Ocean and land grabbing in Ghana's offshore petroleum industry: From the agrarian question to the question of industrialization

Abstract

Ghana's petroleum industry is located several nautical miles offshore in the Western Region of the country. Yet, the mechanisms and processes of production and transportation of crude petroleum are accompanied by the dispossessing of the adjoining coastal communities of their means of (re)production both on the ocean and on land. Although the insights of agrarian political economy have been deployed fruitfully to analyse land grabs in Africa, similar efforts are rare when it comes to ocean grabs. With reference to the new development thinking on the ocean economy—or ‘blue economy’—as the new frontier of resource‐based industrialization in Africa, we re‐frame the agrarian question and apply it to the offshore petroleum industry, expanding agrarian political‐economic theory of industrialization beyond its traditional confines of land and agriculture. Our paper makes two main theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to efforts in agrarian political economy to incorporate the ocean and fisheries. Second, we contribute a fresh theoretical framework for analysing offshore petroleum industries and their potential to contribute to industrialization in Africa.

Taxation in the Digital Age: An Examination of the Necessity, Feasibility, and Implications of Taxing Virtual Infrastructures

“…According to Vlados [114], scholarly contributions of classical economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill laid the foundation for classical tax theory. Nevertheless, classical tax theory originated when the economy was predominantly controlled by agriculture and industry [115]. In contrast, Santa et al [116], argue that the digital economy is characterized by its dynamic nature, as evidenced by its reliance on intellectual property, intangible assets, and rapidly evolving business models.…”

Land and ocean grabs and the relative surplus population in Ghana

“…Hence, critical scholars have deployed concepts such as "grabbing" and "new enclosures" to illuminate the dispossession of prior users of land such as peasants. Even though land grabs have received disproportionate attention in the literature, the ocean (the other component of the terraqueous) was not immune to the scramble for natural resources by global capital as part of the spatio-temporal fi xes of these crises of capitalism (Ayelazuno and Ovadia 2022;Barbesgaard 2018;Bennett et al 2015;Franco et al 2014;Zalik 2015Zalik , 2018.…”

“…At the height of the land grabs post-2007-2008 global economic crises, Ghana was one of the key targeted African countries for land grabs (Cotula et al 2014). Following the fi nding of oil in 2007 in the Atlantic Ocean, specifi cally, the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana's coastal communities also experienced "ocean grabbing" ( Ayelazuno and Ovadia 2022;Bennett et al 2015;Franco et al 2014;Zalik 2015Zalik , 2018. Mining-driven land grabs in Ghana preceded the post-2007-2008 land grabs by more than a decade.…”

“…(Fishmonger, Axim, December 4, 2015) As with the land grabs for capitalist farming, ocean grabs for capitalist accumulation have not engendered any signifi cant degree of struc-tural transformation in the Ghanaian economy as a pathway, as Li asserted about agriculture, from the production of crude petroleum oil to refi nery and other petroleum factories. Yet these are the economic conditions required to create jobs for the dispossessed fi sherfolk of the coastal communities and Ghanaians in general (Ayelazuno and Ovadia 2022).…”

Maritime temporalities and capitalist development

“…But we wish to insist that the peculiar bio-physical properties of the sea have combined with capitalist imperatives to deliver unique spatio-temporal effects. These furthermore underline the benefits of adopting a 'terraqueous territoriality' when analysing global political geography and capitalist development (Ayelazuno & Ovadia, 2022;Foley & Mather, 2019;Mallin & Barbesgaard, 2020). Recent scholarship has encouraged us to think on a planetary scale about the places where land meets sea, thus creating 'a framework within which to place a politico-scientific history of soil and water with the paradox that characterises modernity; the fixity of national belonging in a world defined by mobility' (Bashford, 2017, p. 272).…”