“Chiefs do not talk law, most of them talk power.” Traditional authorities in conflicts over land grabbing in Ghana*

ABSTRACT

In the context of large-scale land deals in sub-Saharan Africa, social conflicts have increased. In many of these conflicts, traditional authorities are central actors. Whereas several studies highlight their significance as mediators in conflicts, their role as conflict actors is hardly considered. I address this lacuna by referring to a conflict around an agro-industrial project in Ghana. Using Steven Lukes’ three-dimensional power approach I demonstrate how preexisting hierarchies between traditional authorities are reinforced. I argue that these hierarchies are mostly insignificant for everyday land use practices but become relevant in conflict settings, allowing traditional authorities to reinterpret existing social orders and institutional arrangements with the aim to achieve territorial control. An interplay of different forms of power simultaneously prevents broad opposition of land users against traditional authorities while, in this way, contributing to indirect legitimization of traditional authorities, the underpinning of their authority and deepening social division.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans le contexte des transactions foncières à grande échelle en Afrique subsaharienne, les conflits sociaux ont augmenté. Dans nombre de ces conflits, les autorités traditionnelles sont des acteurs centraux. Alors que plusieurs études mettent l’accent sur leur importance en tant que médiateurs dans les conflits, leur rôle en tant qu’acteurs des conflits n’est guère pris en compte. J’aborde cette lacune en évoquant un conflit autour d’un projet agro-industriel au Ghana. En me basant sur l’approche tridimensionnelle du pouvoir de Steven Lukes, je montre comment les hiérarchies préexistantes entre les autorités traditionnelles sont renforcées. Je soutiens que, pour la plupart, ces hiérarchies sont insignifiantes pour les pratiques quotidiennes d’utilisation des terres mais deviennent pertinentes dans les situations de conflit, permettant aux autorités traditionnelles de réinterpréter les ordres sociaux et les arrangements institutionnels existants dans le but de parvenir à un contrôle territorial. L’interaction de différentes formes de pouvoir empêche simultanément une large opposition des utilisateurs des terres contre les autorités traditionnelles, tout en contribuant, de cette manière, à la légitimation indirecte des autorités traditionnelles, au renforcement de leur autorité et à l’approfondissement de la division sociale.

KEYWORDS:

• Land grabbing
• conflicts
• traditional authorities
• power
• Ghana

MOTS-CLÉS:

• accaparement des terres
• conflits
• autorités traditionnelles
• pouvoir
• Ghana

Acknowledgements

I thank all my interview partners for their time and patience, their candor and their trust. I am especially grateful to Asamoah Kwame Mensa-Yawson and Enock Asiedu Osarfo for long hours of consecutive interpreting as well as their helpful and reliable support of my research. Furthermore, my thanks go to Jan Brunner, Kristina Dietz, Anna Dobelmann, Bettina Engels, Louisa Prause, Mario Schenk and Daniel Oberko for their constructive criticism of an earlier version of this paper, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for funding this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In English, the terms chieftaincy system and chiefs or traditional authorities are common. In this contribution, I use the term chief synonymously with traditional authority. By doing so, I am in no way suggesting that these are anachronistic figures oriented toward “primeval” rules and norms, as the word “traditional” might suggest. Rather, I share the view that traditional rule has changed over the course of time and that supposedly old traditions are, in most cases, new “inventions” (see inter alia Amanor 2008; Knierzinger 2011; Lentz 2006a).

2. In the south of Ghana, traditional authorities, during their inauguration as chiefs as well as during official occasions, sit on wooden stools, while in the north, they sit on skins. These represent their power. It is from this custom that the terms stool land and skin land originate.

3. Interview, CEO ScanFarm, Agogo, 4 April 2016; personal communication, Director of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture Asante Akyem North District, Agogo, 25 April 2016.

4. Interview, sub-chief Dukusen, Agogo, 19 April 2016.

5. Letter from the Lands Commission to ScanFarm, Kumasi, 30 September 2009.

6. Interview, CEO ScanFarm, Agogo, 13 March 2017.

7. Female land user No. 1 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 24 April 2016; female land user No. 2 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 24 April 2016; elderly female land user No. 3 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2016; male land user No. 4 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2016; two female land users No. 6 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 26 April 2016; female land user No. 7 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 26 April 2016; female land user No. 7 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 27 April 2016; female land user No. 9 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 28 April 2016; male land user No. 10 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 28 April 2016; male and female land users No. 14 in Dukusen, Dukusen, 16 March 2017. Interviews: three male land users Nos 13, 14, 15 in Nsonyameye and members of Agogoman ma kuo, Agogo, 14 March 2017; male land user No. 10 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 28 April 2016.

8. Interviews: female land user No. 1 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 24 April 2016; female land user No. 2 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 24 April 2016; elderly female land user No. 3 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2016; male land user No. 4 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2016; two female land users No. 6 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 26 April 2016; female land user No. 7 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 26 April 2016; female land user No. 7 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 27 April 2016; female land user No. 9 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 28 April 2016.

9. Interviews, sub-chiefs of Dukusen and Nsonyameye, Agogo, 19 and 20 April 2016.

10. Interview, sub-chief of Nsonyameye, 20 April 2016.

11. Interviews, sub-chiefs of Dukusen and Nsonyameye, Agogo, 19 and 20 April 2016.

12. Interview, commercial land user and member of Agogoman mma kuo, Agogo, 16 March 2017.

13. Interview, commercial land user and member of Agogoman mma kuo, Agogo, 16 March 2017.

14. Interview, Head of Division, Regional Lands Commission, Kumasi, 13 April 2016.

15. Interview, Head of Division, Regional Lands Commission, Kumasi, 13 April 2016.

16. Interviews: three male land users Nos 13, 14, 15 in Nsonyameye and members of Agogoman ma kuo, Agogo, 14 March 2017; male land user No. 10 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 28 April 2016.

17. Interview, CEO Scanfarm, 13 March 2017.

18. Traditional Council’s letter to Scanfarm, Agogo, 4 January 2010.

19. Interviews: sub-chief of Dukusen, 19 April 2016; sub-chief of Nsonyameye, Agogo, 20 April 2016.

20. Interview, Director of the Department of Agric Asante Akyem North District, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Agogo, 18 April 2016.

21. Interview Registrar of the Agogo Traditional Council and Chairman of Customary Land Secretariat, Agogo, 20 April 2016.

22. Stakeholder meeting of affected land users, Agogo, 27 April 2016, Interview, sub-chief of Baama, 20 April 2016.

23. Interview, sub-chief of Baama, 20 April 2016.

24. Interviews, sub-chiefs Baama and Nsonyameye, Agogo, 20 April 2016.

25. Interviews: elderly female land user No. 3 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2016; land user No. 4 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2019.

26. Author’s observation, and personal communication, Director of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture Asante Akyem North District, Agogo, 25 April 2016.

27. Interviews: chief of Dukusen, Agogo, 19 April 2016; female land user No. 1 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 24 April 2016; female land user No. 2 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 24 April 2016; elderly female land user No. 3 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2016; male land user No. 4 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 25 April 2016; two female land users No. 6 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 26 April 2016; female land user No. 7 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 26 April 2016; female land user No. 7 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 27 April 2016; female land user No. 9 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 28 April 2016; male land user No. 10 in Nsonyameye, Agogo, 28 April 2016; male and female land users No. 14 in Dukusen, Dukusen, 16 March 2017.

28. Interview, Registrar of the Agogo Traditional Council, Agogo, 14 March 2017.

29. Inteview, sub-chief of Dukusen, Agogo, 19 April 2016.

30. Inteview, sub-chief of Dukusen, Agogo, 19 April 2016.

31. Interview, male land user No. 15, commercial farmer, Agogo, 16 March 2017.

32. Interviews: sub-chief of Dukusen, 19 April 2016; sub-chief of Nsonyameye, 20 April 2016; Director of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Asante Akyem North District, Agogo, 18 April 2016; elderly female land user No. 3, Nsonyameye, 25 April 2016; male land user No. 5, Dukusen, 26 April 2016.

33. Interviews: Registrar of the Agogo Traditional Council and Chairman of the Customary Land Secretariat, Agogo, 20 April 2016; Coordinating Director of the Asante-Akim North District Assembly, Agogo, 22 April 2016.

34. Interviews: female land user No.1 and No. 2, Nsonyameye, 24 April 2016; female land user No. 3 and male land user No. 4, Nsonyameye, 25 April 2016; male land user No. 5 and No. 6, Nsonyameye, 26 April 2016; three male land users Nos 13, 14, 15 and members of Agogoman ma kuo, 14 March 2017; commercial land user and member of Agogoman ma kuo, Agogo, 16 March 2017.

35. Stakeholder meeting of affected land users of Nsonyameye and Dukusen, Agogo, 27 April 2016.

36. Interview, sub-chief of Nsonyameye, Agogo, 20 April 2016.

37. Interviews: female land user No. 1 of Nsonyameye, 24 April 2016; female land user No. 3 of Nsonyameye, 25 April 2016, Agogo.

38. Interview, sub-chief of Nsonyameye, Agogo, 20 April 2016.

39. Stakeholder meeting of affected land users and sub-chiefs, Agogo, 27 April 2016.

Additional information

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Sarah Kirst

Sarah Kirst is a predoctoral researcher in the junior research group “Global Change – Local Conflicts? Land conflicts in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in the context of interdependent transformation processes” (GLOCON) at Freie Universität Berlin. She researches conflicts over land and resources, land and social belonging, traditional authorities, and extensive land use change in sub-Saharan Africa.