In Ghana, land dispossession is driven by large-scale agricultural investments, urban expansion, mining operations, and infrastructure development. Since the early 2000s, International companies acquire agrarian land for export-oriented agriculture, biofuel production, and conservation, often displacing local communities. Justifications for these acquisitions are framed around four pillars: food security, improved agricultural productivity, rural transformation (depeasantization), and the “power of solitude,” which marginalizes peasant agency and expose them to multiple forms of violence. Current patterns of land dispossession undermine agrarian sustainability and exacerbate socio-economic inequalities. This research investigates the manifestations and implications of land dispossession in Ghana’s rural hinterlands, with a particular focus on Asantee regions from a recent fieldwork which explores how land dispossession affects migration. The analysis is grounded in a political ecology framework, drawing on key theoretical contributions from E.P. Thompson, James Scott, Michael Levien, and David Harvey. These perspectives emphasize the moral economy of peasant resistance, the coercive nature of land redistribution, and the broader dynamics of accumulation by dispossession. This research contributes to broader debates on land governance, rural development, and the political ecology of dispossession in sub-Saharan Africa.
Bio
Dr Elieth Eyebiyi is a senior researcher in Sociology, Anthropology and Urban Studies, holding two PhDs from Benin and Canada. Broadly, he researches within the fields of development, mobility and migration, governance, informality and land issues in borderlands. Author of several books and outstanding papers in French, English and German. His latest fields include a deep analysis of land dispossession and migration patterns in Ghana.