Continuous primitive accumulation in Ghana: the real-life stories of dispossessed peasants in three mining communities

The purpose of this article is to provide an opportunity for the peasants in three mining communities in Ghana to voice their experiences of primitive accumulation under contemporary global neo-liberalism. There is a plethora of literature on the exploitation of Africa, drawing on theories of new imperialism or 'accumulation by dispossession'. However, there is not much grassroots empirical work on how different social groups experience accumulation by dispossession. It seems that NGOs and journalists do better on this than intellectuals. I seek in this article to contribute to filling this lacuna, by focusing on the hardest hit social group, namely, the peasants. I also argue that the existence of this lacuna has major theoretical and political implications for the struggle for alternatives to capitalism and 'development' that is distinctly anti-imperialist. The article is based on data collected through focus group discussions and in-depth personal interviews with peasants affected by surface mining activities of transnational mining corporations in three mining communities in the resource-rich Western Region of Ghana: Prestea, Dumasi and Teberebie.