IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cid/wpfacu/247.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Conflicts Over Land and Threats to Customary Tenure in Africa Today

Author

Listed:
  • Pauline Peters

Abstract

Issues swirling around land across Africa have never been so central to key social and political-economic 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Pauline Peters, 2012. "Conflicts Over Land and Threats to Customary Tenure in Africa Today," CID Working Papers 247, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:247
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/publications/faculty-working-papers/247_PetersThreats+to+customary+tenure+Sept+2012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Woodhouse, Philip, 2003. "African Enclosures: A Default Mode of Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(10), pages 1705-1720, October.
    2. Feder, Gershon & Noronha, Raymond, 1987. "Land Rights Systems and Agricultural Development in Sub-Saharan Afric a," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 2(2), pages 143-169, July.
    3. Ruth Hall, 2011. "Land grabbing in Southern Africa: the many faces of the investor rush," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(128), pages 193-214, June.
    4. Andre, Catherine & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 1998. "Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-47, January.
    5. Jan Kees van Donge & Levi Pherani, 1999. "Law and order as a development issue: Land conflicts and the creation of social order in Southern Malawi," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 48-70.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kidido, J.K & Ayitey, J.Z & Kuusaana, E.D & Gavu, E.K, 2015. "Who is the rightful recipient of mining compensation for land use deprivation in Ghana?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 19-27.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Akaateba, Millicent Awialie, 2019. "The politics of customary land rights transformation in peri-urban Ghana: Powers of exclusion in the era of land commodification," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Deininger, Klaus & Castagnini, Raffaella, 2006. "Incidence and impact of land conflict in Uganda," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 321-345, July.
    3. Guirkinger, Catherine & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2015. "Transformation of the family farm under rising land pressure: A theoretical essay," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 112-137.
    4. Bosco Bashangwa Mpozi & Mireille Mizero & Andrew Ogolla Egesa & Paul M. Dontsop Nguezet & Bernard Vanlauwe & Patrice Ndimanya & Philippe Lebailly, 2020. "Land Access in the Development of Horticultural Crops in East Africa. A Case Study of Passion Fruit in Burundi, Kenya, and Rwanda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2009. "Securing property rights in transition: Lessons from implementation of China's rural land contracting law," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 22-38, May.
    6. Kidido, J.K & Ayitey, J.Z & Kuusaana, E.D & Gavu, E.K, 2015. "Who is the rightful recipient of mining compensation for land use deprivation in Ghana?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 19-27.
    7. Francis Mwesigye & Tomoya Matsumoto, 2013. "Rural-rural Migration and Land Conflicts: Implications on Agricultural Productivity in Uganda," GRIPS Discussion Papers 13-17, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    8. Deininger, Klaus & Feder, Gershon, 2001. "Land institutions and land markets," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 288-331, Elsevier.
    9. Tom Bundervoet, 2006. "Livestock, Activity Choices and Conflict: Evidence from Burundi," HiCN Working Papers 24, Households in Conflict Network.
    10. Jean-Philippe Colin & Mourad Ayouz, 2006. "The Development of a Land Market? Insights from Côte d’Ivoire," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 82(3), pages 404-423.
    11. Francis Mwesigye & Tomoya Matsumoto & Keijiro Otsuka, 2014. "Population Pressure, Rural-to-Rural Migration and Evolution of Land Tenure Institutions: The Case of Uganda," GRIPS Discussion Papers 14-09, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    12. Mwesigye, Francis & Matsumoto, Tomoya, 2016. "The Effect of Population Pressure and Internal Migration on Land Conflicts: Implications for Agricultural Productivity in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 25-39.
    13. Estelle Koussoubé, 2014. "What Drives Land Sales and Rentals in Rural Africa: Evidence from Western Burkina Faso," Working Papers DT/2014/10, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    14. Haagsma, Rein & Mouche, Pierre v., 2013. "Egalitarian norms, economic development, and ethnic polarization," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 719-744.
    15. Fenske, James, 2011. "Land tenure and investment incentives: Evidence from West Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 137-156, July.
    16. D. de Walque & P. Verwimp, 2010. "The Demographic and Socio-economic Distribution of Excess Mortality during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 19(2), pages 141-162, March.
    17. Liao, Chuan & Jung, Suhyun & Brown, Daniel G. & Agrawal, Arun, 2024. "Does land tenure change accelerate deforestation? A matching-based four-country comparison," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    18. Marijke Verpoorten, 2014. "Growth, poverty and inequality in Rwanda: a broad perspective," Working Papers of LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance 490896, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance.
    19. Ayoola, J. B . & Mohamadou, S. & Abu, G. A. & Umeh, J. C . & Asogwa, B. C . & Ayoola, G. B. & Sani, R. M., 2022. "Effect of Land Administration on allocative efficiency of Rice Farmers Under Public and Private Authorities in Dadinkowa Irrigation Area in North-Eastern Nigeria," Nigerian Agricultural Policy Research Journal (NAPReJ), Agricultural Policy Research Network (APRNet), vol. 9(1), December.
    20. Fenske, James, 2014. "Trees, tenure and conflict: Rubber in colonial Benin," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 226-238.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Africa; Conflicts; Threats;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chuck McKenney (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.