Subalternity, gender and land dispossession: Women’s resource rights under illegal artisanal and small-scale mining expansion

Abstract

This article systematically reviews how the expansion of illegal artisanal mining (commonly referred to as “galamsay” in Ghana) reshapes customary land governance and deepens women’s subalternity in Ghana and comparable Sub-Saharan African contexts. Using a guided synthesis of peer-reviewed and gray literature published between 2000 and 2025, the review integrates de-agrarianisation (agrarian decline) and subaltern theory to examine gendered land dispossession. The findings show that galamsey accelerates land commodification, disrupts customary tenure systems, and privileges extractive land use over agrarian livelihoods. These dynamics disproportionately affect women, whose land rights are socially embedded and often mediated through male authority. Women experience both material dispossession and exclusion as their voices are marginalised in land allocation, mining negotiations, and compensation processes. The review concludes that governance failures and gender-blind frameworks sustain these inequalities and argues for gender-responsive, agrarian-centered land governance reforms.