‘Soon there will be no-one left to take the corpses to the morgue’: Accumulation and abjection in Ghana's mining communities

Abstract

This article argues that Ghana's galamsey or artisanal miners offer a strategy of resistance to state mining policy and foreign company operations. Galamsey provide significant injections of sustained income to local communities and clamping down on their activities is at best short sighted and at worst a strategy that promotes community abjection. The article reviews the experience of two communities in the Wassa West District of Ghana and especially the changing livelihoods of female headed households since the Government of Ghana has restricted the activities of the galamsey.