TY - JOUR
T1 - Assistance and resistance of (hydro-)power
T2 - Contested relationships of control over the Volta River, Ghana
AU - Wissing, Kirsty
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - In this article, I examine human attempts to control water, and water’s inherent potential for disorder, by focusing on the Volta River and Akosombo Dam in Ghana. I suggest that, in regard to the work of Wittfogel, Kwame Nkrumah’s famous vision of Ghanaian nationalism and pan-African sovereignty was a kind of Wittfogelian reading of waterscapes as manipulated to facilitate political power. In the conception and construction of the massive Akosombo Dam in the traditional area of the Akwamu people in southern Ghana, Nkrumah attempted to reshape society through the control of water. Local Akwamu people have different visions about who can control water, how water can (or sometimes cannot) be controlled, and how deities are the most authoritative actors in any human engagements with water and its flow. Akwamu understandings of hydro-sociality can be seen as a critique of Wittfogelian models of hydraulic societies. I also draw on the work of Fontein and also Keane, to suggest how water’s ‘indexical’ (causal or connective) relationship to power is always a matter of contest, and water’s material properties means it ultimately escapes definitive human control.
AB - In this article, I examine human attempts to control water, and water’s inherent potential for disorder, by focusing on the Volta River and Akosombo Dam in Ghana. I suggest that, in regard to the work of Wittfogel, Kwame Nkrumah’s famous vision of Ghanaian nationalism and pan-African sovereignty was a kind of Wittfogelian reading of waterscapes as manipulated to facilitate political power. In the conception and construction of the massive Akosombo Dam in the traditional area of the Akwamu people in southern Ghana, Nkrumah attempted to reshape society through the control of water. Local Akwamu people have different visions about who can control water, how water can (or sometimes cannot) be controlled, and how deities are the most authoritative actors in any human engagements with water and its flow. Akwamu understandings of hydro-sociality can be seen as a critique of Wittfogelian models of hydraulic societies. I also draw on the work of Fontein and also Keane, to suggest how water’s ‘indexical’ (causal or connective) relationship to power is always a matter of contest, and water’s material properties means it ultimately escapes definitive human control.
KW - Akwamu
KW - Ghana
KW - Hydro-power
KW - Nkrumah
KW - Wittfogel
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059051377&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0263774X18807482
DO - 10.1177/0263774X18807482
M3 - Article
SN - 2399-6544
VL - 37
SP - 1161
EP - 1178
JO - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
JF - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
IS - 7
ER -