Policy discourses on women's land rights in sub-Saharan Africa: the implications of the re-turn to the customary.
Anne Whitehead,Dzodzi Tsikata +1 more
TLDR
In this article, the authors examine some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub-Saharan Africa and their implications for women's interests in land and show that there are considerable problems with so-called customary systems of land tenure and administration for achieving gender justice with respect to women's land claims.Abstract:
This article examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub–Saharan Africa and their implications for women's interests in land. It demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions, lawyers and academics about the potential of so–called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. This consensus, which has arisen out of critiques of past attempts at land titling and registration, particularly in Kenya, is rooted in modernizing discourses and/or evolutionary theories of land tenure and embraces particular and contested understandings of customary law and legal pluralism. It has also fed into a wide–ranging critique of the failures of the post–colonial state in Africa, which has been important in the current retreat of the state under structural adjustment programmes. African women lawyers, a minority dissenting voice, are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring instead to look to the State for laws to protect women's interests. We agree that there are considerable problems with so–called customary systems of land tenure and administration for achieving gender justice with respect to women's land claims. Insufficient attention is being paid to power relations in the countryside and their implications for social groups, such as women, who are not well positioned and represented in local level power structures. But considerable changes to political and legal practices and cultures will be needed before African states can begin to deliver gender justice with respect to land.read more
Citations
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Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism
Book ChapterDOI
A Review of Empirical Evidence on Gender Differences in Nonland Agricultural Inputs, Technology, and Services in Developing Countries
TL;DR: A review of existing microeconomic empirical literature from the past 10 years on gender differences in use, access, and adoption of non-land agricultural inputs in developing countries is presented in this article.
Journal ArticleDOI
Customary vs Private Property Rights? Dynamics and Trajectories of Vernacular Land Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
Admos Chimhowu,Phil Woodhouse +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on a growing body of evidence on the emergence of vernacular rural land sales and rental markets to question assumptions that underlie the non-market 'ideal type' communal tenure model that has historically dominated policy thinking in Africa, and continues to be shared by both sides of the current land tenure reform debate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cutting the web of interests: Pitfalls of formalizing property rights
Ruth Meinzen-Dick,Esther Mwangi +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine ways in which formalization processes can secure diverse claims, and highlight the need for a better understanding of the social and ecological implications of existing land tenure before they are undermined by formalization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Challenges in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Africa: Anthropological Contributions
TL;DR: In this paper, the interface of anthropological research on land with policy positions across formative periods is discussed, from the colonial period through to the present as land tenure reform has repeatedly become a development priority; and recent research on intensifying competition over land, its intersection with competition over legitimate authority, new types of land transfers, the role of claims of indigeneity or autochthony in land conflicts, and challenges of increasing social inequality and of commodification of land for analysis and for land reform.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism.
Franz Ansprenger,Mahmood Mamdani +1 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism
Book
No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa
TL;DR: Sara Berry as discussed by the authors explores the complex way African economy and society are tied to issues of land and labour, offering a comparative study of agrarian change in four rural economies in sub-Saharan Africa.
Journal ArticleDOI
No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa
John F. S. Levi,Sara Berry +1 more
Journal ArticleDOI
The Evolutionary Theory of Land Rights as Applied to Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Critical Assessment
TL;DR: The evolutionary theory of land rights can be considered the dominant framework of analysis used by mainstream economists to assess the land tenure situation in developing countries, and to make predictions about its evolution.