This study offers a “social interpretation of environmental process” for the coastal lowlands of southeastern Ghana. The Anlo-Ewe, sometimes hailed as the quintessential sea fishermen of the West African coast, are a previously non-maritime people who developed a maritime tradition. As a fishing community the Anlo have a strong attachment to their land. In the twentieth century coastal erosion has brought about a collapse of the balance between nature and culture. The Anlo have sought spiritual explanations but at the same time have responded politically by developing broader ties with Ewe-speaking peoples along the coast.

Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong is a professor of history at Harvard University and the Oppenheimer Faculty Director of the Harvard University Center for African Studies. He is the author of Between the Sea and the Lagoon: An Eco-social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana c. 1850 to Recent Times.