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Land and Contestations over Autochthony and Local Citizenship in Agrarian Ghana

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  • Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey

Abstract

This article examines the reimagination of communities in an industrial cassava frontier of Ghana in the wake of a contested land grab supported by state and community institutions. Qualitative and survey data were used to construct the existing social relations in the communities through the lens of earlier processes of agrarian change that have transformed the social base of the communities. It is argued that the expansion of capitalist production systems into agrarian areas results in local citizenship contestations centered on land, and redefinition and reclassification of people and their access to land. The multiple claims and contestations that arose from the land grab and the political reactions from below are highlighted. It is further argued that differentiated dispossession and class differences determine the strategies used by affected people. While some farmers demonstrated agency by holding on to a “little pie†to enjoy greater community social cohesion, others, drawing from their local citizenship status, although contested, fought the land grab.

Suggested Citation

  • Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey, 2022. "Land and Contestations over Autochthony and Local Citizenship in Agrarian Ghana," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 11(1), pages 134-157, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:agspub:v:11:y:2022:i:1:p:134-157
    DOI: 10.1177/22779760211068791
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Akaateba, Millicent Awialie, 2019. "The politics of customary land rights transformation in peri-urban Ghana: Powers of exclusion in the era of land commodification," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey, 2021. "Land, Gender, and Class Relations in Ghana’s Cassava Frontier," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(1), pages 139-154, April.
    3. Hill,Polly, 1986. "Development Economics on Trial," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521310963, September.
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