and international geologists on their surveys in Ghana, give us deep insights into the postcolonial political (re)positioning and political engagement of global actors who (mis)used technical assistance to secure alliances and economic cooperation and, in this process, developed new sensitivities based on the symbolic and physical saying over the exploitation process of Ghana’s mineral deposits.