Right to culture in fishery governance : insights from customary law practices of small-scale fisher communities in Ghana

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Ibrahim, Sulley and Golo, Harrison Kwame and Sanni, Tajudeen; Sadowski, Mirosław M. and Bonaviri, Gianluigi Mastandrea and Ceccotti, Filippo, eds. (2025) Right to culture in fishery governance : insights from customary law practices of small-scale fisher communities in Ghana. In: Heritage in War and Peace IV. University of Strathclyde Publishing, Glasgow. ISBN 9781914241802 (https://doi.org/10.17868/strath.00093366)

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Abstract

State-led governance of small-scale fisheries is often encouraged to incorporate customary law to promote the sustainable enjoyment of cultural rights among fishers. This concern provokes further debates, including views that suggest that customary law thrives on patriarchy and can-not fully guarantee the rights of historically marginalised groups, such as women, who consti-tute a great majority of small-scale fish workers. Other debates still suggest that customary law is pliable to context, and thus offers unique opportunities for its uptake into state-led fishery policies. Research on how everyday customary law practices implicate the cultural rights of small-scale fishers in Ghana has yet remained relatively under-studied. This article addresses this knowledge gap by analysing how everyday customary law practices reflect sustainable cultural rights among coastline fisher communities in the Central, Western, and Volta Regions. It identifies continuities and discontinuities in everyday customary law practices in pre-fishing, fish-harvesting, and post-harvesting activities, with critical implications for sustainable cultural rights.

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https://doi.org/10.17868/strath.00093366
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)