Coordinators/Coordonnateurs :
Sam Moyo (Institute of Agrarian Studies, Zimbabwe), Dodzi
Tsikata (University of Ghana Legon), Yakham Diop (Université
Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar)
Advisory
Group:
Archie Mafeje (Africa Institute of South Africa), Ambreena Manji
(UK)
The changing political economy of
land in Africa is one of the twelve thematic areas at the core
of the current intellectual agenda of the Council. Recent
debates over the nature and relevance of the Land Question in
the current context of globalisation, market liberalisation and
growing bio-technological substitutionism in agriculture have
tended to suggest that the “classic” land and agrarian questions
as we once knew them have been overtaken by events. This
viewpoint is based on the perceived erosion of the
socio-economic foundations of the peasantry and the supposedly
limited capacity of the rural poor to wage struggles for radical
land redistribution. Yet, there is mounting evidence,
particularly from Africa and Latin America, that the prediction
of the demise of the classic land and agrarian questions might
be premature. In many parts of the developing world, from
Chiapas in Mexico to Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, there is a
re-emergence of open and silent struggles over land whose tone
and tenor belie suggestions that the Land Question is over and
challenge the market-led land reforms that have resulted in the
widespread marginalisation of the working poor, including the
peasantry. New political alliances are being forged around land
issues and social movements focusing on land reform are growing
in numbers and ambition. Clearly, far from disappearing into
oblivion, the Land Question, it would seem, is being
reconstituted and posed in a new light, with such issues as
citizenship, tenure and property rights being brought into the
heart of the debate. This MWG looked more specifically into the
multiples ways in which struggles over land pose fundamental
issues of citizenship, democracy and development.
Members of the team:
Francis Menjo
Baye, Cameroun
Land Tenure, Arrangements, Migrant
Labours & Land Struggles in Rural Cameroon
Victor Adetula,
Nigeria
Environmental Degradation, Land
Shortage and Changing Patterns of Identity Conflict in the Tin
Mining Areas of Jos Plateau (Nigeria)
Abderrahmane N’Gaide,
Mauritanie
Logiques d’Héritages et
Superposition de Droits? Le « légitime » contre le « légal » ?
Conflits de pratiques dans l’Afrique contemporaine (Sénégal)
Isatou Touray,
Gambie
Gender and Land Dynamics in the Gambia
Rajeev Patel,
South Africa
Authorising the Land Question in
Africa
Juma Anthony
Okuku, Ouganda
Dynamics of Land Markets in Peri-urban
Kampala, Uganda
Yomi Oruwari,
Nigeria
Urban land and citizenship struggles
in Nigeria: An analysis of Access from 1979 to date
Aboudou Ramanou,
Béninin
Dynamiques foncières autour des
villes secondaires du centre du Bénin : cas de Parakou,
Tchaourou, Glazoué et Dassa-Zoumé (Benin)
Gabriel Tati,
Congo
Appropriation of Land for Housing
and African Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the City of Pont-Noire
(Congo-Brazzaville)
Zonon Abdoulaye,
Burkina Faso
Réforme agraire et valeur économique de la terre au Burkina
Bezabih Emana,
Ethipia
Emerging Land Rental Markets,
Transaction Costs and Institutional Support in Rural Ethiopia
Otutubikey
Izugbara, Nigeria
Women Farmers” Access To Rural
Farmland Markets In Nigeria
