Suchergebnisse

Migration has assumed growing significance in the global development agenda as its potential for economic and social development is increasingly acknowledged. Within the Africa context, perceptions of migration as a negative phenomenon have shifted to recognition of its central role to Africa's transformation. Despite this shift, emerging migration dynamics have not been adequately contextualized and conceptualized, making it difficult to integrate migration into development planning processes. This book attempts to fill the gaps in migration knowledge production, particularly from the perspectives of researchers in the global south and more specifically from Ghana. The chapters provide multi disciplinary perspectives in the contemporary migration landscape in Ghana and Africa. Rather than focus on migration as a problem to be solved, the chapters explore migration as an intrinsic part of the broader processes of structural change in Ghana, which could create opportunities for development if properly harnessed. This reader is an essential resource for migration and development researchers, students, policy makers, practitioners and others interested in the field of development.

Recent studies indicate that poor migrants are more likely to depend on social capital among other resources for livelihoods in host communities. Relying on insights from the social networks theory and using qualitative data from two migrant sending regions and one migrant destination area in Ghana, this paper examines the role and effects of networks of social capital on migration processes and livelihood strategies of migrants in the construction and domestic work sectors in Accra, Ghana. The paper argues that different categories of migrants fashion out specific migration strategies based on a complex intersection of social networks, which is shaped by specific contexts. Therefore the various ways in which migrants access, maintain and construct different types of networks in varied social locations and with diverse people needs to be interrogated in a more nuanced way and their policy implications addressed.

This paper provides a broad review of agrarian change in Ghana by highlighting the major developments in the agrarian political economy and their implications for agricultural commercialisation and its modifying influence on land tenure systems, livelihoods, production systems, social relations, and labour relations. While current land tenure arrangements and labour relations in Africa are often explained in terms of globalisation, we argue that the historical context of agricultural commercialisation in Ghana shows continuities and discontinuities in agrarian relations from the colonial period to the present. We also argue that changes over the years have blended with globalisation to produce the distinct forms of labour relations that we see today. The commercialisation of agriculture in Ghana has evolved progressively from the colonial era aided by policies of coercion, persuasion and incentives to its current globalised form. The expansion in the range of commodities over time necessarily increased the demand for more land and labour. The article contributes to the literature by providing great insights into changes in land and labour relations due to increasing commercialisation, and how these enhanced wealth accumulation for the richer segments of society and global capital to the detriment of the poor throughout Ghana's agrarian history.

Since the 1980s, a neoliberal paradigm has guided agricultural policy formulation in Africa with an unflinching preference for the commercialization of agriculture through the incorporation of smallholder farmers into global circuits of accumulation via outgrower arrangements. The paradigm has claimed that the promotion of integrated value chains will create jobs and enhance incomes in agrarian areas. This article assesses the manner in which men and women are positioned differentially in the outgrower value chains in terms of employment benefits. Drawing on interviews, the article explores the employment pattern in the outgrower value chain system and the structural dynamics that lead to benefits, or otherwise, for men and women in Ghana's largest fruit-processing company, Blue Skies, and its outgrower farms. This study finds that many jobs were created along the value chain for men and women, but that men have occupied the high-earning echelon of the value chain as outgrowers, as well as more secure positions as permanent staff in the factory, women have largely been employed as disposable casual workers in these two spaces.

This study aims to improve the evidence base for programmes and policies seeking to facilitate labour mobility for development within the ECOWAS region. The study is based on secondary data collected from available administrative data sources, surveys and censuses in all 15 ECOWAS countries and is complemented by interviews with key informants such as policymakers, immigration officials and statistical offices. ; The ACP Observatory on Migration is an initiative of the ACP Secretariat, funded by the European Union, implemented by IOM and with the financial support of Switzerland, IOM, the IOM Development Fund and UNFPA.

AbstractGeneric accounts of pervasive cases of exploitation and abuse against migrant domestic workers in the Middle East exist in the extant literature. However, very little is known about the breadth, depth and gendered nature of abuses experienced by female migrants from especially the sub‐Saharan African region. Abuses of the rights of sub‐Saharan Africans are under‐represented and under‐theorised. This paper interrogates the question what is the nature, extent and severity of exploitation and abuse against female Ghanaian domestic workers in the Middle East? Using data from mixed‐methods research, this paper adopts the framework of structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence to examine the range of abuses against domestic workers and the context within which these abuses take place.

AbstractWhile studies have drawn attention to the operationalization, and implementation challenges associated with the ECOWAS free movement protocol, our understanding of how different categories of migrants experience the protocol is far more limited. Drawing on data from interviews conducted with 23 ECOWAS migrants living or travelling to Ghana, immigration officials and a trade union representative, this paper examines the diversity of experiences of ECOWAS migrants in relation to the free movement protocol. The findings suggest that the experiences of ECOWAS nationals in areas such as awareness and knowledge of provisions in the protocol, border crossing, processes of acquiring residence and work permits and renewing permits, and rights of establishment differ remarkably by dimensions of social difference. The gender, social class and nationality of migrants are fundamental and shape the experiences of ECOWAS migrants in divergent ways. These findings have important implication for policies seeking to promote free movement in West Africa.

This paper draws on a feminist poststructural perspective to examine gendered dimensions of sending and managing international migrant remittances in a patriarchal community in Ghana. It relies on primary data collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and observation in Nkoranza, a Ghanaian community with a long history of international migration and receipt of remittances, to analyze the fluidity of gendered and intergenerational power relationships associated with managing remittances. The findings show that males and females perform different roles as remitters and managers of remittances. While the patterns of sending and receiving remittances tend to conform to gender norms, which construct men as providers and women as carers, these subject positions are fluid. Although men are generally reluctant to perform traditional female roles even when their wives migrate, gendered and intergenerational power relations are being negotiated through the sending and management of remittances.