Simmering Tensions and Emerging Conflicts Among Key Group Actors Amid Capitalist Transformation in Northern Ghana

Bibliographic Data

ID2286006
AuthorsIbrahim Wahab (0000-0002-8193-2955, Department of Human Geography Lund University Lund Sweden, corresponding author), Joseph Awetori Yaro (0000-0002-2701-3253, Legon University of Ghana Accra Ghana), Gloria Afful‐mensah (0000-0003-2197-3007, Legon University of Ghana Accra Ghana), Michael Ben Awen‐naam (University of Ghana)
Year2025
Volume25
Issue2
Publication date2025-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Agrarian Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1471-0358 • E-ISSN: 1471-0366
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/joac.12613
OpenAlexW4405687049
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited36

A capitalist agrarian transformation is unfolding in northern Ghana, marked by shifts in crop types, rapid increases in farm sizes and deepening rural social differentiation. This paper investigates these dynamics through a mixed-methods approach across six farming communities in two districts, focusing on how social differentiation, accumulation, dispossession and exploitation reshape the region. Urban male capitalists, in collusion with local chiefs, drive mutual enrichment, while women and landless youth are disproportionately disadvantaged. Their land rights are increasingly eroded as powerful elites and traditional ruling families appropriate and accumulate capital at their expense. This transformation, rooted in patriarchal structures, is fuelling tensions and pockets of resistance among affected groups. The paper highlights how powerful individuals and groups can thwart often well-intentioned state-led agriculture modernization initiatives for their parochial interests. It shows how predominantly urban-based elites and power brokers frequently hijack the state's effort to reform the rural sector in the context of neoliberal capitalist economies in the Global South. It offers broader insights into social differentiation and the tensions that arise between and among the various competing group interests. Finally, it raises questions of justice across generations and gender which have broader implications for the political economy of agrarian change and structural transformation in rural northern Ghana. The implications extend beyond social cohesion, with potential impacts on biodiversity loss and climate change

Computer security · Economic system · Economics · Group (periodic table · Key (lock · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Transformation (genetics · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Land Rights and Reforms · World Systems and Global Transformations