Navigating discourses: Unpacking the problematisation of traditional burning practices in Northern Ghana

Le résumé fourni par la source

The use of fire in West Africa’s savanna landscapes is contested, ranging from views that see it as a natural part of the landscape to those advocating its complete prohibition. Despite decades of restrictive fire policies, widespread seasonal burning of landscapes reveals a persistent gap between policy intentions and on-the-ground practices. Using Northern Ghana as a case study, this research examines how traditional burning practices are problematised in contemporary fire-related policies and practices, drawing on Bacchi’s What is the Problem Represented to be? (WPR) framework to examine underlying assumptions, dominant discourses, silences, and policy effects. Findings revealed the enduring influence of historical land degradation narratives, alongside emerging carbon mitigation narratives, with comparatively limited attention to adaptation. The framing of all traditional burning practices as ‘bush burning’, ‘wildfires’, or ‘uncontrolled burning’ obscures their varied ecological, cultural and livelihood functions in savanna systems. Contemporary fire governance privileges technocratic and market-oriented solutions, marginalising traditional fire knowledge and oversimplifying the socio-ecological complexity of fire regimes. In doing so, policy discourse often positions local communities, particularly herders and marginalised groups, as contributors to environmental degradation, while diverting attention from broader historical, political-economic and ecological processes shaping fire use. The study argues for more holistic, politically informed, and ecologically nuanced approaches to fire governance that recognise the productive and adaptive role of controlled burning, engage with traditional fire knowledge, and address the structural drivers shaping environmental change in Northern Ghana.

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