Precarious resettlement at the Bui Dam, Ghana—Unmaking the teleological

Abstract One of the key challenges of constructing large‐scale water projects is determining how to manage social impacts such as the forced displacement and resettlement of the people in their path. Resettlement planners are tasked with the unenviable job of predicting these impacts and minimising their effects to enable the smooth completion of construction. The complexity of resettlement is reduced to a technical exercise carried out in accordance with international standards of best practice used by multilateral development banks and with the laws of national governments. Despite both the proliferation of these standards and legislation and the expansion of the resettlement industry, empirical research continues to demonstrate that resettlement causes impoverishment. Based on a qualitative study of three resettled villages at the Bui Dam resettlement in Ghana, this article highlights the political nature of resettlement. Using the concept of “precarity” we demonstrate how politics acts to render people moveable long before a project is conceived. Resettlement is shown to be a political tool that exposes and exacerbates existing precarity and becomes a site of struggle against the power of the state. By framing resettlement as an expression of politics rather than an exercise in management and containment, this article begins to uncover the flaws in technical planning processes and is a reminder that resettlement should be avoided wherever possible.