After Resistance:

The Resistance-Institutionalisation Gap in Aboaso and Adwumakase, Peri-Urban Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

Peri-urban land conflict is often analysed at the moment of dispossession, protest or negotiation. Less is known about what a claim becomes afterwards. This article compares Aboaso and Adwumakase on Kumasi's northern fringe, where residents confronted similar disputes over land conversion, compensation, revenue and chiefly authority but produced different institutional outcomes. Drawing on doctoral fieldwork conducted from January to July 2020, the study uses a 60-household contextual survey, six focus groups, stakeholder interviews, field observation and documentary evidence, analysed thematically and comparatively. The article develops the resistance-institutionalisation gap to distinguish immediate dispute outcomes, repeatable governance arrangements and durable accountability. The comparison shows that persistence matters when a claim enters an institutional opening and is converted into an organisational rule. Institutionalisation is therefore best understood as the movement of a claim across governance interfaces, not as evidence that accountability has already been achieved. The findings support early disclosure, representative oversight and accessible objection mechanisms in peri-urban land governance.