even if born in Ghana but having no parent or grandparent born in Ghana before 1957, are explicitly excluded from Ghanaian citizenship except through marriage or naturalization after long stays. There have been state policies of Fulani pastoralists’ expulsion from Ghana termed ‘Operation Cow Leg’ which has been carried out several times. Besides, local community policies of Fulani pastoralists’ evictions, their limited access to land leases and their conflicts with local farmers have prompted community evictions and attacks as well as state/government interventions. These infringements and the production of stereotypes and prejudices they entailed have affected the relationship between local communities and Fulani pastoralists. Stereotypes and prejudices of Fulani pastoralists go beyond just discourses of them being non-citizens, but are rather based on cognitive social biases and categorization. In examining the stereotypes and prejudices vis-à-vis the Fulani in Ghana, particularly the pastoral Fulani, this paper argues that these attitudes towards Fulani pastoralists in Ghana have become an important part of national and local community policies and discourses, help to exclude the pastoralists and to structure pastoralist-community relations.
Study area and methods
The study is qualitative in nature and based on ethnographic research that included participant observation, interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs) and the collection of media reports and news. The study group comprised purposefully sampled Fulani residents in Ghana, local farmers, Fulani pastoralists (including migrant herders, sedentary herders and cattle owners), local community residents, traditional chiefs, community leaders and government officials. They made up a total of 254 respondents. Our approach thus allowed us to look at stereotypes, prejudices and practices of exclusion as presented in the narrative of immediate actors as well as in Ghanaian media discourse.
Our analysis of Ghanaian media reports involved print, electronic and online sources. These were mainly from the Ghanaian Daily Graphic Newspaper, Ghana News Agency.org (both state-owned), TV3 News Network, Daily Guide Newspaper, Citifmonline.com, Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper, Joy FM (myjoyonline.com), ModernGhana.com, VibeGhana.com, Peacefmonline.com and Ghanaweb.com (privately owned). The analysis took the form of a sociological discourse analysis (see Ruiz 2009) that involved three levels: firstly, textual analysis in which discourses relevant to the topic from the media reports were characterized and a content analysis of the media texts done. This was, secondly, followed by a contextual analysis of these media reports where the communicative meaning of the discourses was analyzed and then, thirdly, by the interpretation of the discourses and generalizations drawn.
Enormous studies have been done on stereotypes, prejudices and practices of exclusion of Fulani across West Africa. Frantz’s (1975) study of stratification of pastoralists reveals challenges in their integration into African nations. Diallo (2001) looked at how citizenship, rights over resources and state and ethno-regional policies in northern Cote d’Ivoire exacerbated inter-ethnic conflicts between Fulani and Senufo communities, leading to frequent eviction of the Fulani. Similarly, Diallo (2009) found that local prejudices and stereotypes of Fulani in Burkina Faso have tended to undermine nomadic Fulani and thereby marginalizing them. In Ghana, Tonah (2000) equally examined local state policies and local prejudices against Fulani in Ghana, using data from Paga along the Ghana-Burkina Faso border. He also examined the national expulsion of Fulani pastoralists from Ghana in 1999/2000 that had been carried out by the Ghanaian state/government (Tonah 2002). Tonah argues that state and local policies have subtly discriminated against Fulani and tended to exclude them as many Ghanaians and the state itself consider them ‘aliens’ and non-citizens. Our study then goes beyond just local stereotypes, prejudices and practices of