Managing Uncertainty: Environmental and Economic Security in Coastal Ghana, 1970-2000

The article begins with a discussion of broad trends in the environment and economy of Ghana over the past three decades, with particular reference to timber extraction and agriculture. This discussion serves to contextualize the events described within the specific research context. Following this discussion, a description is provided of the research context, and the environmental and economic changes taking place therein, to flesh out this migration not as the result of monolithic changes forcing residents to move, but as the result of a heterogeneous population making decisions based upon socially-situated strategies of negotiating the climate of uncertainty caused by these changes. Further, this migration is demonstrated as constituting part of a cycle of migration that also directly involves the urban-to-rural migration of actors living in urban areas more than 70 km away from the immediate research context. Following the description of this migration cycle, the article turns to the potential future ramifications of this cycle, including suggestions for ways to create a less uncertain environment which is likely to give the remaining residents of the area a chance to maintain their life-styles and homes in the future