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Negotiated or Negated? The Rhetoric and Reality of Customary Tenure in an Ashanti Village in Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Janine M. Ubink
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Abstract

Customary land tenure is seen as a field in which social and political relationships are diverse, overlapping and competing. Property regimes are, therefore, often analysed in terms of processes of negotiation, with people's social and political identities as central elements. This article studies the negotiability of customary tenure in peri-urban Ghana where land is at the centre of intense and unequal competition and closely tied up with struggles over authority. It focuses on one village to provide a grassroots view of processes of contestation of customary rights to land. The analysis of how and to what extent local actors in this village deal with, negotiate and struggle for rights to land confirms that contestants for land never operate on a level playing field. Postulating the social inequalities of local communities, the article analyses whether it is useful to place all local land dealings under the term ‘negotiations’, or whether such a characterization stretches the boundaries of the term too far and risks undermining the significance of local stratification and ignoring the winners and losers in a contest with uncertain rules.

Le foncier coutumier est un domaine dans lequel les rapports sociaux et politiques sont divers, partiellement communs et en concurrence. C'est pourquoi les régimes de la propriété sont souvent analysés en termes de processus de négociation ayant pour éléments centraux les identités sociales et politiques des personnes. Cet article étudie la négociabilité du foncier coutumier dans les zones périurbaines du Ghana, dans lesquelles les terres sont au cœur d'une concurrence intense et inégale étroitement liée aux luttes de pouvoir. Il porte son attention sur un village pour offrir une perspective locale des processus de contestation des droits coutumiers à la terre. L'analyse de la manière et de la mesure dans laquelle les acteurs locaux de ce village traitent, négocient et luttent pour les droits à la terre confirme que les candidats à la terre ne sont jamais sur un pied d'égalité. En postulant les inégalités sociales des communautés locales, l'article analyse la question de savoir s'il est utile de mettre toutes les transactions foncières locales sous le terme de “négociations”, ou si cette caractérisation pousse trop loin les limites de ce terme et risque de mettre en cause l'importance de la stratification locale et d'ignorer les gagnants et les perdants dans une compétition aux règles incertaines.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 264 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2008

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