Political process and social contest – A historical analysis of state-chief relations in Kpandai district, Northern Ghana

project summary

Recent decentralisation, the demarcation of a new district and the establishing of a district assembly in Kpandai, northern Ghana has given rise to a resurfacing of historically unresolved disputes concerning traditional citizenship and rights to chiefship. This harks back to the colonial reforms of the 1930’s. Contemporary contests are situated in the context of a practical inseparability between emerging configurations of competing public authorities, on the one hand, and the practice of state sanction of property rights, on the other. Both processes generate winners and losers and compound simple differentiations between de jure and de facto categories.