Haggling over graves and shrines: The intersection of archaeology, the community, and dam authorities at the Bui dam area in Ghana

Abstract

This article discusses the important roles that archaeologists can play in development projects that affect the history and culture of indigenous people who live around a project site. It discusses the salvage archaeology that was done at one site, the Bui hydro-electric dam in Ghana, even though dam authorities refused, at first, to allow it. The article discusses how, through salvage work, archaeologists became cultural brokers and successfully mediated the ‘conflict’ between the Bui Dam Authority (BPA) and the affected communities. Community members were threatening not to relocate until their shrines and ancestral burials were relocated, which could have disrupted the construction activities of the dam and the project schedule. The relocation of the shrines and the burials revealed the importance of community spaces shared by the dead and the living, and showed how essential it is to be physically and spiritually invested in life and death.