Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno
Biographic Data
| ID | 652386 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jasper Abembia |
| FAMILY NAME | Ayelazuno |
| SIGNATURE | AYELAZUNO J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University for Development Studies |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3119-7136 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
State Capture in the Militarized Fight Against Illegal Small-Scale Goldmining in Ghana
State Capture and Illegal Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Ghana: A Cancerous AffairAs a journalist, I have dedicated my career to exposing the truth and shedding light on the darkest corners of our society.In Ghana, one of the most pressing issues that has caught my attention is the scourge of state capture and illegal Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM).This book is a culmination of tireless efforts to uncover the truth …
Governance, institutions and human development
The erosion of media freedom in Ghana
Ghana is a poster child of the consolidation of liberal democracy in Africa, the signal evidence of which is the freedom of the Ghanaian media as the fourth estate of the realm. However, recent developments in the media landscape of the country, such as sustained death threats, assaults, use of unwarranted brute force, suspicions and murder of journalists seem to mar the democratic image of Ghana. These incidents have raised concerns about the er…
The failure of the militarised fight against ‘Galamsey’ in Ghana
This paper argues that the militarised fight against illegal artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) in Ghana—popularly known in Ghanaian parlance as ‘galamsey’—is neither class-neutral nor apolitical. It is politically opportunistic and elitist, class-wise. Drawing on a plurality of secondary sources—scholarly and grey literature, media, and internet sources – we present a critical overview of developments in the Ghanaian ASM sector, and the militari…
Making visible the galamsey scandals in Ghana
Land and ocean grabs and the relative surplus population in Ghana
Situated in the context of the land and ocean grabs in Ghana post-2007-2008 global economic crises, this article argues that the country is experiencing "primitive accumulation" without capitalist industrialization. I draw on the insights of agrarian political economy to argue that this has created cheap laborers without industrial capital to exploit. The corollary of this is the creation of additional "relative surplus population", worsening the…
Ocean and land grabbing in Ghana's offshore petroleum industry
Ghana's petroleum industry is located several nautical miles offshore in the Western Region of the country. Yet, the mechanisms and processes of production and transportation of crude petroleum are accompanied by the dispossessing of the adjoining coastal communities of their means of (re)production both on the ocean and on land. Although the insights of agrarian political economy have been deployed fruitfully to analyse land grabs in Africa, sim…
Between the Africa Mining Vision and the neo-patrimonial state
This article critically examines the discourse of African agency in global affairs via Ghana’s failure to implement the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) component of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV). If implemented effectively, the AMV would serve as a signal example of African agency, demonstrating the capacity and autonomy of African states to govern their natural resources in the interests of their own development. One of the pillars of th…
Ghana's petroleum industry
With much fanfare, Ghana's Jubilee Oil Field was discovered in 2007 and began producing oil in 2010. In the six coastal districts nearest the offshore fields, expectations of oil-backed development have been raised. However, there is growing concern over what locals perceive to be negative impacts of oil and gas production. Based on field research conducted in 2010 and 2015 in the same communities in each district, this paper presents a longitudi…
Land governance for extractivism and capitalist farming in Africa
Water and land investment in the “overseas” of Northern Ghana
Large-scale mining and ecological imperialism in Africa
The article draws on the insights of political ecology to illuminate the politics shaping the enforcement of environmental regulation in the mining sector of Ghana. We argue that the Ghanaian state uses strong-arm measures against artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operators, particularly, the subaltern classes engaged in the industry for survival. Periodically, the state deploys the military and the police to clamp down on ASM for destroying…
Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below
As bearers of their own emancipation, the political agency of the subaltern classes is a vexed question, a time-honoured one at that. Why do the subalterns endure injustices without revolting most of the time, but revolt sometimes against some injustices? The euphoria of ’globalisation-from-below’, this book argues, skirts responsibility of addressing this question by presuming a groundswell of resistance across the world against neoliberal globa…
The ‘new extractivism’ in Ghana
Neoliberalism and Growth without Development in Ghana
Ghana witnessed decent economic growth in the last three decades of implementing neoliberal policy prescriptions. Indeed, this growth promoted it to a low middle income country in 2010. Paradoxically, the wellbeing of most Ghanaians in the subaltern classes has not improved significantly, and they still suffer grinding poverty. How to understand this paradox of growth without development? This paper argues that the failure of Ghana to diversify i…
Development economics in action
Continuous primitive accumulation in Ghana
The purpose of this article is to provide an opportunity for the peasants in three mining communities in Ghana to voice their experiences of primitive accumulation under contemporary global neo-liberalism. There is a plethora of literature on the exploitation of Africa, drawing on theories of new imperialism or ‘accumulation by dispossession’. However, there is not much grassroots empirical work on how different social groups experience accumulat…
Liberal Democracy and its Critics in Africa
Neoliberalism and Growth without Development in Ghana
Ghana witnessed decent economic growth in the last three decades of implementing neoliberal policy prescriptions. Indeed, this growth promoted it to a low middle income country in 2010. Paradoxically, the wellbeing of most Ghanaians in the subaltern classes has not improved significantly, and they still suffer grinding poverty. How to understand this paradox of growth without development? This paper argues that the failure of Ghana to diversify i…
Continuous primitive accumulation in Ghana
The purpose of this article is to provide an opportunity for the peasants in three mining communities in Ghana to voice their experiences of primitive accumulation under contemporary global neo-liberalism. There is a plethora of literature on the exploitation of Africa, drawing on theories of new imperialism or ‘accumulation by dispossession’. However, there is not much grassroots empirical work on how different social groups experience accumulat…
Land governance for extractivism and capitalist farming in Africa
The failure of the militarised fight against ‘Galamsey’ in Ghana
This paper argues that the militarised fight against illegal artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) in Ghana—popularly known in Ghanaian parlance as ‘galamsey’—is neither class-neutral nor apolitical. It is politically opportunistic and elitist, class-wise. Drawing on a plurality of secondary sources—scholarly and grey literature, media, and internet sources – we present a critical overview of developments in the Ghanaian ASM sector, and the militari…
The erosion of media freedom in Ghana
Ghana is a poster child of the consolidation of liberal democracy in Africa, the signal evidence of which is the freedom of the Ghanaian media as the fourth estate of the realm. However, recent developments in the media landscape of the country, such as sustained death threats, assaults, use of unwarranted brute force, suspicions and murder of journalists seem to mar the democratic image of Ghana. These incidents have raised concerns about the er…
Large-scale mining and ecological imperialism in Africa
The article draws on the insights of political ecology to illuminate the politics shaping the enforcement of environmental regulation in the mining sector of Ghana. We argue that the Ghanaian state uses strong-arm measures against artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operators, particularly, the subaltern classes engaged in the industry for survival. Periodically, the state deploys the military and the police to clamp down on ASM for destroying…
Between the Africa Mining Vision and the neo-patrimonial state
This article critically examines the discourse of African agency in global affairs via Ghana’s failure to implement the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) component of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV). If implemented effectively, the AMV would serve as a signal example of African agency, demonstrating the capacity and autonomy of African states to govern their natural resources in the interests of their own development. One of the pillars of th…
Water and land investment in the “overseas” of Northern Ghana
Making visible the galamsey scandals in Ghana
Land and ocean grabs and the relative surplus population in Ghana
Situated in the context of the land and ocean grabs in Ghana post-2007-2008 global economic crises, this article argues that the country is experiencing "primitive accumulation" without capitalist industrialization. I draw on the insights of agrarian political economy to argue that this has created cheap laborers without industrial capital to exploit. The corollary of this is the creation of additional "relative surplus population", worsening the…
Ghana's petroleum industry
With much fanfare, Ghana's Jubilee Oil Field was discovered in 2007 and began producing oil in 2010. In the six coastal districts nearest the offshore fields, expectations of oil-backed development have been raised. However, there is growing concern over what locals perceive to be negative impacts of oil and gas production. Based on field research conducted in 2010 and 2015 in the same communities in each district, this paper presents a longitudi…
Liberal Democracy and its Critics in Africa
Continuous primitive accumulation in Ghana
The purpose of this article is to provide an opportunity for the peasants in three mining communities in Ghana to voice their experiences of primitive accumulation under contemporary global neo-liberalism. There is a plethora of literature on the exploitation of Africa, drawing on theories of new imperialism or ‘accumulation by dispossession’. However, there is not much grassroots empirical work on how different social groups experience accumulat…
Development economics in action
The ‘new extractivism’ in Ghana
Neoliberalism and Growth without Development in Ghana
Ghana witnessed decent economic growth in the last three decades of implementing neoliberal policy prescriptions. Indeed, this growth promoted it to a low middle income country in 2010. Paradoxically, the wellbeing of most Ghanaians in the subaltern classes has not improved significantly, and they still suffer grinding poverty. How to understand this paradox of growth without development? This paper argues that the failure of Ghana to diversify i…
Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below
As bearers of their own emancipation, the political agency of the subaltern classes is a vexed question, a time-honoured one at that. Why do the subalterns endure injustices without revolting most of the time, but revolt sometimes against some injustices? The euphoria of ’globalisation-from-below’, this book argues, skirts responsibility of addressing this question by presuming a groundswell of resistance across the world against neoliberal globa…
Land governance for extractivism and capitalist farming in Africa
Water and land investment in the “overseas” of Northern Ghana
Large-scale mining and ecological imperialism in Africa
The article draws on the insights of political ecology to illuminate the politics shaping the enforcement of environmental regulation in the mining sector of Ghana. We argue that the Ghanaian state uses strong-arm measures against artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operators, particularly, the subaltern classes engaged in the industry for survival. Periodically, the state deploys the military and the police to clamp down on ASM for destroying…
Ghana's petroleum industry
With much fanfare, Ghana's Jubilee Oil Field was discovered in 2007 and began producing oil in 2010. In the six coastal districts nearest the offshore fields, expectations of oil-backed development have been raised. However, there is growing concern over what locals perceive to be negative impacts of oil and gas production. Based on field research conducted in 2010 and 2015 in the same communities in each district, this paper presents a longitudi…
Between the Africa Mining Vision and the neo-patrimonial state
This article critically examines the discourse of African agency in global affairs via Ghana’s failure to implement the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) component of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV). If implemented effectively, the AMV would serve as a signal example of African agency, demonstrating the capacity and autonomy of African states to govern their natural resources in the interests of their own development. One of the pillars of th…
Ocean and land grabbing in Ghana's offshore petroleum industry
Ghana's petroleum industry is located several nautical miles offshore in the Western Region of the country. Yet, the mechanisms and processes of production and transportation of crude petroleum are accompanied by the dispossessing of the adjoining coastal communities of their means of (re)production both on the ocean and on land. Although the insights of agrarian political economy have been deployed fruitfully to analyse land grabs in Africa, sim…
Making visible the galamsey scandals in Ghana
Land and ocean grabs and the relative surplus population in Ghana
Situated in the context of the land and ocean grabs in Ghana post-2007-2008 global economic crises, this article argues that the country is experiencing "primitive accumulation" without capitalist industrialization. I draw on the insights of agrarian political economy to argue that this has created cheap laborers without industrial capital to exploit. The corollary of this is the creation of additional "relative surplus population", worsening the…
Governance, institutions and human development
The erosion of media freedom in Ghana
Ghana is a poster child of the consolidation of liberal democracy in Africa, the signal evidence of which is the freedom of the Ghanaian media as the fourth estate of the realm. However, recent developments in the media landscape of the country, such as sustained death threats, assaults, use of unwarranted brute force, suspicions and murder of journalists seem to mar the democratic image of Ghana. These incidents have raised concerns about the er…
The failure of the militarised fight against ‘Galamsey’ in Ghana
This paper argues that the militarised fight against illegal artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) in Ghana—popularly known in Ghanaian parlance as ‘galamsey’—is neither class-neutral nor apolitical. It is politically opportunistic and elitist, class-wise. Drawing on a plurality of secondary sources—scholarly and grey literature, media, and internet sources – we present a critical overview of developments in the Ghanaian ASM sector, and the militari…
State Capture in the Militarized Fight Against Illegal Small-Scale Goldmining in Ghana
State Capture and Illegal Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Ghana: A Cancerous AffairAs a journalist, I have dedicated my career to exposing the truth and shedding light on the darkest corners of our society.In Ghana, one of the most pressing issues that has caught my attention is the scourge of state capture and illegal Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM).This book is a culmination of tireless efforts to uncover the truth …
Political science (17 works) · Economics (12 works) · Geography (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Natural Resources and Economic Development (8 works) · Mining and Resource Management (7 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Development economics (6 works)