Chiefs Know Their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power, and the Past in Asante, 1896-1996 (Social History of Africa)

Using a series of local episodes and case histories, the essays in this volume explore changes and continuities in the ways people have made and exercised claims on land in Asante, Ghana, during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Convinced that customary rules and rulers provided a stable foundation for colonial rule, British officials decided early on that ownership of the land was vested in Asante chiefs. As land values rose, due to urban expansion and the growth of commercial agriculture, mining, and timber, struggles intensified not only over land and land-based income, but also over the meaning of "custom" and its relevance to the colonial order. As claims on land multiplied, so too did debates over the scope of chiefly authority and jurisdiction, and the meaning of historical precedents for contemporary claims to land and office. Although postcolonial Ghanaian governments have legislated sweeping reductions in the scope of chiefly authority and customary law, most land in Asa Based on archival sources, court records, and field research, these essays describe histories of land acquisition, and episodes of negotiation and dispute, among individuals, families, and communities in both rural and urban settings. Because land claims turn on issues of chiefly jurisdiction and allegiance, family and court membership, and the historical linkages among them, land transactions and disputes have operated, throughout the 20th century, as an important arena for the negotiation and transformation of social relationships, and the production and interpretation of history. Thus the episodes detailed in this study provide windows into the way changing economic conditions and structures of governance have shaped and been influenced by debates over family obligations, social identity, official accountability, and the significance of the past for ordering the affairs of the present. Taken together, they suggest that both claims on land and the historical precedents on which they are based have proliferated over the course of the last century, rather than converging towards a standard set of rules or an authoritative corpus of historical knowledge. The result is a continuing social conversation in which questions of access and accountability are widely canvassed and contested, and the possibilities of economic and political participation remain open for debate.