Understanding actors' power through conflict dynamics: Insights from small-scale mining on cocoa farms

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining at the forest-farm nexus remains a contentious issue due to the diversity of actors and competing interests surrounding it. Using the actor-centered power (ACP) approach, it has been theorized that actors leverage power resources, combining coercion, (dis-)incentives, and dominant information, to influence less powerful actors to act against their preferred interests. How an actor’s power resources evolve during conflicts and its impacts on their preferred interests and goals over time are, however, open questions. Drawing on wave theory, this paper introduces a novel framework to analyze how actors employ power resources and interactions across conflict episodes. We apply the framework to examine how ARTGOLD, an ASM company, used power resources to establish mining operations on cocoa farms in Apesika, a forest-fringe farming community in Ghana, despite local opposition. Initially, ARTGOLD used false information and promises of incentives to gain the support of traditional rulers and state institutions. These alliances enabled it to beneefit from applying different forms of coercion, including police raids on protesters against its mining operations, and discharging mining effluents onto the farms of resistant cocoa farmers. Village level traditional rulers who opposed mining operations faced sanctions from higher-ranking chiefs, ultimately silencing local resistance and enabling ARTGOLD to expand mining on cocoa farms in the study localities. Our analysis reveals shifting power dynamics over time and underscores how actors' power resources evolves in response to the strategies of others. Our theoretical approach enables a better analysis of temporality within the ACP approach. This dynamic approach precipitates the need to pay attention to power resources that may improve the relative power of important but marginalized actors, especially if conflicts over mining on farmlands are to be managed in a manner that safeguards local norms and environmental sustainability. • Decision-making on mining in farmlands is contentious due to diverse actors and interests. • Actor-centered power enables pinning down how powerful actors influence less powerful ones. • State and traditional rulers sided with mining firms against local protests. • Applying force (coercion) enabled the legitimization of mining despite local protests. • Reforms are needed to protect communities from powerful ASM enterprises.