Search

The growth of African cities is characterised by sprawl, significantly impacting social, economic and environmental systems. The change in land use due to urban sprawl often dispossesses farmers in peri-urban communities, resulting in income loss. Focusing on social and ecological changes in peri-urban communities of Ghana, this paper sheds light on land use and land cover change stemming from urban sprawl. It is argued that land governance systems that shape resource access in peri-urban areas have been transformed with farming being the most impacted. Emerging livelihoods like sand winning further compounds a precarious situation. Women and youth are the most affected, with limited options for alternative occupations and uncertain futures. It is thus imperative that policy interventions prioritise sustainable land governance and urban planning, taking into account the needs and vulnerabilities of peri-urban communities, particularly women and youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts the multinomial endogenous treatment effect approach to analyze the impact of innovation choices on the income of 230 fish workers in the Greater Accra and Central regions of Ghana, while the Kendall's ranking technique is applied to analyze the constraints to innovation. Findings show that technological and non-technological innovations available to fish workers have positive impacts on their income. Specifically, savings, credit access, and support service are identified to have positive impacts on income while gender and membership of a fish workers' association have negative impacts on income. The most pressing constraints to innovation faced by female fish workers are cultural/ethnic restrictions, social exclusion, and time constraints. On the other hand, a high dependency ratio and discrimination in access to resources are the most pressing constraints faced by male fish workers. The paper recommends that stakeholders should continue to offer support services to fish workers. In addition, lending institutions should make credit accessible at lower interest rates. Interventions by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development and development agencies that aim to solve constraints of fish workers should be approached from a gender dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on qualitative data to examine gendered dynamics of remitting and remittance use in households in northern Ghana. The findings indicate that remitting and remittance use are shaped by the interaction of social norms on household provisioning and agency of household members. While social norms on gender roles and conjugality tend to shape patterns of remitting, the household context and the agency of the individual household members sometimes interact to produce remitting behaviours that are not consistent with the general patterns in the community. Gender roles prescribed by the conjugal contract may change when one partner migrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how biometric payment practices in Ghana reinforce historically grown, patriarchal frames of representing women's economic participation. As central modes of participation in social life, payment practices tie closely into national narratives of modernity and economic development. In this light, Ghana's current biometric identification agenda, of which biometric payment constitutes a central element, has come to associate female entrepreneurs with normative gender identities which question their discipline, autonomy, and meaningful contribution to the economy. Two different institutions seeking to classify Ghanaian women in the interest of altering their behavior will be at the heart of the discussion. In the first case, I will focus on development experts' routine representation of (Ghanaian) women as "dependent" on assistance. In the second case, I focus on the regulatory institutions of Ghana's financial sector and the pursuit to formalize what is generally framed as "deviant" female entrepreneurship. The article addresses how the articulation of these normative gender identities reproduces historically rooted conceptions of Ghanaian women's autonomy and economic participation, to the effect of their continued exclusion from relevant public decision-making processes. The paper finally explores the unconventional ways in which female Ghanaian entrepreneurs-turned-activists index emancipatory gender identities to seek recognition for their economic contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the unprecedented feminization of agriculture globally, literature has emerged over the past decade suggesting that gender equality in agriculture could be advanced if gaps in access to farm resources between women and men are reduced. This paper examines gendered farm resource entitlements in northern Ghana. Based mainly on six months of immersive qualitative research, this case study draws from and contributes to feminist political ecology scholarship (FPE) on smallholder farming and agricultural development. The analysis describes some of the intensifying gender and intersecting inequalities (e.g., gender and ethnicity) of land access related to development interventions aimed at commercializing farming. Gender disparities in access to agricultural extension, chemical fertilizers, agrochemicals, high yielding seed varieties, tractor services, credit packages and marketing contracts supported by the state, donors and NGOs are also found. FPE is useful for revealing how these gendered resource disparities are related to agricultural commercialization and increasingly erratic rainfall and aridity, making smallholders more vulnerable to land dispossession. Women's dependence on men to farm while operating under these changing economic and environmental conditions, coupled with their weaker entitlement rights to resources, threatens to push many, particularly ethnic minority women, out of farming altogether. The ways that intersecting identities shape access to land also complicates understandings of the role of community outsiders who are both the dispossessors of land and those who are intensely vulnerable to dispossession. While rural development studies generally consider women's farm resources compared to men's, this does little to explain the intensifying intersectional vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sought to examine factors affecting the level of adoption of technologies transferred to farmers in the Modernisation of Agriculture in Ghana Project (MAG) from gender and power relations perspectives. Results of the study indicate a high rate of adoption of rice and maize technologies by both male and female farmers. Factors influencing adoption include extension service delivery, membership in farmer-based organisation (FBOs), and age. The likelihood of adoption of technologies increased with being a female farmer compared to being a male farmer. There was a discriminatory access to production resources such as land and tractor services against female farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical component of evaluations of the effectiveness of intimate partner violence prevention programmes involves understanding pathways of change among individuals who participate in such programmes, and the intervention or contextual elements that support or hinder these. This paper draws on qualitative evaluations of four intimate partner violence prevention programmes in Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa and Tajikistan conducted as part of the What Works to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls Programme. Using a comparative case study approach, a secondary analysis was applied to thematically analysed data to explore how and why men and women change in response to different types of programmes across diverse contexts. Similar pathways of change were identified including the value of learning and applying relationship skills to support equitable, non-violent relationships; the importance of participatory approaches to challenge harmful gender norms and allow for group rapport; and the integration of economic empowerment activities to reduce drivers of intimate partner violence and conflict, and promote participants' self-confidence and status. These findings provide insights regarding intervention design and implementation factors pertinent to bring about changes in intimate partner violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon recent research that explored Muslim youth identity constructions in southern Ghana. At a time when Muslim youth are often demonised and Islam is represented as incompatible with western democratic ideals, the research explored the intersections of nation, religion, ethnicity and gender in identity narratives of female students in high school and higher education in southern Ghana. After describing the Ghanaian socio-historical context, we outline the post-structural and post-colonial theories used to understand key concepts such as identity and youth. We then describe our methodological approach before presenting our intersectional analysis of data from the focus group discussions. This highlights female youths' deep commitments to nation and religion, the marginalisation of young Muslim females in this Christian-majority context, and finally, the identity tensions articulated by participants between different Islamic traditions. We further show how all of these identity constructions were intersected by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Shaboman' is an ironic self-designated nickname, used by young male band musicians who rush from one gig to another in Accra, Ghana. Being active in diverse musical genres (gospel, highlife, brass, neo-traditional, [afro-]pop), they pursue professional aspirations with dedication, favor wistful romantic love songs, and train girls how to play musical instruments. As these young men present a contrast to dominant narratives on young African men, this paper aims to disrupt and complexify such masternarratives by documenting various facets of masculinities the instrumentalists (aged between 20 and 32) perform in their music practice. In the process, microprocesses of gender production in popular music are traced. Based on extensive ethnographic work in Accra between 2013 and 2018, the analysis draws on two distinct bodies of theoretical work: on cultural performance and performativity of gender in music (Butler; Madison and Hamera 2005; Livermon 2014a, 2014b); and on insights from studies on gender and masculinities in Ghanaian popular music (Asante-Darko and Van der Geest 1983; Adomako Ampofo and Asiedu 2012; Shipley 2013a). Contextualizing the shabomen's staged masculinities among a variety of other manly ideals in Ghanaian popular culture, I highlight how acts of maintaining and subverting gender conventions are intertwined in popular music practice. Furthermore, I depict how gender performances are linked to age group, and to place and belonging at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water shortages may present different and diverse implications for gender subgroups particularly in low-income settings. Yet, little research has documented the gendered livelihood implications of water shortages in Ghana. Based on a cross-sectional mixed method research involving a survey of 250 household heads and complemented with a qualitative study of 86 participants, the paper examines the differential effects of sporadic water supply in Tatale-Sanguli District of Northern Ghana. Our findings suggest that the livelihood effects of sporadic water supply in Tatale-Sanguli area are gendered, with females being disproportionately affected as compared to males. These differential effects are often framed by both gender role differentiation and inequities in access to vital productive resources and critical assets such as bicycles, tricycles and motor bikes. These findings highlight not only the need for local government and non-governmental organisations to step up efforts in water provision, but also to recognise the gendered effects of water shortages in Tatale-Sanguli District. Key to policy is also to ensure that programmatic interventions during water shortages take account of the likely gendered effects and differentiated burdens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana was in tandem with the global feminist movement in the 1970s and its subsequent international women's conferences. This paper discusses the pioneering work and research at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, and its effect on the institutionalization and diffusion of feminist geography in Ghana. Through research and external collaborations, the need for gender as an academic discipline was strongly argued for and instituted as an undergraduate course at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana. These external collaborations with other feminist geographers in international geography associations and universities served as a boost as they created opportunities for highlighting the spatial variations in the role and situation of particularly women's lives in Ghana. Subsequently, there was a diffusion of feminist geography research and its institutionalization as an academic sub-discipline in Geography departments in other Ghanaian universities. These notwithstanding, the departments of Geography in Ghanaian universities are still dominated by male faculty members. Moreover, research work has been mainly in the field of human geography more than the physical aspects calling for the mainstreaming of gender issues in all the systematic branches of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the gender dimensions of climate change adaptation strategies among small holder crop farmers in the transition zone of Ghana. A total of 612 farmers (328 females and 284 males) were interviewed using purposive sampling technique. Our results indicate that adaptation strategies are gendered with men mostly resorting to on-farm agronomic practices such as the use of artificial fertilizers and also moving into new cash crops. Female farmers also use similar on-farm agronomic practices particularly artificial fertilizers to boost crop production but most importantly resorted to petty trading in agricultural and consumable goods, an off-farm strategy. This shows women's resilience which has also subsequently improved their decision-making role at the household level, which is an indicator of empowerment. We recommend that institutions that support climate change adaptation initiatives at the local level must take gender differences into consideration and support particularly women to strengthen their resilience and consolidate their empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In postcolonial societies, emancipation and empowerment are often dialectically situated within colonial discourses of oppression and disempowerment. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the potential of religious institutions to contribute positively to women's liberation is highly debatable. In particular, women's ability to interpret Christian religious doctrine to advance their desire for equal rights depends largely on other leveraging factors such as education and socioeconomic status. This paper discusses field research findings in Ghana that suggest that while Christian religious ideologies reinforce cultural beliefs about women's subservience, participants in this study find that critical engagements with religious or cultural ideologies can contribute to deconstructing patriarchal interpretations of religious or cultural beliefs that marginalize women. These interpretations of otherwise oppressive provisions in the Bible are found to contribute to women's activism for gender equality in terms of their conception of what constitutes equality and the divine backing for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores gender aspects of smallholders’ private technology adoption for groundwater irrigation in Ghana and Zambia. It focuses on two variables of quantitative farm-household surveys: household headship and gendered plot management. The paper compares adoption rates and types of technologies for female- and male-headed households; examines adoption rates when women have their own plots; and compares women’s decision making on irrigated plots and rainfed plots. The findings suggest that there are largely untapped synergies between gender-equality and irrigation-policy goals. Systematic gender differentiation in surveys is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is impossible to understand the gendered relation between women and public space without taking into account its other, that is, male engagements with and in space. Our joint paper contrasts the public spaces of a market and a bus station in central Accra, Ghana. While the former is historically associated with female entrepreneurship, masculinity is deeply inscribed in the activities defining the latter. However, recent developments gradually undermine these gendered divides. By focusing on interpersonal claims to entrepreneurial places in the two locations, we illustrate how the configurations and co-constructions of gender and space are exposed to on-going, often subtle shifts, which are impelled by dialectically grounded transformations of quotidian spatial practices and social relations. Expanding upon the notion of viri–/uxorilocality, we explore shifts in the gendered strategies of newcomers establishing their presence in the two spaces and the extent to which these practices may alter gendered spatial significations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the gendered implications of Africa's transport gap (the lack of cheap, regular and reliable transport) for young people in rural Ghana, with particular reference to the linkages between restricted mobility, household work demands, access to education and livelihood potential. Our aim is to show how mobility constraints, especially as these interact with household labour demands, restrict young people's access to education and livelihood opportunities. Firstly, the paper considers the implications of the direct constraints on young people's mobility potential as they travel to school. Then it examines young people's (mostly unpaid) labour contributions, which are commonly crucial to family household production and reproduction, including those associated with the transport gap. This has especially important implications for girls, on whom the principal onus lies to help adult women carry the heavy burden of water, firewood, and agricultural products required for household use. Such work can impact significantly on their educational attendance and performance in school and thus has potential knock-on impacts for livelihoods. Distance from school, when coupled with a heavy workload at home will affect attendance, punctuality and performance at school: it may ultimately represent the tipping point resulting in a decision to withdraw from formal education. Moreover, the heavy burden of work and restricted mobility contributes to young people's negative attitudes to agriculture and rural life and encourages urban migration. Drawing on research from rural case study sites in two regions of Ghana, we discuss ethnographic material from recent interviews with children and young people, their parents, teachers and other key informants, supported by information from an associated survey with children ca. 9–18 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores issues emerging from the authors' experiences of collaborative research in Ghana, by researchers from a Ghanaian and a British university. The text emerges from discussions between partners and in retrospective reflection on the research process. It is constructed by bringing together personal accounts of the different authors in which their identities shift and are reconstructed in the process of the research. Multiple perspectives across gender, nationality and institutional context create three fault lines to disturb the research process: the initiation of the research, the methodological engagement of the team with each other and the subjects, and the way these are played out in practical issues. The paper explores the problems created by the instabilities created but suggests that they open up spaces for decolonizing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education policy and research tend to be dominated by the messaging systems of the North. De Sousa Santos argues that we need to start listening to the South and that we need to develop a sociology of absences. This paper attempts to engage with some of these absences by deconstructing participation in higher education, in quantitative and qualitative terms, in Ghana and Tanzania. The paper is based on interim findings from a research project on Economic and Social Research Council/Department for International Development-funded research project on Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard (www.sussex.ac.uk/education/wideningparticipation). It argues that, while globally the higher education sector has become associated with economic development and the hyper modernisation of the knowledge economy, some archaic patterns of participation appear to be continuing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of ‘social difference’ for schooling in African contexts. It highlights theoretical and philosophical engagements with ‘difference’ that could help explore and search for viable educational options in Africa. The paper engages voices of university students interviewed in a longitudinal ethnographic research study on schooling done in Ghana. Issues and questions about knowledge production, identity development and representation in pluralistic schooling contexts are raised. Insights about local knowledges, individual agency and resistance as they relate to possibilities for rethinking schooling and education in Africa are also explored. The students' narratives reveal how dialogues about school and educators' practices about difference and diversity are [not] addressed with respect to the students' schooling. Lessons on the possibilities of inclusive schooling environments are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vision of food sovereignty calls for radical changes in agricultural, political and social systems related to food. These changes also entail addressing inequalities and asymmetries of power in gender relations. While women’s rights are seen as central to food sovereignty, given the key role women play in food production, procurement and preparation, family food security, and food culture, few attempts have been made to systematically integrate gender in food sovereignty analysis. This paper uses case studies of corporate agricultural expansion to highlight the different dynamics of incorporation and struggle in relation to women’s and men’s different position, class and endowments. These contribute to processes of social differentiation and class formation, creating rural communities more complex and antagonistic than those sketched in food sovereignty discourse and neo-populist claims of peasant egalitarianism, cooperation and solidarity. Proponents of food sovereignty need to address gender systematically, as a strategic element of its construct and not only as a mobilising ideology. Further, if food sovereignty is to have an intellectual future within critical agrarian studies, it must reconcile the inherent contradictions of the ‘we are all the same’ discourse, taking analysis of social differences as a starting point. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Migration scholars should give attention to migration as seen through children's eyes for at least two reasons. Firstly, children's perspectives help us to understand whether or not children are being socialised into their community's culture of migration, a culture which shapes migration patterns and flows. Secondly, given that some children migrate and some children are left behind by migrant parents or relatives, children's imaginings of whether they as children ought to migrate affect where the responsibility and costs for their care will be located between family members, countries and states. In this paper I examine how children aged 8–22 in a town in southern Ghana imagine life abroad, conceptualise the timing of migration in their life-course, and articulate their goals in migrating. I use this rich material as a case study for exploring the wider issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While in many places same-sex cultures revolve around politically charged subcultural understandings, this paper explores conceptualizations of female same-sex desire beyond constructions of lesbian identity. It looks at a set of practices forged by women who are involved in intimate same-sex relationships in southern Ghana and examines how their self-understandings resist and intersect with the derogatory media representations that frame them. A key term to these representations is the term supi. It implies a close friendship between two adolescent girls, whether or not their relationship has a sexual dimension. In spite of rising tides of homophobia that impact such female intimacies, two factors still allow for the creation of niches for same-sex intimacy: first, southern Ghanaian cultures draw on norms of verbal indirection and discretion, which allow for the concealment of non-normative sexual conduct. Secondly, homosocial spaces of intimacy provide an environment in which female same-sex bonds are expressed through a language of allusion rather than a specialist, subcultural vocabulary. Erotic context is formed through practice and performance and is not discursively named or understood as a social identity. Rather, these understandings of female same-sex passions revolve around the notion of secrecy and are based on tacit but vibrant forms of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary times there has been a broader definition of poverty to include not only economic deprivation such as income, but also various forms of vulnerability such as lack of dignity and autonomy. The paper seeks to bring out the multidimensionality of poverty from the perspective of both men and women in the Dangme West District of Ghana, through their day-to-day experiences of poverty and how this leads to different livelihood strategies among men and women. It is argued that gender inequalities, the patriarchal system and the traditional gender roles of women create a situation where women's experiences of poverty tend to be more severe than those of men. The author recommends that specific policies geared towards poverty reduction must address the needs and concerns of both men and women. Thus, men and women must be involved in defining projects that reflect their local realities and this must be backed by vigorous gender sensitization and awareness programmes. Engendering poverty reduction programmes with gender sensitization and awareness programmes will go a long way to address patriarchal attitudes and gender inequalities that create poverty particularly among women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been a dominant migration stream from north to south in Ghana of female youths, moving independently of their families, and mainly towards the cities of Accra and Kumasi. Young girls from rural areas, particularly the northern regions move to markets in urban centres to serve as kayayei, female porters, who carry goods on their heads for a negotiated fee. Away from support from their home communities and families, most end up living and working under very poor conditions and are exposed to both physical and reproductive health risks. The paper examines the characteristics of young female migrants working as head load porters (kayayei) in three markets in Accra and their livelihood strategies as they move into the wage market. It also examines the processes through which migration is used to address livelihood needs through an analysis of the intersecting social relations of gender, poverty and vulnerability. It discusses the survival strategies used to overcome poverty and to deal with issues of risk and vulnerability, especially in respect of their reproductive and health rights. The implications for migration policies and poverty reduction strategies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Girls' enrolment in primary schools has achieved significant increase and parity with male enrolment in many countries in Africa since the 1960s. Some of these countries include Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania. However, in most Sub-Saharan African countries, female enrolment still lags behind male enrolment. This paper examines some of the reasons for the persistent gender gap between females and males in the three African countries of Ghana, Nigeria and Togo within the West Africa sub-region. It discusses gender relations, cultural practices such as early marriage, child slavery, and child fostering/trafficking, poverty and multiple household duties for girls as some of the contributing factors. It is argued that unless these cultural beliefs and attitudes are changed and mandatory measures such as holding parents accountable and responsible are put in place, gender parity and quality education for all, especially for females, will not be achieved in Africa. A number of additional strategies for improvement in school attendance and retention for females are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the discourses around HIV/AIDS in the national Ghanaian 'Stop AIDS Love Life!' public health campaign, within non-governmental HIV/AIDS publications, and the Ghanaian national print media. I have used critical discourse analysis to interpret and deconstruct a range of these social texts collected between June and September of 2001 and 2003 in and around Greater Accra, Ghana. I argue, firstly, that these discourses are shaped by an international politics of funding for HIV/AIDS that privileges prevention through behaviour change over treatment action under the premise that prevention is a more cost-effective option for the Global South. I critique this stance, highlighting the emerging possibilities for integrated prevention-treatment efforts in resource-poor settings such as Ghana. Secondly, I argue that the discourses around HIV/AIDS presented in prevention campaign materials powerfully construct normative and gendered subjectivities with assigned roles and responsibilities. The fight against HIV/AIDS is constructed as a national project in which an idealized, and often very young, female citizen is positioned as educator, volunteer, carer and protector of herself and society. This discursive coding of responsibility places the many burdens of HIV upon some of the most vulnerable in society, ignoring the structural constraints of gender, generational and economic inequality. I conclude my paper by arguing that efforts to reduce transmission rates, stigma, and the burden of care for those living with HIV/AIDS in Ghana must integrate both preventative efforts and treatment action. Where prevention campaigns are utilized I suggest that these must recognize the limitations of behaviour change initiatives that primarily target women and acknowledge the gendered constraints faced by those very subjects identified as responsible for the protection and education of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we report on preliminary fieldwork conducted in Ghana and The Gambia on the interrelationships among youth, gender and livelihoods. We examine how policy in developing countries, typically characterised as related to child labour or education, needs to emphasise the linkage across processes that affect young people. We argue that policy will be improved if young people are given voice to express how work, education, social networks, and culturally-bound notions of responsibility are linked and how they perceive the opportunities and constraints on their ‘life chances’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]