Afforestation, Land Tenure and Environmental Legislation in Madagascar

by Alain Bertrand Abstract This combination of three short papers discusses afforestation, land tenure, and environmnetal legislation in Madagascar. The first paper argues that eucalyptus, though not indigenous to Madagscar, has historically been a valuable income-generating crop through the urban fuel wood market, and a key strategy in asserting claims to property rights. The combination […]

Le Boisement, le bail, et la législation enviornnementale à Madagascar

de Alain Bertrand Résumé Cette combinaison de trois articles courts traite de l’aboisement, le bail, et la législation sur l’environnement à Madagascar. Le premier article soutien que bien que l’eucalyptus n’est pas originaire de Madagascar, il a été historiquement un produit de grande valeur, source de revenu par la voie du marché de bois urbain […]

Women’s Movements, Customary Law, and Land Rights in Africa: The Case of Uganda

by Aili Mari Tripp Abstract Much of the literature on women and land tenure in Africa has viewed the introduction of land titling, registration, and the privatization of land under colonialism and after independence as a setback for women, leaving women in a state of even greater insecurity with poorer prospects for accessing land, and […]

South African Land Reform and the Global Development Industry

by Thackwray Driver Abstract Over the past decade, “land issues” have reclaimed centre stage in international development debates, with Hernando De Soto’s influential work on land tenure and capitalism playing an important catalytic role. Post-apartheid South Africa has been highly visible in international discussions and debates about land reform, land tenure and land administration. The […]

The Persistence of the Commons: Economic Theory and Community Decision-Making on Land Tenure in Voi , Kenya

by Ellen M. Bassett Abstract Projects to secure land rights for the urban poor have been implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa for thirty years. A recurrent issue is providing sustainable land tenure for settlement residents/project beneficiaries. Commonly, individual titles have been used. Often recipients sell their land rights to more affluent city dwellers, exacerbating the growth of slums. Policymakers […]

‘We Want to Belong to Our Roots and We Want to be Modern People’: New Farmers, Old Claims Around Lake Mutirikwi, Southern Zimbabwe

by Joost Fontein Abstract Based on fieldwork carried out between June 2005 and July 2006, this paper questions common assertions which suggest that recent ‘fast track’ land reform in Zimbabwe did not fit with local understandings of land tenure. While fast track land reform was not officially planned as a form of ‘land restitution’, in […]

What is the Matter with African Agriculture?

by Henk Mutsaers and Paul Kleene Abstract The views of forty veterans on sixty years of African agricultural development, published recently in book form, are analyzed against the background of René Dumont’s epochal publication “L’Afrique noire est mal partie.” Although some of Dumont’s opinions and recommendations are no longer valid, it is striking how many of […]

Prognosis of Land Title Formalization in Urban Ghana: The Myth and Reality of Awareness and Relevance

by Kwasi Gyau Baffour Awuah and Felix Nokoi Hammond Abstract While land title formalization is still useful in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana like many other countries in the sub-region, continues to experience low rate of compliance with the legal title formalization requirement. This is in spite of over a century and half duration of its practices. Administrative […]

What is in a Coconut? An Ethnoecological Analysis of Mining, Social Displacement, Vulnerability, and Development in Rural Kenya

by Willice O. Abuya Abstract Studies have shown that corporate-community and state-community conflict in mining communities in Africa revolves around at least four issues: land ownership, “unfair” compensation practices, inequitable resource distribution, and environmental degradation. These issues underpin conventional discourses on equity and compensational justice. A relatively obscure line of analysis concerns the meanings that […]

African Studies Quarterly

Tag: Land Tenure