scholarly journals Land Tenure Reform in Three Former Settler Colonies in Southern Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-110
Author(s):  
Chizuko Sato
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Traditional Leaders ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
Traditional Leadership ◽  
Communal Areas ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Customary Land

AbstractThis study explores the challenges of land tenure reform for three former settler colonies in southern Africa–Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. While land redistribution programmes have been the primary focus of land reform for these countries since independence, land tenure reform for the inhabitants of communal areas is an equally important and complex policy challenge. Before independence, the administration of these areas was more or less in the hands of traditional leaders, whose roles were sanctioned by the colonial and apartheid authorities. Therefore, one of the primary concerns with respect to reforming land tenure systems in communal areas is related to the power and authority of traditional leaders in the post-independence period. This study highlights striking similarities in the nations’ land tenure reform policies. All of them gave statutory recognition to traditional leaders and strengthened their roles in rural land administration. In understanding this ‘resurgence’ or tenacity of traditional leadership, the symbiotic relationship between the ruling parties and traditional leaders cannot be ignored and should be problematised. Nonetheless, this chapter also argues that this obsession with traditional leadership may result in the neglect of other important issues related to land tenure reform in communal areas, such as the role of customary land tenureas social security.

scholarly journals Theories of Land Reform and Their Impact on Land Reform Success in Southern Africa

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hull ◽  
Babalola ◽  
Whittal
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Viable Approach ◽  
Land Restitution ◽  
The Continuum

Our purpose is to present and test a typology of land reform theories as a means of understanding and interrogating the motives behind land reform and to better equip land administrators and policymakers to enact land reform programs that are appropriate for their contexts. Here, land reform is understood to include the related concepts of land redistribution, land restitution, land tenure reform and land administration reform. The theory typology thus has application for land restitution programs specifically operating in the global South. The continuum of theories is derived from literature and tested through a multiple case study of land reform in Nigeria, Mozambique, and South Africa, drawing from a combination of primary and secondary data. The findings suggest an over-reliance on replacement theories in all three contexts, although the Mozambican experience draws on theories towards the middle of the continuum (the adaptation theories). This is recommended as the most viable approach for the context.

Transforming legal status of customary land rights: what this means for women and men in rural Africa.

2021 ◽  
pp. 169-181
Author(s):  
Liz Alden Wily
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
East African ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Land Relations ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Customary Rights ◽  
Customary Land

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of land tenure reform, which should, in theory, prove a potent trigger towards equitable land relations between men and women in the customary land sector. This has been progressively underway in Africa since the 1990s. Broadly, a common objective is to release customary rights from their historical subordination as occupancy and use rights on presumed unowned lands, and much of which land remains vests in governments as ownercustodians. Or, where national laws have treated customary rights more equitably, a principal aim of reforms is to increase their security by these rights to be registrable without their extinction and conversion into statutory private rights. In short, this new phase of African land reform could signal the end of 70 years of intended disappearance of customary tenure as formally advised by the East African Royal Commission in 1955 and core elements of which were also adopted by France in respect of its own African possessions.

scholarly journals Introduction: Drastic Rural Changes in the Age of Land Reform

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Shinichi Takeuchi
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rural Change ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Customary Land

AbstractThis introductory chapter presents the objectives and interests of the book as well as important topics that will be addressed in the following chapters. The main purpose of the book is to reflect upon the meanings of drastic African rural changes by analysing recent land reform. Whereas the stated objectives of land reform were relatively similar, that is, strengthening the land rights of users, the experiences of rural change in Africa in the same period have been quite diverse. In this context, this book conducts a comparative analysis, with in-depth case studies to seek reasons that have brought about different outcomes. From the second to fourth sections, we provide an overview of the characteristics of customary land tenure, the pressure over, and change in, African land, and backgrounds of recent land tenure reform. The fifth section considers what land reform has brought to African rural societies. It is evident that land reform has accelerated the commodification of African customary lands. In addition, the political implications of land reform will be examined. The case studies in this book will clarify some types of relationships between the state and traditional leaders, such as collusion, tension, and subjugation. It is likely that these relationships are closely related to macro-level political order and state–society relations, but further in-depth research is required to understand these issues.

scholarly journals ASPECTS OF LAND ADMINISTRATION IN THE CONTEXT OF GOOD GOVERNANCE

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
JM Pienaar
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
Communal Land ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Land Restitution

This paper explores aspects of land administration where public funding and interests necessitate the application of good governance practices. The South African land reform programme is divided in three sub-programmes, namely land restitution, land redistribution and tenure reform. Land reform is a vast subject, based on policy, legislation and case law. Therefore it is impossible to deal with good governance principles over the wide spectrum of land reform. Special attention is however given to the land restitution programme in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 and tenure reform in the rural areas by means of the Communal Land Rights Act 11 of 2004. The purpose is not to formulate a blueprint for good governance or to indicate which good governance principles will solve all or most of the land tenure problems. It is rather an effort to indicate that policies and procedures to improve good governance in some aspects of land reform are urgently needed and should be explored further.Restitution of Land Rights Act and the Communal Land Rights Act, is extensive and far-reaching. However, many legislative measures are either impractical due to financial constraints and lack of capacity of the Department of Land Affairs, or are not based on sufficient participation by local communities. Land administration should furthermore be planned and executed in the context of global good governance practices. This includes equal protection; clear land policy principles; land tenure principles according to the needs of individuals and population groups; flexible land registration principles to accommodate both individual and communal land tenure; and appropriate institutional arrangements. It is clear that established good governance principles may solve many of the problems encountered in land administration in South Africa. It is a topic that needs to be explored further.

scholarly journals Conditions for successful land reform in Africa

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
JA Groenewald
Keyword(s):  
Adult Education ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Special Support ◽  
Fiscal Planning ◽  
Human Material

Land reform has traditionally had two objectives: equity and productivity. Food insecurity and the need for agriculture to contribute to development emphasise the need to maintain and improve productivity while improving equitability. Land must foster production and agriculture must attract good human material. The following areas need to be considered in policy formulation and delivery: an effective institutional framework involving all the relevant public and private bodies; efficient fiscal planning is essential; potentially successful farmers must be selected and given special support, including extension and adult education; complementary services and infrastructure are needed; prioritisation of functions and land tenure reform is often necessary. In addition, international agricultural markets are very important for Africa.  Wealthy nations should cease trade-distorting protection of their own farmers.

scholarly journals An ecology of difference: fence-line contrast photographs as scientific models in ecology

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirin Hongslo
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Scientific Models ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Textual Theory ◽  
African Context ◽  
Land Use Policies ◽  
Fence Line

Political ecologists have long acknowledged the links between knowledge and power. Recently there has also been a growing interest in detailed studies about knowledge production within critical political ecology. This article is a study of the use of photographs in scientific articles on dryland ecology, and investigates the functions of photographs. Contrary to the straightforward manner in which they are presented, photographs are not value-free documentary proofs of 'how things are.' Rather, photographs constitute arguments in their own right. Using photographic and textual theory, this study analyzes two articles that include photographs of fence-line contrasts between two different management regimes. Contrasting areas divided by a fence-line is a methodology that demonstrates how management differences lead to differences in vegetation. In a Southern African context, however, differences across a fence tend to encompass deep racial and economic divides, and the fence-line photos risk encompassing these differences. This article argues that the fence-line contrast photographs in this study function as models that order the causal links between vegetation dynamics, land tenure and land management. These models correspond closely to equilibrium models in range ecology, and the fence-line photographs thus contribute to a degradation narrative that has been influential for land reform policies in Southern Africa, and that feeds into land use policies that favor private land ownership in communal areas.Keywords: Critical political ecology, fence-line photography, scientific models, rangeland ecology, Southern Africa

Landowner Groups and the Codification of Custom in Papua New Guinea

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria C. Stead
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Relations Of Power

Although it diverges markedly from the vision of the Melanesian Way elaborated in the 1975 constitution, large-scale resource extraction has in recent decades been championed as the key mechanism for development in Papua New Guinea. In this context, forms of “middle-way” land reform are advocated as means of rendering customary land tenure commensurable with the requirements of modern, capitalist practices of production and economic activity. Principal amongst these are Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs) and lease-lease-back arrangements. Ethnographic exploration of communities affected by the tuna industry in Madang Province shows how these land reforms transform structures and cartographies of power, privileging the agents of the state and global capital at the same time that they transform relations of power within communities. At the same time, however, forms of codification and the assertion of landowner identities allow communities to make claims against outside agents involved in resource extractive activity on their lands.

Problems of Land Tenure Reform in Latin America

1964 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Picó
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Board Of Directors ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Academic Life ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Reform Program ◽  
The Government ◽  
Luis Munoz Marin

My interest in land reform started very early. In fact, my first executive appointment in the Government of Puerto Rico was in 1941, even before I left academic life, when I became a member of the first Board of Directors of the Land Authority of Puerto Rico, thus participating from the start in the land reform program of Puerto Rico. Back in 1940 when the present Government of Puerto Rico headed by Luis Muñoz Marín, our present Governor but at that time President of the Senate, took over the reins of government one of the first bills approved by our legislature was for a land tenure reform program in Puerto Rico.

Fractured Governance and Local Frictions: The Exclusionary Nature of a Clandestine Land Market in Southern Zambia

Africa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Sitko
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Land Market ◽  
Land Markets ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
The Social ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Rural Zambia

This article explores the ways in which efforts to expand private land tenure, coupled with the continued centrality of customary land administration in Zambia, produce a fractured system of land governance in which localized markets for land emerge but are forced to operate in a clandestine manner. Using ethnographic and archival data sources, I argue that despite the historical and contemporary relationship between land rights and economic ‘development’, the clandestine nature of land markets in rural Zambia tends to (re)produce many of the social ills that ‘development’ seeks to resolve. Using a case study of a clandestine market for land in a Tonga-speaking region of southern Zambia, this article shows how these markets undermine women's rights to land, while allowing for the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few.

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