Going to Jong: A burden of history and current option among northern Ghanaian farm migrants

This case study examines critical changes that underpin agricultural labor migration from northern Ghana to villages of Brong Ahafo and the Afram Plains District in south-central Ghana. The study centers on the underlying reasons for recent shifts in the nature and pattern of migration; why for example, rural migrants from northwest Ghana have turned away from seeking employment opportunities in cocoa farms to the forest fringes where they engage in food crop production. It further describes migrants' evolving status and aspirations to show how these reflect the life courses of individual migrants and their families. Special attention is paid to understanding how relations of production in the cocoa economy and other macro-level changes have contributed in restructuring the rural labor market, the development of new social relations among migrants and between them and their hosts, and the steps some must take to establish control of the work process.; A central concept in the analysis is the notion of jong, which advances our understanding of migrants' daily lives and how they have responded to the changes. The study draws on migrants understandings of the concept to (1) demonstrate the link between seasonal migration and social change, including whether, as a result of these developments, economic and social relations have changed to the benefit of migrants involved in food production in the forest fringes, (2) highlight ongoing social differentiations that ensue from the new economic space migrants now inhabit, and (3) discuss the major problems that still confront individual migrants and their families. It argues that these changes have shaped and have been shaped, by the trajectory of Ghana's economic decline in the 1980s. While this had disastrous consequences on broader national economy, it opened opportunities for migrants involved in food production. These insights thus contribute to some of the complexities involved in the incorporation of peripheral regions such as northern Ghana into societies still in transition from colonial capitalism.