Posted in: African farm news in review, issue #133

Towards the end of this assessment process, participants decided to present a land petition at the village assembly and with officials of the revenue department, in an attempt to broaden their network of support and draw attention to their rights. The focus of the assessment was neglect of government officials and elected representatives. Participants also recognized that gaps in information and communication related to the Katkari’s legal rights as residents of tribal lands, worsen the situation by keeping from public view illegal advantages held by wealthy landowners.

The security of women’s entitlement to land and land-based resources in the East Africa region has been compromised by a combination of unfavourable laws and government policies, socio-economic change toward greater commoditization of and competition for land and land-based resources, and exclusionary practices defended as ‘customary’. Law, policy, and practice have excluded women in land ownership and control and made their access tenuous.

International policy is currently witnessing a renewed interest in customary tenure systems as well as traditional leadership, through which it aims to enhance the efficiency of local governance and create general access to and secure rights in land. Contrary to these ideas, practice reveals a lack of security of customary tenure in areas with a high competition for land. Mounting evidence displays that customary systems often evolve inequitably and that traditional elites benefit disproportionally from commodification of land.

International policy is currently witnessing a renewed interest in customary tenure systems as well as traditional leadership, through which it aims to enhance the efficiency of local governance and create general access to and secure rights in land. Contrary to these ideas, practice reveals a lack of security of customary tenure in areas with a high competition for land. Mounting evidence displays that customary systems often evolve inequitably and that traditional elites benefit disproportionally from commodification of land.

This article is about the strategic use of adat arguments in the politics of large-scale land acquisition. While customary (adat) communities are commonly depicted as small local minorities living in the forests and being guardians of the environment, in many situations such communities occupy a majority position within the district. Majority adat communities are internally differentiated into categories of actors with varying and conflicting interests. This article focuses on Sumba in eastern Indonesia, where state and adat powers are not opposed but historically aligned.

Pendant l'année 1982 et une partie de l'année 1983 l'auteur a effectué une recherche au Sénégal avec la collaboration de M. Sypkens Smit, anthropologue. Le thème central de la recherche était l'interaction entre les différents systèmes de droit foncier. Le présent rapport relate la phase préparatoire de la recherche, ainsi que les activités des deux chercheurs sur le terrain, en Basse Casamance. Le chapitre sur "Les aspects anthropologiques du droit foncier: le cas d'un village diola" est de la main de M. Sypkens Smit.

The central themes of this book are customary law, traditional leadership and local land management. International policy is currently witnessing a renewed interest in customary tenure systems and traditional leadership, through which it aims to enhance the efficiency of local governance, and create general access to and secure rights in land. Contrary to these ideas, practice reveals a lack of security of customary tenure in many areas.

Cette étude aborde la question de l'acquisition de droits sur la terre, tels que ceux-ci ont été mis au grand jour au cours du développement et du réglement d'un litige portant sur l'utilisation d'une parcelle située dans la ville de N'zara, chef-lieu de la circonscription de Mango, dans le nord du Togo.

This book offers a historical analysis of the embattled structures of rural local governance in South Africa, with specific reference to the role of traditional authorities in Xhalanga in the Eastern Cape. More specifically, the book illustrates how at least in the Xhalanga district chieftainship was contested from the establishment of the district in 1865 to the advent of democracy in South Africa.

This chapter explores the possibilities and limits of law and institutions as instruments for generating changes in environmental behaviour. First, an overview of the different schools of thought on law and natural resources is presented. It appears that the overall trend with regard to land and common property resources is orientated towards: 1) a bottom-up/sociological approach to the law-making process, and 2) devolution of powers to local communities in a setting of comanagement.