This research examines the “ceding,” “gifting,” and “granting” of land by indigenous communities to educational institutions in colonial and post-independence Ghana, Nigeria, and elsewhere in West Africa. It explores how these often involuntary land transactions shaped the design, construction, use, and afterlives of campus spaces, as well as the socio-spatial relationships between universities and their surrounding communities.

This research was prepared by the urban research workshop at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. Ghana, on March 14-19, 2022, organized by Ruth-Anne Richardson and Łukasz Stanek. Preliminary results of this research was presented during the workshop Land, Deed, and Debt: University Campuses in West Africa, organized by Kuukuwa Manful and Łukasz Stanek on March 27, 2025 at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor USA.

Photographs by Taubman College and Eric Don-Arthur