‘Where Is Not Home?’: Dagaaba migrants in the Brong Ahafo Region, 1980 to the present

Autor: Gariba B. Abdul-Korah
Rok vydání: 2006
Předmět:
Zdroj: African Affairs. 106:71-94
ISSN: 1468-2621
0001-9909
Popis: The 1980s marked the beginning of a significant shift in the pattern of Dagaaba migration to southern Ghana. Instead of the mining centres of Obuasi (Ashanti region) and Prestea and Tarkwa (Western region) respectively, many Dagaaba men and women have been migrating to predominantly agricultural areas in the Brong Ahafo region. There is also evidence that Dagaaba migrants, who previously worked in the southern and coastal regions, have been relocating to the Brong Ahafo region when they either lost their jobs or retired. This article explores the factors that have culminated in the mass movement of Dagaaba men and women to the Brong Ahafo region and the reasons why 'step' Dagaaba migrants are relocating to the Brong Ahafo region in large numbers instead of going back home (to the north) as many of their predecessors did. The article adds to the ongoing discussion on the migration phenomenon in subSaharan Africa by foregrounding the internal ways in which communities themselves shape migration through extended, gendered social debates over production and reproduction. THE DAGAABA OF THE UPPER WEST REGION (UWR) HAVE MIGRATED to the southern part of Ghana in various capacities since the pre-colonial period.' However, since the annexation of the Northern Territories (NTs) to the Gold Coast colony in 1901, the nature and pattern of Dagaaba migration to southern Ghana changed and continues to change. Like all people of the Gariba B. Abdul-Korah (abdulkog@strose.edu) is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. This article is based on 12-month fieldwork conducted in Ghana in 2001-02 on a broader study, 'Migration, Ethnicity and Uneven Development in Ghana'. The author is grateful to the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies (SSRC/ACLS), the Compton Foundation, the Graduate School at the University of Minnesota, and the Mac Arthur Program at the University of Minnesota for funding the research. The author also thanks Professors Jean Allman of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Keith Haynes of the College of Saint Rose, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. 1. The beginnings of Dagaaba migration to southern Ghana can be traced to the pre-colonial past in the slave trade, but more especially in the period following Asante's defeat of Gonja in the eighteenth century. See Jack Goody, 'The over-kingdom of Gonja' in D.C. Forde and P.M. Kaberry (eds), West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1967), pp. 179-205.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: