Rainy season rights, dry season displacements: A feminist political ecology of seasonality, tenure fluidity and land access in irrigation valleys in Northern Ghana

While feminist scholars have long examined how gender shapes access to resources in agrarian societies, existing frameworks often treat the temporal dimensions of these inequities as static or predetermined. This tendency obscures the ways seasonal environmental cycles interact with social differences to produce dynamic patterns of inequality in agricultural communities. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted from 2021 to 2022, in northern Ghana's irrigation valleys, this paper introduces the concept of seasonal tenure fluidity as a lens to explore how gender and temporality co-constitute patterns of resource access that fluctuate over time and space. Grounded in intersectional feminist political ecology, we demonstrate how women experience paradoxical cycles of access and dispossession, gaining land access during the flood-prone rainy season while facing systemic displacement during the economically valuable dry season. Through a detailed examination of farmers’ lived experiences, we show that temporal dimensions of resource inequities are not merely reflective of existing power structures but actively reconstitute gendered subjectivities and resource control. We find that the introduction of irrigation technologies, particularly water pumps, has transformed historically feminine agricultural spaces into sites of masculine authority, highlighting how technological change intersects with seasonal dynamics to reshape resource governance. Ultimately, this paper contributes to feminist political ecology by illustrating how resource access is temporally performed and contested, challenging conventional static frameworks of land tenure. By examining how seasonal tenure fluidity shapes agricultural practices, economic opportunities, and gender relations, we provide vital insights for development interventions and land governance policies.