The politics of customary land rights transformation in peri-urban Ghana: Powers of exclusion in the era of land commodification

Millicent Awialie Akaateba

Land Use Policy, 2019, vol. 88, issue C

Abstract: The scholarly discourse on the transformation of customary land tenure systems in SSA is advancing theoretically and empirically. This paper contributes to this evolving debate by drawing upon qualitative case studies of mundane practices of land delivery in Tamale and Techiman, Ghana to understand the powers underpinning the transformation of customary land rights. In the wake of rapid urbanisation, processes of land commodification are intensifying, resulting in the re-interpretation and re-negotiation of customary land tenure systems and exclusions in peri-urban areas in Ghana. Chiefly, state and market powers are mutually reinforcing in the politics of exclusion and the transformation of customary land rights in peri-urban Ghana. Contrary to current international land policy trends that laud the adaptability and negotiability of customary tenure, the evidence in this paper shows that in contexts of rapid urbanisation and unequal power relations, customary tenure regimes can be manipulated to produce exclusionary outcomes. Therefore, the paper concludes that rather than local custom and formal planning serving as regulatory functions to protect the public interest; they emerge as powers of exclusion acting in synergy with market forces to displace usufructuary interest holders.

Keywords: Commodification; Marginalisation; Land rights; Reinterpretation; Neo-customary tenure; Equity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:88:y:2019:i:c:s0264837719302741

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104197

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