Abstract:
Ghana has a reputation as a peaceful, stable and democratic state in the West African subregion.
However, beneath this peaceful image, there are more than 200 internal conflicts
around traditional authority (Chieftaincy), land and politics. In the northern part of the
country, these conflicts take on ethnic dimensions. Between 1980 and 2002, the three
northern regions recorded 26 violent ethnic conflicts. The impact of these conflicts on
national and sub-regional security in general and economic growth and development in
the three northern regions in particular is very high. Governmental and nongovernmental
organizations are frustrated because their efforts at improving the lives of
the people are repeatedly disrupted if not destroyed by the cycles of inter ethnic violence.
This thesis explores the relationship between value systems and ethnic identity formation
and how the difference in value systems influences the salience of identity and conflict.
Through narratives from in-depth interviews, the thesis analyzes group identity formation
and their impact on conflict. Understanding the role of competing value systems in the
formation of salient identity and relations between identity salience and violence will
help explain why some ethnic groups are prone to violence in northern Ghana. The
research shifts the focus from the use of ethnicity, chieftaincy and land as causal factors
of the conflicts to their interpretation, perception and employment in the process of social
identity formation, interests and perceptions of the ‘other’. By analysing the role of
salient identity in the denigration of others, the thesis explains how through narratives an
enemy is created out of the “other” and violence towards them justified.
