ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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	Abstracts

Belonging And Not Belonging: Citizenship and The New Forms of Exclusion, Association and Conflicts In Northern Ghana.
by
Hippolyt A. S. Pul
Catholic Relief Services, West Africa Regional Office, Accra, Ghana

Violent civil and/or intercommunal conflicts and the social and economic dislocations they unleash have engaged the attention of third sector actors in Africa since the mid 1990s. They have taken over from the military coups d’états of the 1960s and 70s and the famines of the late 70s and 80s in keeping Africa in the global limelight.

Several explanations ranging from the role and influence of colonial boundaries to the weakness and/or absence of strong, transparent and accountable systems of governance in the postcolonial state have been used to explain Africa’s conflicts ((West Africa, No. 4131 of 6-12 Jan. 1997 Pg 14; Horowitz 2000:75, Paul Brass (1985). Others such as Pablo Rizo (Cultural Survival Quarterly, 1999 Volume 23.1) have also suggested that the absence of inclusive systems of governance for minority groups can also be blamed for the prevalence of conflicts in some locales. But Kauffmann (2001:12) examines the manipulation of ethnic symbols by elites as the source of conflict while Mueller John (“ The Banality of "Ethnic War"” International Security, Summer 2000 v25 i1 p. 42, http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/ambrosio/old/ndsu/pols499/banality.html, as of May 9, 2003) notes that: “…ethnic warfare more closely resembles nonethnic warfare, because it is waged by small groups of combatants, groups that purport to fight and kill in the name of some larger entity”.

Although Varshney and others have recently examined the role of civil society organizations in exacerbating or mitigating conflicts in India, little, if any, attention has been paid to the role of civil society organizations in creating the conditions of exclusion that have engendered and sustained the cycle of violence in many parts of Africa.

This paper examines a lesser known, but instructive case of conflicts in northern Ghana and the role of various civil society organisations, especially Ethnic Youth Associations (EYAs) in the reconstruction of ethnic histories and identities that have fostered exclusion, the redefinition of citizenship and the violent intercommuncal conflicts. Based on the review of historical records relating to the origins and evolution of the ethnic conflicts in northern Ghana since 1957 and field interviews conducted in several locations in northern Ghana, the paper examines the questions: What makes some locales more prone to violence than others? What makes some ethnic groups in this part of the country more likely to engage in violent conflicts than others? And finally, why is the migrant theory the dominant one in the explanation of the conflicts in northern Ghana?

The paper argues that beyond the conventional theories and the seemingly trivial nature of the trigger events of the conflicts in northern Ghana, there are deep seated and long-standing interethnic disagreements about citizenship rights of whole ethnic groups (indigeneity and ethnic identity); the recognition of the right to self-rule and the creation of political space to allow equitable participation of all ethnic groups in the political processes of traditional institutions of governance (chieftaincy) in some localities. It further argues that the redefinition of the ownership of, and control over land, the major productive resource for 95% of the population of the area, threatens not only the economic rights of groups of citizens of some locales, it also undermines the concept of citizenship and belongingness of whole ethnic groups, since denying title to, and control over land bequeathed by their ancestors threatens the very essence and spiritual foundation of their being as a group. The emergence and increasing involvement of ethnic associations in the fights for exclusion or inclusion represent the ethnic wish to carve a space for themselves in the modern state, the paper argues.

Date received: September 24, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # call-85.