Tobias Tseer
Ghana, PhD, Philosophy and Social Administration, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana. Gender and Peace Studies expert with extensive research experience in communal conflicts, customary land governance and gender justice across West Africa 2026
Beyond scarcity and climate change: moral economy, reciprocity and the symbolic dimensions of farmer-herder conflicts in Ghana
Project Description
Farmer–herder conflicts are prevalent and persistent across many agropastoral communities in the Sudano-Sahelian region. In Ghana, these often result in physical violence, forceful expulsion, displacement and deaths. The existing literature on environmental conflicts has largely explained these conflicts in terms of ecological scarcity, climate change, and political ecology, with relatively little attention to how meaning-making, ethics, moral economies, and identity narratives shape the trajectories of these conflicts. This study argues that resource scarcity, climate stressors and exclusionary policies alone do not adequately explain farmer-herder conflict trajectories in Ghana; Instead, culturally embedded meanings, moral logics, and symbolic interpretations determine how farmers and herders respond to resource scarcity, exclusionary practices and climate stressors. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of practice as an analytical framework, this study relied on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and archival sources to provide empirical evidence that grounded this argument. The analysis of collected data demonstrated that varied perceptions of honour, kinship, compensation, apology, and moral repair between farmers and herders structured attitudes, behaviours and interpretations of conflict and peaceful coexistence. The study concluded that integrating moral and cosmological dimensions of farmer-herder conflicts advances environmental conflict theorising and peacebuilding practice.
Bio
Tobias Tseer is a Lecturer in the Department of Organisational Studies and Development at the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in Wa, Ghana. He holds a PhD in Social Administration and specialises in conflict resolution and peacebuilding with a regional focus on Ghana and West Africa. His work explores themes including farmer-herder conflicts, gender-based discrimination, social inequality, and hybridisation in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Tseer is actively engaged in interdisciplinary research and has collaborated with scholars across Africa on issues of human security, governance, and development. Tseer won an Explorers Club research grant, recognising his innovative contributions to research. Additionally, he has won a number of postdoctoral fellowships, including one with the Social Science Research Council in New York, USA and the Institute of Global Valuation Inquiry in Berlin, Germany.