Actor Network Theory, globalised assemblages and the impact of oil on agriculture and industry in Ghana

This article draws on Actor Network Theory (ANT) to analyse the impact of oil on three areas of Ghana's economy: agriculture, industry and employment. Documents, descriptive statistics and interview data are used to analyse the ways in which oil has affected each of the sectors. Drawing on network geographies, this paper argues that the impact of oil on Ghana's agriculture, industry and employment creation is conditioned and shaped by a ‘globalised assemblage’: interactions between and among the state, institutions, local politics, and transnational actors and structures. The findings reveal that oil has only diversified Ghana's dependency on natural resources without structurally changing the national economy. The fact that the exploitation of oil merely reinforces and reconstructs a deep-seated structural dependency has profound consequences for national and local politics and for the country's prospects of economic development.