Migration, Social Demands and Environmental Change amongst the Frafra of Northern Ghana and the Biali in Northern Benin

Papa Sow,Stephen Adaawen,Jürgen Scheffran

doi:10.3390/su6010375

Abstract

The impacts of environmental change and degradation on human populations, including the possibility of sharp increases in the number of people considered “environmental migrants” have gained considerable attention. Migrating communities may try to distribute their members along particular lines of kinship, gender, marriage and/or services linked to land exploitation and agriculture. This paper explores archives and narratives of African migrants in northwestern Benin and northeastern Ghana. These regions have been marked by severe ecological change and resource deterioration over the years, as well as changes in marital patterns, family relations and customary practices. In the case of Benin, the paper looks at different ethnic groups that migrated from neighboring countries to the study region. It then focuses on the Biali, who undertake marriage journeys after practicing rituals, which are often related to agricultural activities. The Frafra (Ghana), who, in their bid to out-migrate as a livelihood/coping strategy in the advent of environmental deterioration and rainfall variability, are confronted with high bride prices, changing family relations and customary practices. The paper concludes by highlighting socio-cultural changes that ensue in the face of outmigration among different ethnic groups, especially the Biali and Frafra, and the relationship between non-environmental and environmental factors, and mobility strategies.

Highlights

Migration in West Africa, like in other parts of the developing world, has had an immense impact on both home and host societies [1]
The paper has examined the relationship between migration, the formation of conjugal unions and environmental change
What ethnographic accounts have described as forced marriages, the “thefts” of young women, exchanges between brothers from one family and sisters from another, have often been closely linked, throughout history, to the issue of the environment in the study areas

Summary

Introduction

Migration in West Africa, like in other parts of the developing world, has had an immense impact on both home and host societies [1]. Besides the movement of people within the West African sub-region, the emigration of people to Europe, North America and other parts of the world has caught the attention of scholarship [3,4]. Demographic dynamics in Ghana and Benin, like other West African countries, have been characterized by population movements since pre-colonial times [8,9,10]. While colonialism undoubtedly influenced migration patterns in both countries, more recently, global and internal political, economic and environmental dynamics have, to a larger extent, dictated movements within and across borders [1,11,12]

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Conclusion