Atewa Forest Reserve in the Eastern Region of Ghana represents one of only two reserves with upland evergreen forests in Ghana but is also a possible site for bauxite mining. The Government of Ghana deployed an infrastructure in anticipation for a refined bauxite agreement with China. Ghana’s Government seeks to develop an integrated Bauxite-Aluminum Industry; however, several NGOs try to protect the Atewa Forest and propose that the area should be upgraded to a National Park. In this study, this conservation-exploitation conflict is analyzed from a political ecology perspective elaborating on who are the involved key actors, their relations and what strategies are used. Political ecology is about recognizing the power that actors have at the moment of deciding what, how, and where to conserve nature. Based on interviews done during fieldtrips in 2018, 2019 and 2020 complemented by an analysis of political documents, the identified strategies the NGOs are using in this conflict, can be described as demonstration and upscaling. The aim of this paper is to draw attention on the politicization of nature, in particular Atewa forest reserve and its bauxite resources.
Societies in the Global South are simultaneously confronted with various challenges that societies in the Global North faced over a long period of time. From the beginning of the 18th century the Global North has faced challenges in line with its industrialization and modernization processes including population growth with the necessity to feed that growing population, rapid urbanization or infrastructure development. Solving these challenges during past centuries has led to highly developed societies but produced new threats: environmental degradation and climate change-features of Beck's 'reflexive modernity'. Today, societies in the Global South not only face similar challenges such as population growth, malnutrition or lacking infrastructure, but also the consequences of the humanmade environmental change and its related risks. Change in the Global South has reached a previously unseen pace and notable simultaneity. This paper aims to operationalise and visualise the challenge of simultaneity. By identifying six indicators for three main issues, the extent of simultaneity will be analysed using the examples of Kenya, India, Brazil and Germany. The findings show that simultaneity is a key challenge for current social, economic and ecological transformations in the Global South.
The Ghanaian government aims to develop an integrated bauxite–aluminium industry and seeks to further bauxite extraction at several sites across the country. This vision is embedded within the political agenda “Ghana Beyond Aid,” introduced by the country's president, Nana Akufo‐Addo. One possible mining area is Atewa Forest, one of the few remaining intact upland evergreen rainforests in Ghana. This study highlights the important narratives local NGOs use to mobilise against bauxite mining at Atewa Forest: (a) the case of environmental justice with a strong focus on clean water and (b) the foreign Chinese influence. Both narratives have gained national as well as international attention. However, the government avoids direct discussion and legitimises extraction through the newly created political agenda Ghana Beyond Aid. The latter is better understood as a future‐making practice, a practice creating a single development path that only needs to be managed. At the same time, revenue from refined bauxite finances huge infrastructure projects that are the foundation of this political agenda. In addition, this legitimation to extract bauxite appears to be powerful because it is linked to broader global narratives about modernisation and economic growth.
Abstract. Questions centered around the „Anthropos in the Anthropocene“ are particularly virulent in Anthropogeography. While the discussion about More-Than-, Post- or Other-Than-Human is present and vivid especially in anglophone theoretical discourse as well as in New Materialism, the German-speaking representative of a Philosophical Anthropology Helmuth Plessner has hardly received any attention. His concept of Eccentric Positionality, among others, seems to be particularly appropriate and striking in this context. Plessner has made remarkable attempts in approximating the essence of the human being and his fellow world, without lapsing into existentialism or making under-complex differentiations. His dialectical, oscillating definition of „Menschlichkeit“ between „Un-“ and „Allzumenschlichkeit“ has great potential for differentiation and insight. This article is intended to re-examine Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology against this background and to encourage new „dives“ in the sense of a German Theory into his, in our view, highly interesting field of Philosophical Anthropology.
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