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Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the intricacies of resource development for all through capitalist reorganisation of salt mining in Ghana’s eastern coast as women artisanal salt miners confront the state, traditional authorities and private companies in defence of mining salt as a commons.

Paper long abstract:

Salt mining is an economic mainstay of communities along Ghana’s eastern coast where traditionally, salt is mined as a common resource and women dominate as artisanal salt miners. In the last two decades, state policies and endorsement of large-scale industrial salt mining has culminated into private companies taking over such commons as concessions. This has displaced women artisanal salt miners and resulted in women’s struggles to reclaim “the commons”. In this paper, we triangulate data from content analysis of policy documents and media reports, observations, focus group discussions and interviews, to understand the current struggles, their linkages to past processes, and their changing forms in relation to changing social provisioning in this rural landscape and climate variability. We present the intricacies of women’s encounters with displacement, dispossession and unemployment and highlight how they use both confrontational and compromising stands to tackle different threats from private companies, the state and traditional authorities. We highlight how women’s defence of the commons is anchored in the protection of a shared identity through which different categories of women secured their livelihoods, while the state’s defence of large-scale industrial salt mining is anchored in the logic of improving livelihoods for these women through “development” of salt resources. By defying the state, traditional authorities and companies amidst violence, the women demonstrate their demand for economic inclusion and hold the state to uphold the constitutional rights of socio-economic freedom. This paper speaks to the peculiarities of the rhetoric of resource development for the benefit of all.