The Struggle over Land in Africa

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Conflicts, Politics and Change Land issues and conflicts occur all over, all the time on the African continent and continue to mushroom on a continuous basis. Although many of these issues are not new, they do continue to change. They are extremely complex and embedded, which may lead to the inability to deal with them and to question the legitimacy of the forms of intervention and prevention of conflicts. The way in which these issues are dealt with often does not take into consideration their major - and thus potentially recurring - causes.The Struggle over Land in Africa: Conflicts, Politics and Change is a compelling book which analyses the role of land as a place and source of conflict, especially with regard to policy development, crisis management and post-war/post-conflict reconstruction. The author's main aim is to gain insight into the nature of policy-making concerning land and to delve into the underlying causes of these land issues, not only at the national level but also in terms of broader Africa. The book covers land issues in Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, northern Cameroon, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Some of the themes explored in this powerful volume include: Ethnic and indigenous land conflicts, Traditionalism versus modernity, renewed land interests, land use and conflict, state building, politics and land (for example, Agricultural land reform); land policy development, planning, inclusiveness/non-inclusiveness; regional scopes of land conflicts and changing norms.

Introduction: The struggle over land in Africa: Conflicts, politics and change
Ward Anseeuw and Chris Alden

Theme 1: Ethnic and indigenous land conflicts

1. ‘Indigenous’ land claims in Kenya: A case study of Chebyuk, Mount Elgon District
Claire Médard

2. Shades of grey: Post-conflict land policy reform in the Great Lakes Region
Chris Huggins

Theme 2: Between ‘traditionalism and modernity’: Insecurity, privatisation and marginalisation

3. The politics of communal tenure reform: A South African case study
Ben Cousins

4. Karal land: Family cultural patrimony or a commercialised product on the Diamaré Plain?
Bernard Gonné

Theme 3: Renewed land interests, land use, and conflicts

5. The conflicting distribution of tourism revenue as an example of insecure land tenure in Namibian communal lands
Renaud Lapeyre

6. Land rights and enclosures: Implementing the Mozambican Land Law in practice
Christopher Tanner

7. Biodiversity conservation against small-scale farming? Scientific evidences and emergence of new types of land crises
Catherine E Laurent

Theme 4: State building, politics and land

8. The role of land as a site and source of conflict in Angola
Jenny Clover

9. Two cycles of land policy in South Africa: Tracing the contours
Ruth Hall

10. A legal analysis of the Namibian commercial agricultural land reform process
Willem Adriaan Odendaal

Theme 5: Land policy development, planning and (non-)inclusiveness

11. The Ituri paradox: When armed groups have a land policy and peacemakers do not
Thierry Vircoulon

12. Understanding urban planning approaches in Tanzania: A historical transition analysis for urban sustainability
Wakuru Magigi

Theme 6: Regional scopes of land conflicts and changing norms

13. The Zimbabwe crisis, land reform and normalisation
Sam Moyo

14. Regionalisation of norms and the impact of narratives on southern African land policies
Chris Alden and Ward Anseeuw

Dr Ward Anseeuw is a CIRAD Researcher in the Post Graduate School for Agriculture and Rural Development at the University of Pretoria. Dr Anseeuw is an Agro-Economist who holds a Doctorate degree in Economics from the Pierre Mendès University in France (Grenoble). He has previously worked with the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA, Sciences Laboratory for Action and Development). He has mainly worked on agrarian and land policies in South Africa, but has also analysed the changing land policies within SADC and the broader African context from a more political point of view.

Dr Chris Alden is a reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. He has conducted extensive field research across the Southern African region and has published widely on the international politics and conflict in Southern Africa as well as work on Asia-Africa relations.