Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The high rate of rural-urban migration in Ghana, which has not been commensurate to the level of infrastructural development in the cities has led to the emergence of many slums in the countries’ major cities. By virtue of many slums being neglected by city authorities as informal and illegal settlements, law enforcement in such neighbourhoods has not been engendered as it is done in the organised vicinities in the cities. This has left slum settlements liable to conflicts considering the existence of certain dynamics such as high ethnic diversity, poverty, insecure land tenure, multiplicity of local leaders in such communities. The above-mentioned dynamics have the potency of compromising cooperation and peaceful cohabitation in the slums. This qualitative study was undertaken to investigate the occurrence of violence in Ghanaian slums and how cooperation can be achieved in the slums and the entire urban space. It was found that conflict in the slums have usually been motivated by the high ethnic differences among the slum dwellers and the competition for land of which most inhabitants are not legal owners. The study therefore recommends that the government through the city authorities should grant the slum dwellers ownership of land and absorb such settlements into mainstream urban population. This will help the authorities in instituting unitary leadership and also champion peace, rule of law, and security in such settlements and the entire city space.