Synopses & Reviews
This book examines the trend in Africa today to replace communal forms of customary tenure with Western-type private land tenure arrangements. These are markets in land that treat it as a commodity like any other, and forms of rural credit involving land as collateral. The author develops an aetiology of the main actors in this historic process which is already having huge human consequences. It is likely, if more widely implemented, to transform the face of African rural society towards landlessness, forced migration to big city slums, and rising inequality.
Synopsis
Across Africa land is being commodified: private ownership is replacing communal and customary tenure; Farms are turned into collateral for rural credit markets.
Law reform is at the heart of this revolution. The Politics of Land Reform in Africa casts a critical spotlight on this profound change in African land economy. The book illuminates the key role of legislators, legal consultants and academics in tenure reform. These players exert their influence by translating the economic and regulatory interests of the World Bank, civil society groups and commercial lenders in to questions of law. Drawing on political economy and actor-network theory The Politics of Land Reform in Africa is an indispensable contribution to the study of agrarian change in developing countries.
About the Author
Ambreena Manji lectures at the University of Warwick and has a simultaneous fellowship at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London.
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
The Politics of Land Reform in Africa; Altering Land Relations; The Revival of 'Law and Development'; Structure and Agency in 'Law and Development';Collateral Damage; Conclusion
2. CONTEMPORARY LAND REFORM IN AFRICA
Defining Land Reform; Afrian Land Questions; Chronologies of Land Reform; Conclusion
3. PAYING FOR LAW: THE WORLD BANK AND BILATERAL DONORS
Promoting the Rule of Law; The Role of the World Bank in the Privatisation of Land; The Role of Bilateral Donors; Linking the Global and the Local; The Global Land Reform Network; Conclusion
4. MAKING LAW: INSIDE THE 'LAW LABORATORY'
The Role of Lawyers; The 'Law Laboratory' in the Network of Land Reform; The Politics of Legal Methodology; Conclusion
5. CONTESTING LAW? 'GENDER PROGRESSIVE' GROUPS AND RURAL MOVEMENTS
Case Studies: Gender Progressive Groups in East Africa; Ideologies and Tactics of Rural Movements; Conclusion
6. THE FUTURE OF LAND RELATIONS
Problems of Implementation; Worsening Gender Relations; The Role of Commercial Lenders and the Judiciary
7. CONCLUSION
Index