Security movements in extractive spaces: Dispossession, community-level grievance and resource conflicts in Ghana

Abstract

The African extractive sector is increasingly marked by grievance, conflict, and emerging security challenges. Focused on Ghana, this paper delves into community-level grievances and the concomitant security movements within extractive environments. Its central objective is to critically analyze these novel security movements as integral components of natural resource governance in Ghana's mining industry, elucidating their role in exacerbating or mitigating community-level grievances and dispossession. Additionally, it investigates the influence of security-related policies on other community grievances and security movements within natural resource governance. Our investigation reveals that the militarized policy approach to mineral extraction governance triggers new forms of security movements against mining activities. Secondly, we established that the criminalization of galamsey - illegal mining - breeds significant tension and grievance between citizens and the central government. Thirdly, mining companies’ failure to fulfill compensation and benefits agreements creates animosity, which results in violent confrontations with local communities. Finally, as a result, community members resort to resistance as a counter-hegemonic project against the adverse effects of mining activities and ill-willed government policies to manage mineral extraction. The paper, therefore, sheds light on these ‘new form security movements and their implications for community-level conflicts and grievances in Ghana's mining sector.