“We are entitled to take what belongs to us”: Indigenous land ontologies and persistent informality in Ghana’s small-scale mining

Keywords: Indigenous, ontologies, mining, Ghana.
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

In 1962, the Minerals Act of Ghana vested all mineral deposits in the state. This declaration denied individuals legal rights to mine outside state-controlled operations, despite the country’s long history of private indigenous mining. Yet, private indigenous mining persisted as miners continued to negotiate land access with traditional authorities and individual landowners. In the 1980s, the state liberalized the mining sector to promote large-scale foreign investment in mineral extraction. Indigenous small-scale mining exploded as state mining policies disposed ancestral territories and farmlands for transnational mining operations. Efforts to govern and control indigenous mining led to the formalization of the small-scale mining sector. Despite the formalization, individuals continue to mine outside state regulatory bodies, often on state-leased concessions. This study examines Ghana’s contradictory land tenure policies and indigenous land ontologies to understand the persistent informality in mining and how land connections are articulated. Based on eight months of in-depth ethnographic study, I demonstrate that land claims, access, and experiences are entangled in both indigenous and legal land ontologies. However, individuals, often constructed as “illegal miners”, access and make claims to gold-producing lands through biogenetic/ancestral connections, customary relations, and informal land acquisition. I draw attention to commoning/collective ownership of land, a sense of belongingness, and ancestral connection to land to demonstrate that struggles over the extractive geographies, particularly indigenous people’s struggles over territories and resources, cannot be adequately addressed without attention to (indigenous) land ontologies.