The Political Ecology of the Water-Mining Nexus in Ghana

The thesis presents a detailed ethnographic case study of a mining community in the Eastern region of Ghana to underscore the complex political realities that underlie the nexus between gold mining and water. Ghana, the leading gold producer in Sub-Saharan Africa, has faced challenges with regards to safeguarding surface water resources through the formalisation of the informal artisanal and small-scale mining sector. Drawing on concepts rooted in political ecology, the thesis addresses the rhetoric behind the state’s aim to use formalisation as a governance tool to control surface water pollution. It is premised on the argument that water pollution is merely a physical manifestation of the complex socio-political processes ongoing in local mining communities and other broader scales.
The thesis hence provides deep insights into the political ecology of the water-mining nexus by providing answers to three main research questions: a) How do gold mining economies emerge in Ghanaian rural communities? b) How do these gold economies interact with water resources at the local level? c) To what extent can the technocentric nature of artisanal mining formalisation regulate the dynamic waterscape produced by gold mining?
The thesis’s rich ethnographic account is one of the few studies within the Sub-Saharan context (and in Ghana) to critically examine the water-mining nexus. By elucidating the multi-level and complex relationship between water, mining, and the politics of African societies, it opens the ‘black-box’ of the realities of the state-nature-society relationship in the everyday management of natural resources.