‘Neither fish nor fowl’: an analysis of status ambiguity of the Houses of Chiefs in Ghana
This article sets out to explain the basis of status ambiguity of the Houses of Chiefs and Traditional Councils in Ghana and the implications of this ambiguity on the status of the administrative personnel working in them. The interest was necessitated by complaints from administrative personnel in the Houses of Chiefs who were excluded from the general salary enhancement to all civil servants in Ghana in 2007. Between 2007 and 2009, research was conducted in all the 10 Regional Houses of Chiefs, in the National House of Chiefs and at the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture (MCC). While interviews were the main methods used at the MCC, it was combined with observations at the Houses of Chiefs. Primary and secondary documents were also consulted in the process. Data revealed that the Houses of Chiefs serve as “customary” courts for chieftaincy disputes and over the years, have incorporated certain practices of the English common law into their proceedings. Thus, they are neither customary courts in the strictest sense, nor common law courts, which equally explains the difficulty in determining whether or not the administrative personnel in these Houses are civil servants.
The Impact of Transitional Justice on Conflict Resolution and the Maintenance of Peace
The Impact of Transitional Justice on Conflict Resolution and the Maintenance of Peace
Underdevelopment in Northern Ghana: natural causes or colonial capitalism?
The ‘natural’ conditions of soil, climate and even population have been used by several anthropologists and historians to ‘explain’ the relatively underdeveloped condition of Northern Ghana during the colonial period and its aftermath. Such explanations take no account of the requirements of the colonial economy for the labour power for mines and cocoa plantations. It was the demand for labour which determined migration from the North, and not the North's mythical lack of resources. In fact, prior to colonial conquest, the North had been at the heart of 19th Century trade routes and food production. An analysis of the incorporation of the North into the circuit of the world economic system reveals the fallacy of the ‘naturalistic’ arguments.