Paper short abstract:

Ghana’s oil industry has spawned profound changes in the social (re)production of inland communities. This paper explores links between oil and agrarian transformation, seen as necessary for capitalist development and industrialisation. It documents dispossession using an agrarian political economy approach

Paper long abstract:

Though Ghana's oil is drilled offshore, the industry has spawned profound changes in the social (re)production of the inland communities dotted along the country's Western coastline. These changes are intrinsic to the processes and mechanisms directly or indirectly related to the production, lifting, and transportation of oil and gas from under the seabed to various destinations in Ghana and abroad. Though the socioeconomic impacts of Ghana's oil and gas industry has been a much-studied topic since 2007, to date the issues have not been systematically probed through an agrarian political economy approach. This paper goes beyond the predominantly empiricist analysis of the deleterious socioeconomic effects of the oil and gas industry on local communities, questioning to what extent these effects may be the birth pangs of the agrarian transformation necessary for capitalist development and industrialisation in Ghana. The paper does two main things: first, it documents evidence of the dispossession of fishers and peasants as global primitive accumulation; and second, it shows how agrarian political economy is an underexplored area, yet rich in analytical tools that can be applied to oil and gas in Ghana. The article serves as a springboard of a scholarly and political project that seeks to shift analyses of Ghana's oil and gas industry in new and different directions from the 'Dutch disease' and 'resource curse' approaches, which have been the predominant prisms informing research, analysis, and development policies on industry.