February 2018
Bernard Owusu, TBTI Master's student, completed his thesis on 'Understanding the conflict between the oil and gas industries and small-scale fisheries in the western region of Ghana'. Bernard was studying at Memorial University, under the supervision of Dr. Dean Bavington.
Bernard studied the conflict between the oil and gas industries over ocean space once used by small-scale, food fisheries in the western region of Ghana. The ‘resource curse’ has been used to explain conflicts and other resource development problems in sub-Saharan African states endowed with natural resources. However, the resource curse explanation has been critiqued as uncritical, reductionist and above all ahistorical. Bernard's thesis frames the conflict through the resource curse lens and reveals resource curse tendencies such as corruption and mismanagement of oil rents, and growing inequality in Ghana. The study uses the changing toponymy of maps of the region, analyzes texts, and images to understand how ocean space in the Western region of Ghana is understood, represented and transformed over time by different resource actors.
