Literature on political vigilante groups has centred on the violence and conflict that emanate from their activities. This article approaches political vigilante groups as political actors who engage in political mobilisation and participation and therewith also contribute to nation state building. It explores how such groups participate in Ghana’s democratic governance and asks whether violence is an inevitable characteristic. The article builds on individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with political vigilante group members in Kumasi and Tamale in 2019. Findings show that political vigilante “youth” appeared to refer primarily to the social position attributed to non-elite groups in the political field. Political vigilante groups are multi-faceted in their organisational structures, membership, and activities both during electoral campaigns and during governing periods. While some groups revert to violence occasionally, the study concludes that political vigilante groups, in enabling different voices to be heard, are also contributing to democratic governance.
Recently, communities in Agogo Traditional Area (ATA) have witnessed an increasing spate of violence leading to loss of lives, loss of livelihoods, insecurity and severe injury among others. This article explores the “local” in peacebuilding by addressing the following research questions: first, how do Agogo indigenes in the diaspora contribute to peacebuilding in Agogo Traditional Area? Second, in which ways do the engagement of Fulani herders and indigenous farmers influence the process of peacebuilding in Agogo Traditional Area? The article employed in-depth interviews, participant observation, key informant interviews and focus group discussions in the data collection process. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the research has introduced the activities of transnational migrants into the discourse of peacebuilding as it positions Ghanaians in the diaspora as local actors engaged in the farmer-herder conflict in ATA. This study has shown that in the case of ATA, despite the potential benefits of the local peacebuilding including the contribution of the diaspora, it is bedeviled with challenges such as mistrust and inadequate resources. The article recommends that local peacebuilding be detached from adjudication in the court of law because the local actors perceive the court as external and ambivalent to the cultural context of local conflicts.
Les auteurs analysent la genèse des sections extérieures des partis politiques ghanéens aux Pays-Bas, et la façon dont leurs membres mènent une vie politique transnationale entre pays d’accueil et pays d’origine. L’étude confirme que l’engagement politique transnational n’entre pas en concurrence, mais complète plutôt l’intégration politique dans le pays d’accueil. En dépit de la participation politique active des immigrés ghanéens à Amsterdam, leur représentation politique reste faible à la fois dans le pays d’accueil et dans le pays d’origine.
This study seeks to understand how some African Initiated Christian churches in Amsterdam sanction discrimination against women in the exercise of the right to religious citizenship. This research also investigates how through the exercise of agency some female second generation Ghanaians contest, reinterpret or conform to gendered sanctions in the religious field. Data were drawn mainly from in-depth interviews, participant observation and informal interviews in Amsterdam. The exercise of religious citizenship is not a level playing ground for both females and males. The study concludes that religious sanctions on sex and sexuality pronounced in the religious field contradict human rights expressed in the nation state. The study also noted that the emergence of immigrant women’s engagement in institutionalised religiosity binds feminist scholars to rethink of religion as a field that does not generate only oppressed female citizens rather it also provides the space for females to exercise agency.
The contestations over land and pasture redefine broad complex boundaries between three groups: autochthone farmers of Agogo, Fulani sedentary herders, and Fulani nomads. The broad boundaries have emerged into sub-categories between the sedentary Fulani and Fulani nomads who belong to the same ethnic group of Fulbe in West Africa. With growing population pressures and shrinking resources, the competition for land and livelihoods has fuelled tensions among these groups, feeding a cycle of recurring violence. Extended qualitative fieldwork conducted in six communities in the forest transitional zone of Ghana reveals how these tensions are connected to emerging forms of self-categorisation and othering: developing positive attitudes of in-groups, while viewing others less favourably. This has produced a triadic relationship with varied claims to authority, space, and residential superiority. The indigenous farmers claim ownership of the land and demand the evacuation of both sedentary Fulani and Fulani nomads from the area. The sedentary Fulani claim they are not the troublemakers but that they are blamed for the encroachment and destruction of farms. The Fulani nomads resist assertions that they are dangerous and unapproachable, but intentionally remain aloof and outside, at the margins of Ghana’s legal authority.
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