Revisiting the Host-Refugee Environmental Conflict Debate: Perspectives from Ghana’s Refugee Camps
Publisher: Canadian Journal of African Studies
Author(s): Samuel K.M. Agblorti and Miriam Grant
Date: 2020
Topics: Conflict Causes, Economic Recovery, Governance, Humanitarian Assistance
Countries: Ghana
In the debate over refugee–host community environmental conflicts, refugees are often blamed, premised on the notion that refugees add substantially to anthropogenic activities as a result of both their demographic and socio-economic status. We employ political ecology to understand how power and economic considerations play out in the access to and use of environmental resources in Ghana’s refugee-hosting communities. Drawing mainly on qualitative data generated through group discussions and in-depth interviews, we propose an alternative position that environmental conflicts are driven by the inability of hosts to fulfil their economic interests from refugee activities. Where such economic interests are fulfilled, host–refugee environmental interactions are more likely to be devoid of conflicts even where environmental deterioration is pronounced. Negotiating how hosts and refugees collaborate in the use of, and returns from, environmental resource-related activities holds a central position in stemming environmental conflicts.