Researchers of forced migration in Africa have largely appropriated, as a primary analytical approach, categories developed in refugee agency policy, resulting in policy-driven scholarship that obscures local and historical patterns of refuge-seeking and displacement. Contra this Eurocentric approach, empirical research conceived independently of dominant policy categories emphasizes shared commonalities of settled and displaced populations, such as language, identity, gender, economic status, occupation, political allegiance, and historical migration processes. Such findings can develop new understandings of forced migration in Africa, where many of those displaced remain outside organizational systems of protection, aid and support. Yet mobilizing empirical research produced in Africa remains a challenge. A 2020 study led by the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network found that scholars based in the Global North produced 90% of articles published in the flagship Journal of Refugee Studies---despite 85% of the forcibly displaced being located in the Global South.

The people of Atuabo and Sanzule celebrated following the announcement of the construction of gas processing plants. They expected the gas industry to bring jobs and increase their standard of living. Years later, they wish gas had never been discovered in their regions. Farmers and fishermen have lost their livelihoods. Many have had to leave home. 

Here, Augustine Kaku provides an analysis of the words that farmers, fisherman, and families use to explain their disappointments and difficulties in the Ellembelle district.

Deepening divides in Ghanaian politics reveal the legacy of a pervasive fear of political persecution that emerged in the 1960s, in contrast with aspirational ideas of unity, justice and freedom at the beginning of the African independence era. 

In this post, Gloria is on a path to recover a view from the Ghanaian margins – the marginalized voices of the Ghana Young Pioneers, whose wings got singed when they flew too close to the fires of political struggle.