Land reforms and land rights change: A case study of land stressed groups in the Nkoranza South Municipality, Ghana

Ghana has since the introduction of the National Land Policy in 1999 developed and began the implementation of a Land Administration Project with the goal of ensuring transparent and secure access to land by investors as a means of stimulating national development. This study was conducted using a qualitative research paradigm. An ethnographic case study approach, construed as a merger of case study and ethnographic methods for detailed socio-cultural analysis of a phenomenon was employed to undertake the study. Although, the research acknowledges the role of community dynamics in shaping land rights change; it attributes current land rights changes to a land reform system that exposes close knit communal land resources to global resource consumption and transnational land deals. The study therefore recommends that to safeguard the land rights of vulnerable land users, land reforms must be constructed such that they embody the spiritual, physical and human worldviews of land. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.