Introduction
Unfree labour is not particular to any region of the world: International Labour Organization data show that the existing 21 million cases of unfree labour are spread across the globe, with Asia and the Pacific accounting for the most cases (11 million) (ILO 2023). A large proportion are in India, where the existence of over 145 million farms, a large population of unemployed rural people, and the caste system, create an environment in which unfree labour thrives. In Europe, a reported 880,000 unfree labourers are found across the manufacturing and agricultural industries, owing to the scale of irregular migration in the region (ILO 2012). North America has over 800,000 unfree labourers (Helmore 2018) due to various factors, including its reliance on migrant agricultural workers and the system of employer-tied work authorisations. Like the Middle East, Africa's estimated 600,000 unfree labourers are mostly domestic servants and agricultural workers (ILO 2005). Although spread across the world, unfree labourers are bound by a common denominator: the precarity of their working conditions. Why do people continue to work under these conditions and from whom, what, and where does the quest for change trigger a violent backlash?
This paper explores these questions using nahu-kparilim in Ghana as a case study. Nahu-kparilim is a socioeconomic cum sociocultural institution involving Fulani cattle herders and landowning natives.1 The term translates into ‘cattle caretakership’ and refers to the practice whereby Fulani households manage the cattle of non-Fulani landowners in exchange for a piece of land to cultivate at a subsistence level. There are no historical records on the beginnings of nahu-kparilim. However, as this article details, current practitioners owe their involvement to their parents whom they observed and assisted in fulfilling their duties to native landlords, for whom cattle ownership is a status symbol. The practice exists in different forms across Ghana, including in Agogo and Afram Plains where Fulani herders care for the cattle of local chiefs and wealthy natives and are compensated with a temporary parcel of land for subsistence use (Olaniyan, Francis, and Okeke-Uzodike 2015). Cattle caretakership is also common in Nigeria where, for example, Fulani herders manage the cattle of so-called ‘Big Men’, especially Fulani oligarchs (Akinnaso 2018). In contrast to nahu-kparilim, however, herding services in Nigeria are exchanged for monetary payments. The paper considers the inherent unfreedom of nahu-kparilim, its reproduction, and Fulani attempts to renegotiate the practice. It does not delve into broader Fulani herder–non-Fulani farmer conflicts or their causes.2 The article examines the exploitation of unfree Fulani labour under nahu-kparilim, the social reproduction of the practice, and the resistance of unfree labourers.
The transhumant tradition of the Fulani, interfaced with the static citizenship regimes of African countries, undermines their resource rights, thereby making them vulnerable to economic exploitation. Distributed across 21 African countries and also known as Fula (in Sierra Leone and Gambia) and Peul (in much of francophone West Africa), the Fulani (the Hausa description by which they are known in Nigeria and Ghana) demonstrate a range of settlement patterns and mobility practices (Hampshire 2002; Moritz and Mbacke 2022). Fulani society is hierarchical and internally differentiated, with high-status pastoral Fulbe, for instance, readily distinguishable from Fulani belonging to other castes, some of whom shepherd cattle belonging to the Fulbe and other wealthy non-Fulani individuals across West Africa (Hampshire 2004). But while cattle-rearing is central to Fulani society, economy and identity, some Fulani combine this with crop cultivation and seasonal urban work, while others have abandoned it, often temporarily, due to climate change, farmer encroachment on grazing reserves/zones and livestock migration routes, desertification, and so on (Hampshire 2002; Hampshire 2004; Eke 2020). Yet, even as nomadic Fulani have become increasingly less mobile over the last 100 years, transhumance has remained central to pastoral life and economy (Eke 2020), and thus also at the heart of farmer–herder conflicts. Nahu-kparilim, the subject of this paper, involves sedentary Fulani engaged in agro-pastoralism who provide cattle-rearing services involving localised transhumance to livestock-owning landlords, in exchange for land for subsistent use.
Economic opportunities outside nahu-kparilim are limited for sedentary Fulani in rural northern Ghana because the country’s citizenship laws preclude first- and second-generation immigrants from obtaining Ghanaian citizenship (Setrana 2021). Nahu-kparilim, which is driven by the cultural symbolism of cattle ownership among northern Ghanaians, provides a lifeline to the Fulani. But while the availability of Fulani for nahu-kparilim spares non-Fulani youths the burden of cattle-rearing, and guarantees knowledgeable cattle caretakership, it procures an often precarious type of economic survival for the Fulani. Despite the appearance of economic symbiosis, this article shows that nahu-kparilim is inherently exploitative today. Local non-Fulani orientation of belongingness and Fulani recognition of their own tenuous legal status anchor the system of economic exploitation embedded in nahu-kparilim. The Fulani performatively assert their citizenship through local linguistic development and exhibition, and involvement in everyday community rituals. However, performative citizenship here is aimed at social integration rather than claiming rights (Setrana 2021). This article argues that with no constitutional rights protection, Fulani in rural northern Ghana engage in the non-rights-based renegotiation of labour.
This is not the first consideration of the exploitation and marginalisation of landless people in Ghana. For example, Gore and LeBaron (2019) show the precarity of the working conditions of cocoa farm labourers involved in abunu and abusa seasonal sharecropping arrangements in Ghana’s Western and Ashanti regions. Asaagaa and Hirons (2019) show that, in south-central and western Ghana, land tenure changes have led to unequal land access between wealthy and poor people, irrespective of ethnicity. Other scholars (e.g. Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Kerr 2017) have discussed how the financialisation of the agricultural sector in Ghana engenders land dispossession, which has a disproportionate impact on women. This article diverges from these concerns in two significant ways. First, it differs from previous examinations of exploitation of agrarian workers as nahu-kparilim exists outside the neoliberal agro-economy in northern Ghana, which is relevant for comprehending its reproduction. Second, in contrast to Asaagaa and Hirons (2019), who noted that poor social groups in agrarian settings are marginalised irrespective of ethnicity, the Fulani in Gushiegu, northern Ghana are in a more precarious situation than other landless individuals owing to the constitutional limitations on their resource rights generally. They cannot just abandon their exploitative jobs as the consequences of doing so transcend losing a means of livelihood. For some, it could entail destitution, as unfree Fulani labourers’ residency in a community and land tenancy are linked to the ongoing provision of labour. For others, attempting to renegotiate this relationship could prove fatal. Given that roles are deeply entrenched through processes of social reproduction, the latent structural violence of nahu-kparilim metamorphoses into overt physical violence when the system is threatened by Fulani labourers, whose total submission to the landlord in their unequal economic relationship is critical to the survival of the institution.
In developing these ideas, this article engages with three scholarly debates. First, whether unfree labour today has transformed from Marx’s original description, which entailed the leasing of land to individuals for subsistence use in exchange for in-kind payment to the landlord (Natarajan, Brickell, and Parsons 2020), into an oppressive system in which the exploitative patron is no longer a landlord but a capitalist entrepreneur whose sole purpose is profit accumulation (Guerin 2013). Second, whether the reproduction of exploitation is internal or external to the exploitative system. Third, whether resistance is internal or external to hegemonic power – whether emancipation occurs through channels availed by the hegemonic power itself (Chatterjee 2004; O’Brien and Li 2006; Comaroff and Comaroff 2009) or everyday forms of resistance that defy the hegemon (Scott 1985).
The three debates are integrated by showing that the semi-feudal and ‘pre-modern’ nature of nahu-kparilim shapes the reproduction of the institution, which accounts for both its persistence and the violent outcome of its (re)negotiation. Whereas processes of socialisation perpetuate the subservience of Fulani herders and, by extension, the reproduction of the institution, the same processes reproduce landlord entitlement to Fulani labour. Anchored on Adnan (2007), the (re)negotiation of reform is, therefore, a negotiation of power relations between the subservient and the entitled, and the violent resistance to change stems from the belief of employer-landlords that unfree Fulani labourers should neither be capable of speech nor able to reclaim their labour power.
Conceptual framework: unfreedom, social reproduction, and subalternity
This paper integrates the theoretical concepts of unfreedom, social reproduction, and subalternity not only to account for the persistence and (non)violent renegotiation of nahu-kparilim in Ghana, but also to advance the notion of peasants’ agency in unfree labour studies. Owing to their conceptual foregrounding in slavery scholarship, traditional conceptualisations of unfree labour advanced the involuntariness of entry into a labour relationship as the defining character of unfreedom (Barrientos, Kothari, and Phillips 2013). Although the involuntariness of entry is emphasised in some recent examinations of unfreedom, such as child labour studies (Lieten 2011; Assan and Hill 2011; Close 2014; Tsurumi 2020), most contemporary understandings highlight the centrality of voluntariness even though involuntary cases persist (Brass and van der Linden 1997; Banaji 2003; Lerche 2007; Guerin 2013; Natarajan, Brickell, and Parsons 2020). The implication is that, in contrast to traditional perspectives that limited the understanding of unfreedom to the use of force at entry, contemporary assessments of unfreedom recognise its possibility in all three phases of a labour relationship – entry, exit, and the relationship itself (Barrientos, Kothari, and Phillips 2013). In other words, a labour relationship may be unfree by virtue of its other phases, regardless of the nature of entry.
Some individuals may voluntarily enter an unfree labour situation having been deceived by employers (Kothari 2013; Frantz 2013), yet others may knowingly enter such relationships because the need for employment outweighs their assessment of its potential precarity (Breman, Guérin, and Prakash 2009). As the labour relationship ensues, however, unfreedom becomes defined by the exploitative conduct of employers, which ranges from the denial of promised benefits to the withholding of wages (Strauss 2012; Yea and Chok 2018; Gore and LeBaron 2019), rather than how the relationship began. The unfreedom of such a labour relationship stems not simply from the exploitation of the labourers, but from their inability to exit in spite of it. For Breman (2007) and Lerche (2007), the inability of unfree labourers to end their indebtedness to employers through means other than their labour, accounts for this entrapment in exploitative work. However, the reality of unfree labour is that debt bondage exists within a complex mosaic of conditions that keep individuals entrapped in exploitative labour relationships (Kothari 2013).
The theory of social reproduction helps us to comprehend this complex web of entrapment. It holds that the structure of society and the relative position of individuals and groups within it are shaped and sustained by intersecting activities and processes which the privileged group(s) institute to perpetuate their privilege and undermine the social, economic, and political mobility of the underprivileged members of that society (Ferguson et al. 2016; Bhattacharya 2017). These system-reinforcing human relations, as Rao (1999) and Strauss (2012) surmise, could themselves be maintained by the cultural norms and practices of underprivileged groups.
In spite of the powerlessness of unfree labourers depicted in social reproduction theory, voluminous subaltern research also holds that individuals at the margins of society possess the agency to (re)negotiate their conditions of existence (Scott 1975; Chatterjee 2004; O’Brien and Li 2006; Adnan 2007; Comaroff and Comaroff 2009; Chandra 2015; Olsen and Morgan 2015). According to this literature, for the renegotiation of one’s marginality to occur, individuals must first recognise their oppressive state (Chandra 2015). Once this takes place, they may then exploit the institutions of the hegemon to change their situation (Chatterjee 2004) or simply defy the hegemonic power (Scott 1985; Adnan 2007), if juridical institutions are either non-existent, inaccessible, or corrupt. However, regardless of the path to redemption, subaltern studies scholarship indicates that, despite their marginality, underprivileged groups, including unfree labourers, possess the agency to either improve their conditions within an oppressive system or to extricate themselves entirely from it.
This paper therefore draws on unfreedom, social reproduction, and subalternity to account for the persistence and (non)violent renegotiation of nahu-kparilim in Ghana. The collective reading of all three theoretical positions explains why some unfree Fulani labourers remain with their exploitative employer-landlords, while others recalibrate their relationship or exit it entirely.
Research approach
This article is part of a broader qualitative project that examined the spatial variation of autochthonous conflicts across Ghana and Nigeria. The analysis here pertains to Gushiegu district in the Northern region of Ghana, and includes the stories of an equally distributed sample of Fulani and non-Fulani informants in Damdaboli, Bulugu, Yiborigu, and Katani villages. The sample was balanced in terms of ethnic and gender composition, and drawn through both purposive and snowball techniques. Participant recruitment began with a courtesy visit to a district leader.3 In line with purposive sampling, participants were then recruited using the following criteria: membership of Dagomba, Konkomba, or Fulani ethnic groups; aged 20 and above; all genders; and resident for a decade or longer. Native tribes live in brick houses, while the Fulani reside in huts made of mud thatched roofs. We used this residential marker as a guide when we wanted to interview a particular ethnic group, and then confirmed individuals’ eligibility for inclusion according to the criteria. Where settlements were out of sight, we asked an interviewee for directions to a Dagomba or Fulani settlement. We then accessed those hidden settlements by motorbike, using established paths.
Information on the labour relationship between Fulani herders and their employer-landlords was obtained through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 48 participants, while non-participant observation enabled verification of some of the narratives of the unfree Fulani labourers, such as the allocation of a parcel of land for farming and shelter, or the inclusion of Fulani children in the institution. Interviews were conducted in English and Dagbani, the Dagbon language, which is understood and spoken by the Dagomba, Konkomba, and Fulani in Gushiegu. Where a participant understood English, this was the only language used. However, where a participant could communicate in Dagbani, the research assistant, a Dagomba, translated the questions and responses to Dagbani and English, respectively. The translator did not interrupt interviewees to avoid disrupting their stream of thought, and took notes and translated only after they had finished telling lengthy stories. Interviews began with an icebreaker, asking participants what it is like living in their village. Interviewees were then asked to describe their relationships with other ethnic groups at different periods, with follow-up questions used to obtain deeper contextual information. The stories were coded using NVivo software, and inductive analysis of the data then manually undertaken. The data are presented thematically and illustrated with key literature on labour relations, social reproduction, and resistance.
Nahu-kparilim and the exploitation of unfree Fulani labour
Nahu-kparilim in Gushiegu is characteristically unfree as Fulani herders make up the lowest stratum of the social hierarchy, are exploited, and despite their exploitation, are economically immobile. Contemporary conceptualisations of unfree labour derive from Marx’s description of the nature of labour in transitional economies (semi-feudal or pre-capitalist social formations) even though his idea of its opposite, free labour in capitalist economies, has been widely challenged, especially by feminist critiques (Bezanson 2006). Today, unfree labour is mostly used to describe the exploitation of workers in capitalist economies; however, unfree Fulani labour in Gushiegu is similar to the context of Marx’s original postulations. This section explains this similarity and its analytical significance, but first elaborates on the conceptualisation of unfree labour that informs the analysis of nahu-kparilim, its production, and the processes and outcomes of its (re)negotiation.
In Marxian thought, labour is unfree when a worker lacks the ability to offer their labour in exchange for an agreed wage (Strauss 2012). Phillips (2013) offers a broader, albeit ambiguous, definition in noting that it exists when a labour relationship lacks a governing contract. Philips’ position is susceptible to criticism, as even contracted labour can be unfree if employers choose to disregard the terms of the contract and renege on their obligations and if employees lack the ability to demand and obtain their enforcement.
These possibilities are the reality of nahu-kparilim. This paper, therefore, adopts an eclectic, yet specific, definition of unfree labour: a situation whereby workers who are mostly of a low social status in a society lack the ability to negotiate their conditions of work, are forced to continue working under unfavourable terms through threat or other forms of coercion, and, as a result, are unable to seek favourable alternative work (Rao 1999; Olsen and Morgan 2015; Yea and Chok 2018; Gore and LeBaron 2019; Natarajan, Brickell, and Parsons 2020). The following subsections discuss the main characteristics of this conception of unfree labour and apply them to nahu-kparilim to describe the onset and evolution of the institution.
Voluntary entry
Typically, unfree labourers voluntarily enter an exploitative work environment owing to their socioeconomic marginalisation and subsequent lack of economic opportunities (Breman, Guérin, and Prakash 2009; Kothari 2013; Frantz 2013) or what Barrientos, Kothari, and Philips (2013) refers to as ‘compulsion of necessity’. Employers and labourers in unfree labour situations are rarely of the same ethnic background, given that the unfree workforce comprises mostly migrants, a status which reinforces the power imbalance between them and their employers. This typifies nahu-kparilim and the situation of unfree Fulani herders. The Fulani exist in the outer margins of Ghanaian society as they are mostly West African migrants or first-generation Ghanaians whose citizenship is often disputed. Nahu-kparilim provides an escape from potential destitution and starvation. Across Gushiegu, Fulani access to land is largely contingent upon being willing to offer their herding services to a local non-Fulani household whose landholdings are large enough for a portion to be transferred to the Fulani herder to cultivate.
This view is supported by remarks by both non-Fulani and Fulani across several communities. For example, a Konkomba informant in Damdaboli noted that ‘the Fulani are [in the community] to feed, take care of, and see to the general health of the cattle, which are owned by the Konkomba people, because that’s their source of livelihood.’ A Fulani participant in Yiborigu remarked that ‘they [the native Dagomba] bring their cattle to us to rear as a prerequisite for living in the community.’ Another Fulani woman from Damdaboli noted that she and other Fulani people are in Gushiegu ‘mainly to farm and rear animals for the Konkomba and … depend on … farm produce for survival until it finishes’.
Both the Fulani and landowning groups acknowledge that the Fulani can purchase land from a willing seller for farming and residential purposes. However, such transactions are rare since the Fulani both lack the necessary resources and must serve a native household under nahu-kparilim. For example, when a Dagomba man in Yiborigu was asked about Fulani land access, he noted that ‘[they] cannot just show up here and settle as the lands are owned by people.’ When asked about the possibility of Fulani purchasing land, he noted that they must first live among the local population for their behaviour to be assessed before any land sale is approved. In this observatory period, the Fulani household will only secure land in the community if they find a household willing to establish a nahu-kparilim contract.
As characteristic of unfree labour, the Fulani voluntarily initiate the labour relationship that culminates in their exploitation. This is reflected in a comment by a Fulani woman from Bulugu, who noted that the main support they receive from the Dagomba is nahu-kparilim: ‘the Dagomba people support us, with the biggest support being that we rear their animals for them in exchange for a parcel of land to cultivate’. A Fulani herder from Yiborigu similarly noted that:
Some natives give us [the Fulani] cattle to rear for them and land where we farm and live on. They bring their cattle to us to rear as a prerequisite for living here. Although we can also come and buy land here, we do not have the resources.
Exploitation
I acknowledge the fact that things have changed. The way our fathers handled the Fulani is not the same as now. My father farmed for the Fulani to improve their yields, catered for them whenever they fell sick, either by fully or partially paying their treatment bills. There were no hospitals like now, but our fathers handled them better than we do.
Across Gushiegu, Fulani herders have the same expectations when nahu-kparilim is initiated. While the primary payment for their herding work is the allocation of a parcel of land to cultivate, there are other expected fringe benefits, such as medical insurance. Additionally, they expect their employer to augment their farm produce with food allowances, and that running costs, such as the treatment of sick cattle, crop damage by cattle, and loss of cattle, are absorbed by the employer.
The non-fulfilment of expectations around fringe benefits and running costs leads to Fulani labour being exploited in Gushiegu. For instance, compensation for crop damage, which includes monetary, in-kind, and payments with farm produce, is theoretically the responsibility of the cattle owner. In Bulugu, the Dagomba claim that crop damage is settled between the cattle owner and the farmer, and that compensation rarely occurs because both the cattle and damaged farmland belong to Dagomba men and it is not customary for them to compensate each other. Konkomba people in Damdaboli suggest that a symbolic kola nut exchange is the only customary compensation for crop damage, but the Fulani herders across Bulugu, Yiborigu and Damdaboli tell a different story. In Damdaboli, for instance, a farmer could forcefully obtain compensation from a Fulani herder for crop damage and the cattle owner would look the other way. As a Fulani woman noted: ‘our calves would enter a maize farm and the farmer would come to take [Fulani-owned] sheep as compensation, and the Konkomba man who owns the cattle will say the cattle are not his business.’ Under such circumstances, it is the Fulani who compensate the farmer at harvest time, based on the latter’s estimate of the difference between the yields of the current and previous years. This further jeopardises Fulani livelihoods given that their farm yields are insufficient for the household and considering that the employers fail to supplement the Fulani’s farm produce with food supplies as expected.
The exploitation of Fulani herders also stems from cattle owners’ refusal to facilitate the treatment of sick cattle or the recovery of missing cattle. As a Fulani woman noted, ‘whenever anything happens, the natives become unhappy; if the animals are sick, they are not happy and they blame us and they will not provide medicine or do anything.’ This reluctance of employers is reflected in the story of a young Fulani herder who lamented his inability to obtain his employer’s cooperation:
When animals get missing or fall sick, we have to deal with it all by ourselves. Animal diseases are somewhat seasonal, so it is not like we even go to them regularly. Yet, they do not assist us. Last month, for example, I requested a bag of salt to prevent the animals from getting sick. But, as usual, they kept saying they will buy and eventually did not. It gets to a point and I stop bothering them. I recall a time when the cattle were so sick and I requested a vet, and it took the cattle’s health deteriorating to the point of death to get them to invite a vet.
The exploitation of unfree labourers in Ghana has been enabled by the failure of both colonial and post-colonial governments to regulate agricultural labour in the country (Sutton 1983). This government indifference to agricultural labour continues to the present day, as evident in the exploitation of cocoa workers (Gore and LeBaron 2019) and Fulani herders in agrarian settings in northern Ghana. The non-formalisation of work in these economies provides the leeway for employers to selectively fulfil their obligations to their Fulani herders. In capitalist settings where labour relations are governed by law, the exploitation of unfree labourers may be preceded by the manipulation of work conditions documents which then justify the reduction of wages or withholding of benefits, as has been reported in the UK (Strauss 2012) and Singapore (Yea and Chok 2018). Therefore, the non-formalisation of nahu-kparilim in northern Ghana makes it all too easy for employers to short-change their Fulani employees.
Entrapment and barriers to exit
As the preceding discussion shows, unfree labour occurs in diverse contexts, including capitalist and semi-feudal social formations. While its manifestation may differ in form, its essential qualities, such as ‘entrapment, immiserising terms & conditions, and barriers to exit’ (Olsen and Morgan 2015, 186), are the same. The sense of entrapment experienced by Gushiegu’s unfree labourers was aptly conveyed by a Fulani herder:
I do not know why I continue to work for them despite their treatment. Sometimes, when we lead the animals to the bush, I ponder on the issues and cry. I feel like I am being enslaved but some slaves even get better treatment from their masters. For example, if someone comes to work on my farmland, I take responsibility for whatever happens to the person while on the land, but theirs [native employers’] is different.
First, the threat of expulsion from a community is a very potent mechanism for compelling Fulani obedience, as their Ghanaian citizenship is often disputed (Olaniyan, Francis, and Okeke-Uzodike 2015). The Alien Compliance Ordinance of 1969, which was used to engineer the expulsion of foreign nationals from Ghana in the 1970s, has birthed similar actions against the Fulani in the form of Operation Cow Leg (OCL) (Olaniyan, Francis, and Okeke-Uzodike 2015; Adomako 2019). This possibility of expulsion and, as demonstrated later, the willingness of non-Fulani to invoke the law against the Fulani, inspire the reluctant submission of some Fulani herders to the will of their employer-landlords. For instance, a Fulani woman in Bulugu noted that ‘whenever there are issues, they [the natives] say they [the authorities] should sack us from the land.’ Continuing, she asked, ‘if we are sacked, where will we go?’ Another Fulani woman from Bulugu expressed a similar sentiment:
If more powerful people force you to leave a place, you have no choice but to leave. The people have a voice, and they are heard by many powerful people. If the custodians of the land ask us to move, do you think we have any authority to say otherwise?
Second, the Fulani lack the ability to venture into alternative occupations and are conscious of this limitation. In Bulugu, for instance, they spoke about their lack of business acumen, while those in Damdaboli identified their lack of financial resources as an impediment to starting a business. Moreover, moving into something else may require that they exit nahu-kparilim, which is not an option if they want to maintain their settlement. Other participants associate their perseverance with the comfort that they draw from successfully playing their historical and cultural role as herders. As a Fulani herder from Damdaboli noted, ‘we have no option but to continue doing our job here because we have no other skill. Moreover, as a cultural norm, succeeding in keeping the cattle healthy is enough wage for us.’ The satisfaction of engaging in a cultural practice is one of the means through which nahu-kparilim is socially reproduced in the region.
As stated earlier, nahu-kparilim is a semi-feudal phenomenon that exists outside neoliberal economic processes, and therefore should not be viewed in the same way as other situations of unfreedom that stem from profit accumulation. This remark was inspired by the debate on whether unfree labour today has transformed from Marx’s original description, which entailed the leasing of land to individuals for subsistence use in exchange for in-kind payment to the landlord (Natarajan, Brickell, and Parsons 2020), into an oppressive system in which the exploitative patron is no longer a landlord but a capitalist entrepreneur whose sole purpose is profit accumulation (Guerin 2013). Having detailed the unfree nature of nahu-kparilim, we can now expand on the initial claim in relation to this debate.
It is noteworthy that unfree Fulani labour is conditioned by the interface of customary land laws that give traditional authorities rights over land and the historically semi-nomadic lifestyle of the Fulani, which drives their migration to agrarian settings in search of opportunities. Although inherently exploitative and unfree, nahu-kparilim in Gushiegu cannot be situated in the exploitative practices of mainstream neoliberal economies as the economic arrangements that bind unfree Fulani labourers to their landlords are pre-capitalist. Over 90% of the participants in this study said that farming by both Fulani and non-Fulani groups occurs at a subsistence level and that cattle holdings are meant to satisfy immediate family needs and to bolster the family’s prestige. Moreover, the Fulani trade their labour for a piece of land rather than monetary compensation. Having said that, the expansion of neoliberal economics indirectly exacerbates their unfreedom due to the increasing monetisation of towns bordering these agrarian economies, resulting in the reduction of the exchange value of farm produce and an increase in the cost-saving tactics of employer-landlords. However, as the hierarchical and exploitative nature of nahu-kparilim shows, the very activity that defines the economic relationship between the Fulani and their native landlords aligns with Marx’s postulation on unfree labour in a semi-feudal social formation.
This distinction has policy implications because, whereas there are laws governing labour relations in the mainstream capitalist economy whose enforcement can minimise unfreedom, these laws are either not applicable to, or enforceable in, pre-modern, semi-feudal agrarian economies where structures of control are more traditional than legal-rational. This distinction is also relevant because the context of its occurrence will shape its persistence: under neoliberalism it could be solely economic, while persistence may be underpinned by economic and sociocultural considerations under semi-feudalism. Under neoliberalism, both the worker and employer are driven by economic incentives, while culture and symbolism, in addition to the economy, could drive both under semi-feudalism. This reinforces Kothari’s (2013) claim that in explaining the persistence of unfree labour, we must look beyond debt bondage, which is only one aspect of the complex mosaic of factors that sustain exploitative labour relationships.
The social reproduction of nahu-kparilim
To fully appreciate the complex web of influence in the persistence of nahu-kparilim in Ghana, we draw on the theory of social reproduction. Rao (1999) and Strauss (2012) note that the cultural norms and practices of underprivileged groups contribute to the structural maintenance of their conditions. In the case of the Fulani, unfreedom is reproduced by the group’s self-identity construction, the activities associated with nahu-kparilim and its nurturing of future landlords, and the processes of socialisation within the family and wider society. Social reproduction theory explicates ‘the activities associated with the maintenance and reproduction of peoples’ lives on a daily and intergenerational basis’ (Ferguson et al. 2016, 27). Although social reproduction theory is concerned with analysing how labour supply is sustained within capitalist social formations, its focus on interrogating ‘the complex network of social processes and human relations that produces the conditions of existence of a phenomenon’ (Bhattacharya 2017, 2) makes it useful for also deciphering the reproduction of unfree Fulani labour in Gushiegu. Strauss’ (2012) assertion that the individuals who provide services or produce goods are themselves products of a kin-based production is true for Gushiegu, where the reproduction of unfree Fulani labour begins in the family. This involves grooming Fulani offspring to undertake their present and future roles in nahu-kparilim and to obey constituted authorities, an orientation which does not differentiate between benign and oppressive authority figures.
Furthermore, social reproduction theory generally holds that agents in unequal societies consciously devise tools and strategies that sustain their dominance over generations (Farid, Abbasi, and Mahmood 2021). One such strategy is the structural determination of roles, into which individuals are socialised, beginning in the family. In Gushiegu, Fulani land access is limited outside nahu-kparilim and the younger Fulani and non-Fulani recognise this, as they are socialised into their roles as herder and employer-landlord, respectively. One Fulani informant in Damdaboli remarked that: ‘despite all our misgivings, [we] accept … the work because it is a generational activity, it was passed down from our forefathers. Moreover, we do not have a better alternative.’ Another Fulani informant in the same community said: ‘we are not happy, but we are taking care of the animals willingly since it is passed on from generation to generation, and we have no other skills to benefit from.’ Stories of crop damage occurring when young herders are in charge of cattle reinforce the claim about the intergenerational transmission of the Fulani herding role in nahu-kparilim. In contrast, as a Dagomba informant from Bulugu noted, our forefathers ‘farmed on the lands and transferred them to our generation, while their [the Fulani] forefathers never farmed and transferred land to them’.
The existing hierarchy or ‘the structure of inequality’ (Farid, Abbasi, and Mahmood 2021, 297) sustained by the nature of land ownership in Gushiegu is further reinforced by the practice of nahu-kparilim. This point is underscored by remarks from Dagomba and Konkomba informants in Yiborigu and Damdaboli, respectively. For instance, a Konkomba informant in Damdaboli outlined the purpose of cattle ownership thus: ‘in Damdaboli, cattle are owned so that the Konkomba children can have an opportunity to go to school, to support the family’s immediate needs, and to fund funerals.’ In Yiborigu, a Dangomba informant noted how nahu-kparilim facilitates the education and general nurturing of native children in the community:
They [the Fulani] are very supportive by taking care of our animals. If the Fulani were not here, our parents would make the older children take care of the animals and they would be disadvantaged as regards being privy to issues in the house.
The socialisation of individuals into their respective roles also shapes their self-identity, which solidifies their position in the social hierarchy and undermines Fulani aspirations to upward socioeconomic mobility. For instance, there is strong consciousness and acceptance of the prevailing social hierarchy in Gushiegu, as reflected in the following remark of a Fulani herder in Damdaboli: ‘I cannot expect to have as much access to land here as the Konkomba because there is a difference between a stranger and a native. They are the landlords, while we are visitors.’ This sentiment is shared by Fulani people in Yiborigu and Bulugu, who noted that their father’s late arrival in the region makes it impracticable for them to have as much access to land as the native tribes. Although there is the perception, and acceptance, of resource imbalance in Gushiegu, the Fulani herders in the region are not necessarily deprived of access to land. What they lack is access outside nahu-kparilim, which enables their intergenerational exploitation by those who have land to spare.
In line with Strauss’ (2012) submission that cultural norms may also enable the exploitation of underprivileged groups, Fulani unfreedom is also reproduced by orientations around the benefits of obeying authority figures and the adverse consequences of disobedience. Across Gushiegu, there is a general sense of respect for chiefs, anchored on the need to maintain the legitimacy of a chief’s decisions. There are also learned beliefs which, in concert with the Fulani’s perception of the chief’s allegiance to non-Fulani, help to perpetuate their exploitation. Such learned beliefs include viewing disobedience as deviant behaviour, or seeing the chief as a representative of the gods. In Yiborigu, for instance, a Fulani informant noted that ‘even when people disagree [with the chief], they do not disclose it because it is a form of deviance since leaders are meant to be obeyed.’ Similarly, a Dagomba informant in the same community stated that ‘the fact that the chief is a leader is sufficient reason for him to be respected because if he is unhappy with anyone, the person will experience a poor harvest as he is the liaison of all the gods.’ In the same vein, a Dagomba informant in Yiborigu noted that ‘even murmuring dissent [against the chief] sounds like a crime against [him].’ Parallels of these orientations have emerged from other studies which show that unfreedom is sustained by those cultural norms that prescribe unconditional obedience to the leaders of higher castes (Picherit 2009).
It is therefore the interface of the aforementioned factors that perpetuate unfree Fulani labour in Gushiegu, rather than just their inability to purchase land. As Rao (1999, 154) claims, ‘it is not so much that the relation cannot be ended through debt repayment but that the worker's options are constrained in various ways during his tenure of attachment.'
(Re)negotiation: resistance, counter-resistance, and their drivers
In their contribution to subaltern theory, Moni (2014) considered the possibility of subalterns reclaiming their body after willingly giving it to the oppressor. The discussion below advances the notion that even unfree labourers are capable of such acts of defiance, but also demonstrates that such acts of resistance attract unintended adverse consequences. In northern Ghana, nahu-kparilim has produced non-violent resistance by unfree Fulani labourers and non-violent and violent pushback of employer-landlords. This section draws on subaltern studies to unpack these processes, which can be characterised as subaltern resistance and counter-resistance. Resistance, according to Chandra (2015, 565), entails ‘minimally apprehending the conditions of one’s subordination, to endure or withstand those conditions in everyday life, and to act with sufficient intention and purpose to negotiate power relations from below in order to rework them in a more favourable or emancipatory direction’.
Chandra’s definition has three interwoven elements – awareness, endurance, and negotiation – that illuminate Fulani resistance. The (re)negotiation of power relations embodies the basic awareness of one’s subordination and a desire for change, while, as shown below, in relation to nahu-kparilim, strategies of endurance are also a way of (re)negotiating power relations. In general, the (re)negotiation of power relations varies in revolutionary intensity, ranging from attempts at emancipation based on channels availed by the hegemonic power itself (Chatterjee 2004; O’Brien and Li 2006; Comaroff and Comaroff 2009), to everyday forms of resistance that defy the hegemon (Scott 1985). Resistance within nahu-kparilim, which we term ‘self-help’, falls under the latter as it involves the unilateral rewriting of the ‘contract’ or labour relations, either to lessen the burden of exploitation or achieve some degree of labour freedom.
The first section demonstrated the diverse ways in which Fulani labour is exploited and the nature of their entrapment in nahu-kparilim. While most informants remain trapped, some have sought to minimise their exploitation or reclaim their freedom entirely in seemingly controversial ways.4 For instance, an unfree Fulani labourer commented on how his family work around their employer’s reluctance to meet their needs:
Sometimes, disputes develop between us and the Dagomba because if the Dagomba men who own the animals we rear refuse to support us in solving our problems, we sell their cattle to solve the problem and that brings arguments and fights.
The Fulani man may initially claim that the cow is missing, but then owns up to selling it after a while. At this point, the issue is then taken to the elders. They call the owner of the cattle and tell him that if he had supported the Fulani man, he would not have had to sell his cattle. That settles it.
It is incumbent on the Dagomba person to help the Fulani man that is rearing cattle for him because he is the reason we are here. We do not know any other person. He is like our family.
It could be that the animals under our care destroy Dagomba farmland, thereby requiring the intervention of elders. Such things happen by accident and since we rear for the natives, they pay the compensation.
Sometimes, the native owners accuse the Fulani man of doing it deliberately and as punishment ask him to pay the compensation. To pay, the Fulani man sells one of the cattle since he has no other means of doing so.
Other acts of resistance by unfree Fulani labourers are informed by their perception of a right to subsistence, which Scott (1975, 493) identifies as a ‘moral basis of peasant judgments about exploitation’. Peasants, according to Scott (1975, 495), view their economic relationship with their landlord as benign when it meets their subsistent needs satisfactorily, but exploitative when it barely satisfies their basic needs. Unfree Fulani labourers are cognisant of their exploitation by their landlords; some even likened their situation to that of slaves and have sought to renegotiate the relationship through their actions. Given the constraints associated with exiting nahu-kparilim, some have attempted to (re)negotiate power relations towards delivering their own right to subsistence within the system. For these people, the way to improve their livelihoods is to set aside some farm produce to purchase their own cattle. For instance, a Fulani man alluded to this while reflecting on the hardship associated with nahu-kparilim, noting that ‘while here, we will be given a parcel of land to cultivate, so, maybe when one farms for a long time, one could afford to buy cattle too and add to the farming.’
The most obvious and destabilising, and consequently most revolutionary, acts of resistance to nahu-kparilim involved attempts to change the job tenure. These actions confirm Adnan’s (2007, 183) assertion that everyday resistance entails not only covert but also ‘open dissent and confrontation with power-holders’. Nahu-kparilim involves the provision of continuous cattle herding services by Fulani herders in exchange for a parcel of land. Contrary to the expectation of continuity, unfree Fulani labourers have sought to improve their conditions by unilaterally deciding to provide seasonal rather than permanent labour. In one community, an informant noted that ‘whenever the man [a Fulani herder] farmed and harvested, he runs away with the produce and abandons the cattle and returns when the harvested farm produce finishes.’ Another informant stated that after a Fulani herder ‘got enough produce, he sold the farm products, bought cattle with the proceeds, and went away; only to return years later, farmed and got enough yield and planned to leave again’.
The unilateralism of this action reflects the disconnect between unfree Fulani labourers and the structure of redress in Ghana. Or, at the very least, is indicative of the herders’ lack of confidence in the local traditional judicial institution, which unfree Fulani labourers consider as intertwined with the source of their oppression. Unilateralism by Fulani herders, therefore, suggests that resistance in semi-feudal settings is external to the dominant power, and reinforces the subaltern studies assumption that the state is absent from the ‘immediate social world of peasants’ (Chatterjee 2013, cited in Chandra 2015, 565). However, although the Ghanaian state is visibly absent in the research sites, the externality of Fulani resistance to the dominant power is symptomatic of state behaviour in other regions where the state is physically present. The Ghanaian state officially considers the Fulani as aliens (Bukari and Schareika 2015) and consistently takes decisions that advance ‘native’ rights over theirs (Adomako 2019). Given this, the Fulani lack the confidence that the state would side with them if they sought legal redress. In other words, the state is not only absent from the Fulani’s immediate social world, but its historical actions would also discourage the Fulani from seeking its intervention had it been present. Considering that they also view local traditional institutions as biased arbiters, ‘self-help’ was the only viable option for the resisting Fulani labourers.
When the Fulani sell their employers’ cattle to meet their needs or fund running costs, purchase their own cattle to enhance their income, or change the duration of their service to reclaim their labour power, they are acting intentionally to improve their individual conditions. Although differing in approach and context, subaltern resistance in Gushiegu is reminiscent of the fourteenth-century peasant revolt in England where the peasantry, motivated by the discrepancy between their labour and benefits and the indifference of the state to their material condition, took steps to ‘reclaim their freedom’ (Eiden 1998; Ormrod 1990). As Olsen and Morgan (2015, 188) note, ‘in society, … agents within structures … can reflexively consider and decide how to act to try to change things.’ However, in spite of the intentionality of their actions, ‘subalterns who resist the status quo may not be fully aware of all the implications’ (Chandra 2015, 565). For instance, the Fulani herders who acted unilaterally in changing the tenure of their jobs were unaware that by returning to their original village, they were exposing not only themselves but also other members of their group to violence. So, the subaltern can both speak and reclaim their bodies intentionally, but emancipation is not guaranteed as the exploiter has both the agency and incentive to fight back in ways that could potentially worsen the situation of subalterns.
For every act of resistance by unfree Fulani labourers in Gushiegu, there has been a corresponding counteraction by their employers. For instance, as the position of employer-landlords is threatened by unauthorised and undisclosed cattle sales and the acquisition of cattle by the Fulani, the former has increasingly accused the Fulani of cattle theft, presumably to deter these activities. A Fulani herder lamented about this situation:
Whenever an animal is missing, we are asked to pay for it. Why should we pay for their missing animals when they do not pay us for our services? What would we pay with?
None of the animals I take care of has ever gotten missing, but my friend has experienced such, and he was asked to swear to his innocence at a shrine, which he refused to do because, as Muslims, we have no business with shrines.
The man pleaded but the Konkomba have not said anything, yet my friend is scared that they will take all his produce when he harvests [it].
For those Fulani herders who chose to work seasonally, the backlash was more intense. The responses of the employers, which began with an effort to prevent the Fulani from leaving with their produce after the subsequent harvest, escalated to violent attacks on the Fulani, their family members, and other unfree Fulani labourers. According to both Fulani and other informants, one such incident occurred in Damdaboli in 2010 when a Fulani herder who had abandoned his herd of cattle after harvesting his crops in a previous year, attempted to do the same the following harvest and was rebuked by his employer. One account indicated that the employer seized the whole harvest, while another noted that he only demanded 50% of the harvested products since the Fulani man decided to work on a seasonal rather than permanent basis.
Nevertheless, according to the informants, the disagreement over an acceptable resolution was followed by violent attacks on Fulani settlements in the middle of the night. First, as a Fulani herder recounted, ‘the natives attacked the Fulani man [at the centre of the dispute], they burnt his animals and farm, and shot at the man who they said was cheating them.’ The Fulani man was shot and presumed dead after he ran into the forest and never re-emerged. Following the initial assault, other Fulani homes were set ablaze, and their inhabitants shot at as they ran to safety. This example reinforces Chandra’s (2015) assertion that subaltern resistance could propel undesired change.
Fulani herders engage in acts of resistance partly to improve the conditions of their exploitation and to reclaim their freedom. On the other hand, the acts of counter-resistance by their employers are rooted in the socioeconomic and sociopolitical conditions that engender the unfreedom of their Fulani herders and their own preeminent position within nahu-kparilim. Just as the Fulani are socialised into their role as subservient herders, so are the employer cattle owners orientated into their superior position in the social hierarchy. Within this social structure, the unfree Fulani labourers are neither expected to ‘speak’ nor ‘reclaim their bodies’. As conveyed in Rao (1999, 245), ‘customs, compulsion, and specific obligations’ keep bonded labourers inextricably tied to their ‘masters’, such that, unless permitted to do so by the same, they can neither exit the relationship nor seek alternative sources of livelihoods. Doing otherwise, like the above-mentioned Fulani herders, challenges their marginality, which ultimately produces counter-resistance because such actions are direct affronts to the position of the powerful within the social hierarchy. For instance, a Dagomba informant in Yiborigu disapproved of Ghanaian citizenship cards being issued to the Fulani herders in his community because it would ‘make them boastful’. In essence, this informant opposes any changes in the structure of power that would change the subordination of the Fulani.
This perception of group power also stems from the state’s exercise of power. When conflict has arisen between Fulani herders and non-Fulani farmers, the Ghanaian government has on several occasions deployed the military to expel the Fulani from those communities at the request of the non-Fulani (Agyemang 2017; Antwi 2018). Although expulsion orders against the Fulani are ineffectual because the cattle owners facilitate their return after herder–farmer conflicts subside (Olaniyan, Francis, and Okeke-Uzodike 2015; Adomako 2019), the willingness of the government to accede to the demands of employer-landlords undoubtedly reinforces their sense of power and control.
Conclusion
This article has examined processes of reproduction and change in unfree labour situations, using nahu-kparilim in Ghana as a case study. Just as social and structural factors reproduce the subservience of the Fulani within the institution of nahu-kparilim, so also do they create an employer-landlord sense of entitlement to Fulani labour. The same social relations of production that create Fulani labour also socialise landlords into their role as owners of ‘capital’ entitled to acquiring and retaining unfree Fulani labour. Given that roles are deeply entrenched through processes of social reproduction, the latent structural violence of nahu-kparilim metamorphoses into overt physical violence when the system is threatened by the Fulani labourer, whose total submission to the landlord in their unequal economic relations has come to be expected and is critical to the survival of the system.
The findings about nahu-kparilim and the processes of its reproduction are theoretically significant. Contrary to the assertion that unfree labour is perpetrated through debt bondage (Breman 2007; Lerche 2007), this article, in line with Kothari's (2013) claim, demonstrates that debt bondage is only a part of the complex web of conditions that account for the persistence of unfree labour. Drawing on insights from social reproduction theory (Rao 1999; Strauss 2012; Ferguson et al. 2016; Bhattacharya 2017), it showed that the entrapment of unfree labour is also conditioned by intersecting sociocultural and political factors, such as the norms of honouring one's heritage and the structural constraints of state policy, respectively. With insights from voluminous subaltern research (Scott 1975; Chatterjee 2004; O’Brien and Li 2006; Adnan 2007; Comaroff and Comaroff 2009; Chandra 2015; Olsen and Morgan 2015), the article moves beyond such analyses by showing that the marginality of unfree labourers does not foreclose their aspirations for and capacity to drive change. The paper therefore advances the notion of peasants’ agency in unfree labour studies.
The paper is also theoretically relevant in its findings around the context of unfree labour, the nature of its reproduction, and the channel of change. One ongoing debate among neo-Marxian scholars is whether unfree labour is essentially a feature of capitalist economies or if it is possible in semi-feudal, pre-modern social formations. This research indicates that if analysis begins with a focus on the phenomenon being studied without worrying about the context, we would notice that the only difference is the form that unfree labour assumes; its defining nature of voluntary entry, exploitation and entrapment remains, thereby indicating its possibility in both environments. Understanding the kind of society within which an unfree labour system is situated is important, as this shapes its reproduction. For instance, under a capitalist system, economic considerations may be the main motivation behind the decision of the labourer and employer to remain in the system or sustain it, respectively. In contrast, as the paper outlines, in a semi-feudal setting their actions may hinge more on sociocultural considerations than on economic incentives. In addition, whereas there are laws governing labour relations in the mainstream capitalist economy, the enforcement of which could minimise unfreedom, these laws are either not applicable to, or enforceable in, pre-modern, semi-feudal agrarian economies where structures of control are more traditional than legal-rational.
The pre-modernity of nahu-kparilim, the sociocultural nature of its reproduction, coupled with unfree Fulani labourers’ lack of confidence in local institutions of redress, demonstrate the need for the context-based formalisation of agrarian labour relations in Ghana. Just as local chiefs are constitutionally empowered to address issues around land ownership, agrarian labour relations laws should be codified under customary law in Ghana to promote sustainable agrarian futures in the region. The regulation of labour relations in this setting is important because the mainstream economy does not have the capacity to absorb unemployed rural people, and neither do the labourers have alternative skills to pursue opportunities in the mainstream economy. Prompt regulation would also prevent these disputes from metastasising and overlapping with the broader herder–farmer issues, which would lead to a greater security problem.