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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Exclusion, Association and Violence: Trends and Triggers in Northern Ghana's Konkomba-Dagomba Wars |
Author: | Pul, Hippolyt A.S. |
Year: | 2003 |
Periodical: | African Anthropologist (ISSN 1024-0969) |
Volume: | 10 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | March |
Pages: | 39-82 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | Dagomba Konkomba ethnic warfare Law, Human Rights and Violence Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Ethnic and Race Relations History and Exploration Politics and Government |
External link: | https://www.ajol.info/index.php/aa/article/view/46099 |
Abstract: | In the 1980s and 1990s, Konkomba, Dagomba and other groups in northern Ghana fought a series of 'wars' that cost thousands of lives. This paper charts how changing State policy has affected the level of violence in the area, as well as the role of State actors and civil society organizations in the wars. It argues that ethnic youth organizations are a critical factor in the intensity and duration of the violence and suggests that recurrent ethnic violence can be understood only by linking analyses of historical contexts to contemporary institutional actors. Part I examines the historical context in which Konkomba and Dagomba conflicts have occurred. It focuses on wavering State policies on chieftaincy and landownership which have fostered trends in interethnic exclusion. Part II examines the role of emergent interest groups in reinventing ethnic myths and symbols that have sustained hostilities and triggered the outbreak of violence in recent times. Central in the discussion is the commodification of land, which underscores the politics of interethnic exclusion from political participation. Part III looks at factors that have triggered violence, such as unguarded political statements and uncritical electoral promises. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract] |