Wolfram Laube

Changing Natural Resource Regimes in Northern Ghana. Actors, Structures and Institutions

The publication is based on ethnological and economic field research, particularly in Biu(k) and its surroundings between 2001 and 2004.

A short review (1-2 pages) of Laube’s book for Buluk is welcome.

The following abstract has been adopted from the brochure Anthropologie/Anthropology 2008, Lit Verlag Münster.

Colonial and national interventions have considerably changed the natural resource regimes regarding water and land in Northern Ghana. However, this change has not led to the establishment of new institutions, but different actors - farmers, bureaucrats, earthpriests, chiefs and politicians - are continuously engaged in negotiation process over (natural) resources. While the institutional and distributional outcomes of these negotiation processes remain inconclusive they have led to a precarious power balance, in which different actors rely on different institutions and changing political alliances to pursue their interests.

Wolfram Laube (2007): Changing Natural Resource Regimes in Northern Ghana. Actors, Structures and Institutions. ZEF (Center for Development Research, Bonn) Development Studies, ed. by Solvay Gerke and Hans-Dieter Evers, Volume 4. Münster and Berlin: Lit Verlag.