Dispossession by Ban and Militarization: Critical Analysis of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Ban in Ghana

The analysis of the state-imposed ban on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and its stated objective of promoting environmental sustainability is far more nuanced than what is portrayed in the literature. In this paper, I critically analyze the ASM ban in Ghana, drawing on findings from a qualitative, ethnographic study conducted in 2017, including interviews, personal experiences and field/participant observations, as well as additional data from digital interviews conducted in 2020 and media reports. I use the concept of dispossession by ban and militarization to explain the findings on the heterogeneous realities of government interventions, specifically the mining ban and associated militarized conservation measures, which adversely impact informal ASM operators’ activities, displacing them from extractive spaces through environmental, economic, socio-spatial, and techno-political disruption. In the early stages, the 2017 government ban was highly effective, halting most ASM operations across the country and causing severe dispossession. Later, when militarized enforcement proved less effective, the ban intensified environmental degradation, particularly as miners responded to this coercive approach by relocating into forest reserves and new territories. Situating the findings more broadly within a dispossession by ban and militarization theoretical framing, nine characteristics were identified as dimensions of dispossession arising from the outcomes of the ASM mining ban and its military enforcement: (i) lack of or restricted autonomy and access to minerals/mining spaces, (ii) clandestine mining works and security entrapment, (iii) destabilization of (in)formal actors and institutions in the sector, (iv) co-arrangement of operations and new network formation (v) resistance and socio-spatial-technological destructions, (vi) Relocation—”shifting mining” into new lands and forest reserves, (vii) bribery and corruption, (viii) occupational risks and health outcomes, and (ix) economic deprivation, alternatives and ‘lost livelihood. The policy and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed in the paper.