Godwin Arku
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 73501 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Godwin Arku |
| NOMBRES | Godwin |
| APELLIDO | Arku |
| FIRMA | ARKU G |
| AFILIACIONES | Western University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7720-1554 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 118 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 497 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 118 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2002 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 12 |
What we know, do not know, and need to know about the impacts of climate hazard (flooding) on livelihood assets dynamics in two Ghanaian coastal communities
A Systematic Review of the Global Literature on Gated Communities
This study systematically reviews 336 peer-reviewed articles on gated communities (1997–2023) to examine thematic evolution and geographic diversification. Guided by a unified conceptual framework, it identifies six meta-themes and traces a transition from early defensive architecture to contemporary sustainable assemblages. The findings also reveal a significant “Southern turn” dominated by China and a conceptual shift where the gate has evolved…
A missing element in the practice of digital farming
Governments in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) are introducing digital tools and advisory services into farming landscapes. In this paper, we explore the region’s readiness for digital agriculture through a theoretical lens of material elements of social practices. We reviewed secondary data on telecommunication infrastructure from two databases (GSMA database and Our World in Data) and complemented it with a case study of smallholder farmers’ (N=1565) a…
An empirically grounded conceptual framework of the determinants of economic resilience
Investigating the determinants of resilience has been a core research agenda in the regional economic resilience literature. However, no comprehensive conceptual framework of the determinants of resilience currently exists. Instead, the determinants are typically presented as a set or list of factors that influence the economic resilience of regions. A more comprehensive conceptual framework, illustrating how such determinants interact, is theref…
A Blend of Instrumental and Feminist Ethics of Care Strategies in Courting the Diaspora Populations
Diaspora-homeland engagements, also known as diaspora policies or sending state strategies, have received significant attention in research and policy. This study applied framing theory and textual analysis to 110 Ghanaian online newspapers to examine how the media framed Ghana's 2019 Year of Return. The analysis revealed that the media predominantly framed the Year of Return from an instrumental perspective, buttressed by the frames of tourism d…
Dwelling satisfaction, core housing needs, and mental health in Canada before and during the Covid-19 pandemic
Ghanaian Men’s Internal and International Migration
“They ignored our ideas on the sea defence project”
Socio-politics shape coastal flood management in Ghana • Reveals marginalization of local knowledge in adaptation planning • Finds that hard-engineered flood measures disrupt livelihoods in coastal areas. • Propose institutional reforms to transform coastal adaptation planning
Planning and Managing Migration Within the Framework of the Migration–development Nexus
The relationship between migration and development, especially in Global South contexts, is debated in migration studies. Given the real or perceived gains and challenges of migration, countries are formulating and implementing migration policies (including regional agreements) to maximise or minimise youth migration, return migration, climate-induced migration and protect migration-associated human rights issues. However, there is currently no s…
Regional economic resilience and post-crisis growth paths
The notion of regional economic resilience has come to the forefront of economic geography and regional studies, resulting in numerous conceptual developments. Despite recent attention, the link between regional economic resilience and post-crisis growth paths is still not well understood. This article provides a conceptual framework and method for examining that link. To do so, we draw on the notions of hysteresis and homeorhesis to assess the t…
Assessing Public Support for Women’s Political Leadership in the Upper West Region, Ghana
Restaurant survival during the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic placed considerable stress on restaurants from restrictions placed on their operations, shifting consumer confidence, rapid expansion of remote work arrangements and aggressive uptake of third-party delivery services. Industry reports suggest that restaurants are experiencing a much higher rate of failure in comparison to other sectors of the economy. Restaurant survival was assessed in the Middlesex–London region of Ontario…
Navigating political opportunity structures
This is my home, and I am not ashamed to live here
Community perceptions on institutional gaps in flood disaster preparedness and management in Mepe community, Ghana
Precarious housing
Migration, gender roles, and empowerment
They want to get rid of us by all means
This paper examines how urban authorities in Harare respond to street trading and the implications of these interventions on street traders’ access to urban space. Drawing from focus groups, in-depth interviews with street traders and urban governance actors, we argue that as urban authorities in Harare become obsessed with defending modernity, they implement aggressive urban policies aimed at eradicating street traders’ livelihoods. These violen…
A tale of two Harare(s)
On Their Own Terms
This paper examines how residents of Nima and Old Fadama—Accra's largest informal settlements—perceive and interpret urban inclusion and exclusion within the framework of existing participatory mechanisms designed to enhance their voice in urban governance. Our findings reveal that participants largely equate urban inclusion with having a voice in community-level decision-making processes. However, this voice does not often translate into substan…
They had a privilege that we did not
Historically, in the healthcare sector, racialized immigrants are concentrated in low-skilled and low-paying jobs like personal support workers (PSWs), with their contributions often being undervalued. They find themselves in these jobs largely because of structural factors such as the colour-coded labour market, proletarianization, and the stratification of care work. The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on the healthcare system, with …
Negotiating access to contested urban spaces
In Global South cities, urban space is highly contested between street traders and city authorities. In Harare, urban authorities respond to traders appropriating public spaces with penalties, harassment, and displacement, aiming to eliminate perceived nuisances and uphold a modern city ideal. However, these repressive practices are constantly negotiated, challenged, and resisted by street traders through 'infiltrating and corrupting' the system,…
Retooling local economies
Since the early 2000s, plant closures have been a significant concern in Ontario, Canada. Scholars and policymakers alike aim to investigate the causes of plant closures and determine how to mitigate their impacts. Despite the large body of literature on plant closures, local economic development practitioners’ perspectives and experiences have been neglected. To fill this gap, this paper interviewed twenty-two practitioners from various cities i…
International and internal migration and the subjective wellbeing of wives left behind in Ghana
Husbands' labour migration has ramifications for significant family members, particularly wives left behind. However, limited studies have been conducted to examine the impacts of husbands' migration on women left behind married to international and internal migrants. Drawing on a purposive sampling survey of 298 Ghanaian women (international = 129 and internal = 169) in the Volta Region, we assessed their subjective wellbeing using three dimensi…
The Housing Experiences of Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) in Canada
Regional economic resilience
This paper proposes a system approach to regional economic resilience. This approach argues that regional economies undergo, to varying degrees, changes to their economic system that result from the collective but uncoordinated action of economic actors in an attempt to be resilient to shocks. The system change, particularly focusing on changes to economies’ structure and function, which occurs during and following a shock, determines the type of…
Housing and health in three contrasting neighbourhoods in Accra, Ghana
The role of place branding in local and regional economic development
Place branding has become an increasingly integral part of local and regional economic development strategies in the global competition for business investment. Professional and academic understanding remains limited, however, regarding whether place branding can be classified as a ‘high-road’ policy with substantive and effective merits or a ‘low-road’ policy that is generally inefficient and ineffective at fostering sustainable economic growth.…
The rise of gated housing estates in Ghana
Housing Policy Changes in Ghana in the 1990s
The housing sector in Ghana has undergone fundamental changes since the 1990s. Policy focus has shifted away from direct state provision and has moved strongly towards active private sector participation in housing production, financing and production of building materials. In part, this is due to the failure of public housing programmes, dwindling state resources, unimpressive performance of state-owned enterprises, and recognition that the gove…
You Either Pay More Advance Rent or You Move Out”
Policy-makers world-wide are concerned about severe housing problems experienced in cities of the developing world. This paper examines the rental housing situation in Accra, Ghana. It presents findings of a qualitative investigation of the experiences of property owners ( n = 21) and tenants ( n = 23) in an informal private housing market that caters to the housing needs of an expanding section of Accra residents but lacks an institutional frame…
Is it sound policy or fast policy? Practitioners’ perspectives on the role of place branding in local economic development
In response to neoliberal policies and globalization pressures over the past three decades, urban governments in advanced economies have, with near-unanimity, adopted place branding as an approach to foster local economic growth. Framed as an outcome of multilevel neoliberal policymaking and local entrepreneurial governance, place branding has been adopted by urban places at all scales and geographic contexts with little regard for its efficacy. …
Urban agriculture and political ecology of health in municipal Ashaiman, Ghana
Powers of exclusion and counter-exclusion
Competition and Cooperation in Economic Development
This article reports on a study that explored economic development practitioners’ perceptions of competition and cooperation in economic development. The study was conducted against the backdrop of (1) an increasing advocacy by scholars and policymakers for cooperative policy practices in economic development instead of competition and (2) the restrictive institutional environment within which practitioners operate in Ontario. The analysis in the…
The Power of a Camera
Conducting primary data collection can be a fulfilling and interesting adventure producing significant learning experiences particularly for early career researchers. However, fieldwork can be marred with complex challenges and frustrations, especially if conducted in dynamic and politically sensitive environments and with highly vulnerable urban populations. This paper contributes to and advances academic scholarship on fieldwork experiences in …
Transnationalism-integration nexus
Economic development practices of cities in Ontario, Canada
This article contributes to the discussion on communities' economic development efforts by providing empirical evidence from cities in Ontario, Canada. This article provides information on activities that cities in Ontario are emphasizing to foster economic development. Analysis of study data suggests that economic development efforts are generally institutionalized, as evidenced by the high number of cities adopting written economic development …
Negotiating access to contested urban spaces
In Global South cities, urban space is highly contested between street traders and city authorities. In Harare, urban authorities respond to traders appropriating public spaces with penalties, harassment, and displacement, aiming to eliminate perceived nuisances and uphold a modern city ideal. However, these repressive practices are constantly negotiated, challenged, and resisted by street traders through 'infiltrating and corrupting' the system,…
They say these are places for criminals, but this is our home’
In developing countries, people living in informal settlements are subjected to different forms of coercive control such as threats of evictions, exclusion, blocked access to urban services and other types of structural violence. These coercive measures are legitimised through the discursive branding of informal settlements as ‘unplanned’, ‘disorderly’ and ‘dangerous’ neighbourhoods. This paper examines how people living in these denigrated neigh…
Impact of Remittance Behaviour on Immigrant Homeownership Trajectories
Place branding and economic development at the local level in Ontario, Canada
Housing and economic development
It is no longer the sunshine city, it is now a dump site city”
Gender and appropriation of public space in Harare’s contested central city area
Street trading is a highly gendered form of economic activity practiced by the urban poor in most global south cities. Drawing from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews, this paper examines the everyday struggles facing female street traders with children as they negotiate access to contested urban spaces to make a living in Harare’s Central Business District (CBD). The paper argues that public spaces in Harare’s CBD act as both ‘livel…
What is success? Examining the concept of successful integration among African immigrants in Canada
Canadian immigration documents such as the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act 2001 stipulate that it is the responsibility of the government to help immigrants to integrate successfully. In part, this is due to the recognition that immigrants have the capital vital for economic and demographic enhancement of the country. To this end, successful integration is an important policy objective, with policymakers outlining indicators that measure t…
Immigrant attraction through place branding? Evidence of city-level effectiveness from Canada’s London
Obligations and Expectations
Transnational housing investment is a pervasive practice among many migrant groups residing in various destination countries; including Ghanaian migrants living in Canada. For many, the need to engage in transnational housing investment is beyond the standard rationale and has two prime significance; symbolic and practical utility. Engagement in this endeavour requires substantial financial commitments over extensive periods of time with potentia…
Evidence of inter-territorial collaborative economic development strategies in Ontario, Canada
Community Development and the Influence of New Food Retail Sources on the Price and Availability of Nutritious Food
Studies have demonstrated links between the accessibility of food and multiple health outcomes. Policymakers engaged in local community development may use public health concerns as a strategy to procure funding for food retail initiatives. Few studies to date have demonstrated the impact that a new food retailer can have on geographic and economic access to nutritious food in a community, evidence which could support the case for new food retail…
Collaboration in industry
Housing as a Tool of Economic Development since 1929
Housing policy in the developing world has usually been shaped by social and political considerations, yet housing can also be used to promote economic development. From the 1930s to the 1950s, it was increasingly deployed for this purpose by the agencies of colonial powers, including Britain and France; by the United States in Puerto Rico; and by the US Agency for International Development and the Inter-American Development Bank in Latin America…
The housing and economic development debate revisited
Should housing improvement be part of economic development strategies? Must housing improvement wait until high-economic growth is attained? How much priority should be given to housing in view of the limited resources in less-developed countries? What are housing benefits in economic development vis-à-vis other economic investments? These questions have generated heated debates, both in the literature on development problems and in planning and …
Housing and development strategies in Ghana, 1945–2000
Housing has occupied an ambiguous place in debates about international development, and about how development should be promoted. The dominant view in the 1940s and 50s was that housing absorbs resources from other productive investments. Not surprisingly development experts accorded a low priority to the sector. Since the early 1960s, there has been a progressive shift in the way that development economists, in particular, have thought about the…
Housing and economic development
The rise of housing in international development
Rapidly Growing African Cities Need to Adopt Smart Growth Policies to Solve Urban Development Concerns
The rise of gated housing estates in Ghana
Smart Growth in a Changing World. J. Barnett, editor
(2009). Smart Growth in a Changing World. J. Barnett, editor. Urban Geography: Vol. 30, No. 5, pp. 571-572
Housing Policy Changes in Ghana in the 1990s
The housing sector in Ghana has undergone fundamental changes since the 1990s. Policy focus has shifted away from direct state provision and has moved strongly towards active private sector participation in housing production, financing and production of building materials. In part, this is due to the failure of public housing programmes, dwindling state resources, unimpressive performance of state-owned enterprises, and recognition that the gove…
Mapping Industrial Legacies
Brownfields, land containing both actual and perceived contamination from former uses, pose hurdles to redevelopment, but are worthy of consideration due to their potential for aiding inner-city regeneration and providing alternatives to suburban sprawl. Yet the extent of the brownfield land problem is unknown in many cities, and relatively little research has systematically described efficient and effective ways to identify these sites. We demon…
Housing and Health in Ghana
This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study investigating the impacts of renting a home on the psychosocial health of tenants in the Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA) in Ghana. In-depth interviews (n = 33) were conducted with private renters in Adabraka, Accra. The findings show that private renters in the AMA face serious problems in finding appropriate and affordable rental units, as well as a persistent threat of eviction by homeowners.…
Housing and health in three contrasting neighbourhoods in Accra, Ghana
Competition and Cooperation in Economic Development
This article reports on a study that explored economic development practitioners’ perceptions of competition and cooperation in economic development. The study was conducted against the backdrop of (1) an increasing advocacy by scholars and policymakers for cooperative policy practices in economic development instead of competition and (2) the restrictive institutional environment within which practitioners operate in Ontario. The analysis in the…
Community Development and the Influence of New Food Retail Sources on the Price and Availability of Nutritious Food
Studies have demonstrated links between the accessibility of food and multiple health outcomes. Policymakers engaged in local community development may use public health concerns as a strategy to procure funding for food retail initiatives. Few studies to date have demonstrated the impact that a new food retailer can have on geographic and economic access to nutritious food in a community, evidence which could support the case for new food retail…
You Either Pay More Advance Rent or You Move Out”
Policy-makers world-wide are concerned about severe housing problems experienced in cities of the developing world. This paper examines the rental housing situation in Accra, Ghana. It presents findings of a qualitative investigation of the experiences of property owners ( n = 21) and tenants ( n = 23) in an informal private housing market that caters to the housing needs of an expanding section of Accra residents but lacks an institutional frame…
A Food Retail-Based Intervention on Food Security and Consumption
The effect of the built environment on diet (and ensuing health outcomes) is less understood than the effect of diet on obesity. Natural experiments are increasingly advocated in place of cross-sectional studies unable to suggest causality. The central research question of this paper, therefore, asks whether a neighborhood-level food retail intervention will affect dietary habits or food security. The intervention did not have a significant impac…
Circumcision Status and Time to First Sex Among Never-Married Young Men in Malawi
‘At risk by fact of birth’
In this article, we draw on critical approaches to risk to examine varied and interlaced perceptions of personal risk for HIV which young men in an area of traditionally low male circumcision have to Malawi government’s new policy of medical male circumcision for HIV prevention, locally known as mdulidwe. In this article, we draw on data from in-depth interviews (n = 29) and focus groups (n = 24) with young men aged 18–24 years undertaken in 2013…
Place branding and economic development at the local level in Ontario, Canada
Evidence of inter-territorial collaborative economic development strategies in Ontario, Canada
Economic development approaches in a changing global economy
How to best arrange locally based economic development has been an issue of continuing importance and interest throughout history. Although some limited scholarly works exist, much remains to be known about how communities' economic development efforts are organized and whether they are changing in response to global economic changes and conditions. The lacuna is particularly obvious for communities in Ontario, Canada. In light of the recent call…
Abandoning land in search of farms
Theoretical issues in the ‘food desert’ debate and ways forward
Economic development practices of cities in Ontario, Canada
This article contributes to the discussion on communities' economic development efforts by providing empirical evidence from cities in Ontario, Canada. This article provides information on activities that cities in Ontario are emphasizing to foster economic development. Analysis of study data suggests that economic development efforts are generally institutionalized, as evidenced by the high number of cities adopting written economic development …
Political science (75 obras) · Economics (72 obras) · Sociology (66 obras) · Geography (60 obras) · Economic growth (59 obras) · Business (39 obras) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (31 obras) · Psychology (28 obras) · Economic geography (22 obras) · Law (22 obras)