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Subsistence and land tenure in the Sahel

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  • W. Grigsby

Abstract

Field research on customaryland tenure conducted in two villages inEastern Senegal suggests that theexisting tenure regime places a higher value onaccess than on security, long considered acornerstone of investment in increasedagricultural productivity. The underlyingreasons point to tenure's cultural dimensions.Interview accounts and observation are used todevelop the cultural link between tenure andsubsistence, and to describe the underlyingsocial relations and processes through which a``subsistence ethic'' is expressed. Such an``embedded'' approach to land tenure analysisimplies that understanding tenure dynamics andsocial change is a complex challenge, onebenefiting from a sociological perspective thatgoes beyond behavior models that treat tenureas a primarily economic phenomenon. Land useand customary tenure are dynamic phenomena, buttheir responsiveness to economic forces istempered by the importance of householdinterdependence and the harsh materialrealities of living on the environmentalmargins. Market-based interventions that woulduse security as a means to effect land usechange may generate more social or spatialproblems than they solve. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002

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  • W. Grigsby, 2002. "Subsistence and land tenure in the Sahel," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 19(2), pages 151-164, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:19:y:2002:i:2:p:151-164
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1016070712223
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Howard, Patricia L. & Nabanoga, Gorettie, 2007. "Are there Customary Rights to Plants? An Inquiry among the Baganda (Uganda), with Special Attention to Gender," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1542-1563, September.
    3. Benjamin, Charles E., 2008. "Legal Pluralism and Decentralization: Natural Resource Management in Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2255-2276, November.
    4. Carr, Edward R., 2019. "Properties and projects: Reconciling resilience and transformation for adaptation and development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 70-84.
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    6. Miguel Rocha de Sousa, 2009. "The political economy of Land Reform: A new perspective applied to Latin America," Economics Working Papers 08_2009, University of Évora, Department of Economics (Portugal).
    7. Howard, Patricia L. & Nabanoga, Gorettie, 2005. "Are there customary rights to plants?: an inquiry among the Baganda (Uganda), with special attention to gender," CAPRi working papers 44, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

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