Geologising Urban Political Ecology (UPE): The Urbanisation of Sand in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

This paper makes a call for an urban political ecology (UPE) which engages more extensively with Earth's geological formations. As a material at the centre of global urbanisation process, sand is offered as a geological entry point. The paper presents an analysis of the urbanisation of sand, or the ways in which sand is brought into the urban realm, grounding this reading in Accra-a growing city on Ghana's Atlantic coast. Drawing from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork, the paper charts the socio-natural politics through which sand is first unearthed from the edges of the city-an extractive processes otherwise known as "sand winning" in Ghana. By examining the forms of power which govern uneven revenue flows to communities, the displacement of farming groups, the widespread loss of farmland and a contested regime of governance, the analysis exposes the socio-natural politics through which the city's geological baseline is first unearthed.

Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts of Sand Mining in Mbiuni Ward, Mwala Constituency, Machakos County, Kenya

“…The age of most respondents was below 35 years. This implies that sand mining activities are typically undertaken by the youthful adults and similar findings have been reported by other studies (e.g., Bosco & Sumani, 2019;Dawson, 2021). Mining activities in Mbiuni ward are undertaken using rudimentary tools like shovels and pick axes just like in other regions of Africa, such as Cameroon (Tientcheu et al, 2021).…”

Urban political ecology: a critical reconfiguration

“…Bringing the affective body into the analytical frame of political ecology highlights a different set of corporeal and elemental interactions. Similarly, aspects of affective resignation to ill health and environmental degradation have only been partially explored in the environmental literature (for exceptions, see Mah and Wang, 2019; Davies, 2018). Feminist and critical race studies have highlighted forms of ‘epistemic violence’ in relation to individual testimonies and the status of various forms of local knowledge (see Dotson and Whyte, 2013).…”

Urbanizing Islands: A Critical History of Singapore's Offshore Islands

“…Urban metabolism is a concept that has been adopted by urban political ecologists to theorize the extensive networks of resources, including food, energy, water, and other materials, that are integral to the development and maintenance of urban areas (Heynen et al, 2006; Swyngedouw, 2006). As scholars are now beginning to recognize, such metabolic and infrastructural configurations are increasingly taking place through forms of land reclamation that have physically reconstructed and extended the boundaries of cities (Comaroff, 2014; Dawson, 2021). Landscapes themselves can therefore be seen as socio-ecological infrastructures that provide the basis for urbanisation and development objectives, including economic growth (Perrotti, 2020).…”

“…Indeed, the transformation of Singapore's offshore islands for industry and leisure has come at a high cost, as 60% of the country's coral reefs have been lost, in addition to much of the natural shoreline, and indigenous populations on the islands (International Year of the Reef, 2009). Highlighting such transformations illustrates how land reclamation processes intersect ‘with a politics of development, security and future prosperity’, but also marginalization and socio-natural inequalities (see Dawson, 2021). Additionally, the paper demonstrates how Singapore's offshore islands have arguably been rendered invisible in the national psyche over the course of the nation's rapid urbanization and development which has led to the further marginalization of their history and heritages.…”

“…The concept of metabolism refers to the process of material exchange and interaction between human beings and nature through which both entities are transformed (Davies, 2019; Perrotti, 2020; Swyngedouw, 2006). We also build on recent work in UPE which has examined the ‘urban material baselines’ of cities, and how these are constructed through socio-natural processes such as land-reclamation (Dawson, 2021). Building on Silver (2018), we illustrate how land reclamation produces a form of socio-ecological violence that highly uneven, affecting particularly Singapore's Malay and indigenous orang laut communities that have been displaced for development.…”