How to combine tradition and modernity? Regulating customary land management in Ghana

International policy is currently witnessing a renewed interest in customary tenure systems as well as traditional leadership, through which it aims to enhance the efficiency of local governance and create general access to and secure rights in land. Contrary to these ideas, practice reveals a lack of security of customary tenure in areas with a high competition for land. Mounting evidence displays that customary systems often evolve inequitably and that traditional elites benefit disproportionally from commodification of land. In an effort to understand customary land management by traditional authorities and the role policymakers, lawmakers, judges and civil servants play in this process, this book studies practices of land management in peri-urban Ghana where traditional leadership forms a vibrant part of social life. This book combines local case studies with theories about efficient land management, the resilience of traditional leadership, the negotiability of customary law and the gap between judges' customary law and local practices. Doing so, it offers a unique body of empirical and theoretical knowledge for those interested in customary land management, as well as those interested in how customary law functions both at the local level and at the level of the state

/pdf/in-the-land-of-the-chiefs-customary-law-land-conflicts-and-4dmo4vk92a.pdf

In the land of the chiefs : customary law, land conflicts, and the role of the state in Peri-Urban Ghana

Ghana’s current image of peace and stability is worthy of attention. Compared with its neighbours, Ghana seems to be going through a period of relative stability. Nevertheless the periodic flaring up of conflicts into serious violence has become a source of worry. The paper is an account of the emergence of particular identities and inequalities and their role in promoting instability, conflict and violence. The paper analysed the different elements of the Ghanaian political economy which encourage or discourage particular patterns of peaceful co-existence and conflict. Understanding the emergence and dynamics of certain identities in any place is complicated by a number of factors. Analysts who consider identities such as ethnicity to be primordial are correct in that identities are not simple to assume and discard. Inequalities tend to arise principally out of differences in economic development and to some extent endowment in natural resources. A glaring pattern of inequality in Ghana manifests itself in the North-South dichotomy in development. A number of studies have emphasized the broad disparity between the North and the South of the country in terms of levels of economic development and the general quality of life resulting in the relative backwardness of Northern Ghana in relation to Southern Ghana. Whereas this major divide has never generated conflict in Ghana, it is possible to identify different categories of continuous conflict, some of it violent. These includes inter-ethnic conflicts, mostly centred on control over land and other resources and sovereignty issues; intra ethnic conflicts around land ownership, competing uses of land and the siting of institutions and services, but mostly about chieftaincy succession; and conflicts between state institutions, such as the police and communities, over policing and law and order issues arising from communal conflicts and inter-personal disputes. Although such conflicts are in general similar to other conflicts that arise in the sub-region, it can be generally concluded, though not substantiated in this study, that the conflicts in Ghana have generally been on a relatively lower scale than those of her neighbours, perhaps, accounting for the relative peace and stability in Ghana.

Identities, Inequalities and Conflicts in Ghana.

This book explains why conflicts in Africa are sometimes ethnic and sometimes religious, and why a conflict might change from ethnic to religious even as the opponents remain fixed. Conflicts in the region are often viewed as either 'tribal' or 'Muslim-Christian', seemingly rooted in deep-seated ethnic or religious hatreds. Yet, as this book explains, those labels emerge as a function of political mobilization. It argues that ethnicity and religion inspire distinct passions among individuals, and that political leaders exploit those passions to achieve their own strategic goals when the institutions of the state break down. To support this argument, the book relies on a novel experiment conducted in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana to demonstrate that individual preferences change in ethnic and religious contexts. It then uses case illustrations from Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Sudan to highlight the strategic choices of leaders that ultimately shape the frames of conflict.

The Logic of Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa

In Ghana a large proportion of the land is vested in ‘stools’ (customary communities). The current Constitution recognises the traditional authorities as custodians of this land, and customary law as the regulating order. In the Ashanti Region it is the chiefs who are caretakers of the customary lands. Peri-urban areas, such as peri-urban Kumasi, are arenas of severe struggles over land between chiefs, local government and community members and families. These actors are all trying to manage the rising demand for residential land, attempting either to profit from conversions of agricultural to residential land or to resist the demand and hold on to their farmland. Chiefs are often the main beneficiaries of land conversions, although they are customarily and constitutionally obliged to administer land in the interest of the whole community.This paper reports on research into the little-studied question of popular perceptions of chiefs and chiefly rule. It finds that in the study area there is suppo...

Traditional authority revisited: popular perceptions of chiefs and chieftaincy in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana

The paper delineates what is seen as key challenges to the chieftaincy institution in Ghana. Historical challenges in the form of colonial attempts to sidestep the institution and the attempts by the immediate post independence governments to subjugate and divest them of their economic strength through drastic laws, never cowed the institution. Currently, the 1992 Fourth Republic Constitution bars chiefs from participating in partisan politics thus infringing on their inalienable right of free association. The responses of chiefs to current challenges include the setting up of education funds, participating in HIV/AIDS education, and sensitizing the people on the dangers of environmental degradation. In sum, the noted resilience of the institution will once more assist in containing the challenges to the institution in the 21 st century.

Kwame Boafo-Arthur

Papers

Chieftaincy in Ghana: Challenges and Prospects in the 21st Century