The paper proposes that reports of pervasive competition and conflict over land in sub-Saharan Africa belie a current image of negotiable and adaptive customary systems of landholding and land use but, instead, reveal processes of exclusion, deepening social divisions and class formation. Cases of ambiguous and indeterminate outcomes among claimants over land do occur, but the instances of intensifying conflict over land, deepening social rifts and expropriation of land beg for closer attention. More emphasis needs to be placed by analysts on who benefits and who loses from instances of ‘negotiability’ in access to land, an analysis that, in turn, needs to be situated in broader political economic and social changes taking place, particularly during the past thirty or so years. This requires a theoretical move away from privileging contingency, flexibility and negotiability that, willy-nilly, ends by suggesting an open field, to one that is able to identify those situations and processes (including commodification, structural adjustment, market liberalization and globalization) that limit or end negotiation and flexibility for certain social groups or categories.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1471-0366.2004.00080.x

Inequality and Social Conflict Over Land in Africa

While there is a large, though inconclusive, literature on the impact of land titles in Africa, little attention has been devoted to the study of land conflict, despite evidence on increasing incidence of such conflicts. Deininger and Castagnini use data from Uganda to explore who is affected by land conflicts, whether recent legal changes have helped to reduce their incidence, and to assess their impact on productivity. Results indicate that female-headed households and widows are particularly affected and that the passage of the 1998 Land Act has failed to reduce the number of pending land conflicts. The authors also find evidence of a significant and quantitatively large productivity-reducing impact of land conflicts. This suggests that, especially in Africa, attention to land-related conflicts and exploration of ways to prevent and speedily resolve them would be an important area for policy as well as research. This paper - a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to explore the impact of land policies.

Incidence and Impact of Land Conflict in Uganda

Challenges in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Africa: Anthropological Contributions

While there is a large, though inconclusive, literature on the impact of land titles in Africa, little attention has been devoted to the study of land conflict, despite evidence on increasing incidence of such conflicts. The authors use data from Uganda to explore who is affected by land conflicts, whether recent legal changes have helped to reduce their incidence, and to assess their impact on productivity. Results indicate that female-headed households and widows are particularly affected and that the passage of the 1998 Land Act has failed to reduce the number of pending land conflicts. The authors also find evidence of a significant and quantitatively large productivity-reducing impact of land conflicts. This suggests that, especially in Africa, attention to land-related conflicts and exploration of ways to prevent and speedily resolve them would be an important area for policy as well as research.

/pdf/incidence-and-impact-of-land-conflict-in-uganda-4wxpzvjz6q.pdf

Incidence and impact of land conflict in Uganda

Issues swirling around land across Africa have never been so central to key social and politicaleconomic dynamics as they are at the present time. The first part of the paper briefly reviews the construction of customary tenure and the historical phases of administrative interventions into land tenure, and considers their heritage in contemporary situations. The second part reviews the increasing competition and conflict centered on land; the increase in various types of land transfers that are implicated in the pervasive social conflict focused on land; and the associated rise in social inequality and contestation over belonging and citizenship. The third and final part discusses ‘land grabs’, the most recent surge of international interest in African land, and external and internal threats to ‘customary’ rights in land. The overall conclusion is that while relations around land have long been central to political economy, culture and society across the continent, their greater salience in intensifying struggles among actors within and from outside Africa has significance for the disposition of authority, property and citizenship.

/pdf/conflicts-over-land-and-threats-to-customary-tenure-in-1ne22ue29b.pdf

Conflicts over land and threats to customary tenure in Africa

Registration of individual title to land in order to create legal security has been the central concern in the rich literature on land and law in Africa. The problem of legal insecurity is approached here from a different angle which has received relatively less attention: dispute settlement. The article results from the observation of land disputes in local political arenas. It portrays a local legal cultural universe in which legal insecurity arises especially from legal situations stressing group consensus. It appears that people who are accused of witchcraft and groups which are said not to belong are particularly vulnerable in such a legal culture. The conclusion argues that this case material reveals connections between law, land and the creation of social order which may throw light on many other situations. It pleads for more attention to be paid to the development of jurisprudence in attempts to create legal security.

Law and Order as a Development Issue: Land Conflicts and the Creation of Social Order in Southern Malawi

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Law and Order as a Development Issue: Land Conflicts and the Creation of Social Order in Southern Malawi