Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa provides a conceptual framework for analysing dynamic processes of state-making in Africa. Features a conceptual framework which provides a method for analysing the everyday making, contestation, and negotiation of statehood in contemporary Africa Conceptualizes who negotiates statehood (the actors, resources and repertoires), where these negotiation processes take place, and what these processes are all about ncludes a collections of essays that provides empirical and analytical insights into these processes in eight different country studies in Africa Critically reflects on the negotiability of statehood in Africa
Through a number of case studies from the West African Sahel, this book links and explores natural resources management from the perspectives of politics, property and production.
This collection of research papers from across the African continent illustrates the complex and ever-changing rules of the land tenure game, and how government legislation and reform (formalization) interact with local innovations (informalization) to form land tenure systems.
This collection of essays by prominent Africanists examines the negotiations and tactical and strategic maneuvers that Africans employ to secure their claims to land.
Recognizing that land rights are ambiguous, negotiable and politically embedded, these case studies explore the long-term processes and recent changes in contemporary rural West Africa affecting the conversion of control over land into social and political capital and vice versa. They point to the colonial origins of what came to be viewed as ‘customary’ tenure and to the legal pluralism characterizing pre-colonial tenure arrangements. Furthermore, they show the spiritual and ritual importance of land that can be converted into political power and economic prerogatives, a dimension neglected by much of the recent literature. Analyses cover forest and savannah, state and segmentary societies, facilitating comparison and insights across the Anglo-Francophone divide.
As an important contribution to debates on property theory and the role of law in creating, disputing, defining and refining property rights, this volume provides new theoretical material on property systems, as well as new empirically grounded case studies of the dynamics of property transformations. The property claimants discussed in these papers represent a diverse range of actors, including post-socialist states and their citizens, those receiving restitution for past property losses in Africa, Southeast Asia and in eastern Europe, collectives, corporate and individual actors. The volume thus provides a comprehensive anthropological analysis not only of property structures and ideologies, but also of property (and its politics) in action.
Who belongs to the nation? How is citizenship defined? And why have such identities become so politically explosive in recent years? This book explores the instrumental manipulation of citizenship and narrowing definitions of national-belonging which refract recent political struggles in Zimbabwe, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Somalia, Tanzania, and South Africa. Conflicts which have arisen over the resources of the post-colonial state are increasingly legitimated through recourse to claims of nationhood and citizenship. The contributors address the historical roots of national and ethnic identities, the material and symbolic resources which are contested within states, and the relative importance of elite manipulation and subaltern agency.
The Politics of Possession investigates how struggles overaccess to resources and political power constitute property andauthority recursively. Such dynamics are integral to stateformation in societies characterized by normative and legalpluralism. Includes some of the latest theoretical work on the dynamics ofaccess and property and how they are joined to questions of powerand authority Explores how access to resources is often contested and rifewith conflict, particularly in post-colonial and post-socialistcountries Offers a thought-provoking approach to the study of everydayprocesses of state formation Shows how the process of seeking authorization for propertyclaims works to legitimize the authorizers, and the effortsundertaken by politico-legal institutions to gain legitimacyunderpin and undermine various claims of access and property Contributors explore from a wide empirical compass of originalresearch spanning Latin America, Africa, South-East Asia, andEastern Europe
The variety of land questions facing Africa and the divergent strategies proposed to resolve them continue to evoke debates. Increasingly, in response to the enduring problems of land tenure, there are land movements of all shapes and orientations, some reformist and others quite revolutionary in their agenda. However revolutionary, land movements have tended to ignore the land tenure interests of women, pastoralists, youth and indigenous people. Several of these longstanding and emerging issues in land tenure include the role of the state in land tenure reforms; urban land questions, the nature of land struggles and improvements; and, the impact of land tenure developments on particular social groups and countries. An overarching concern is the extent to which land rights are being commodified, through the conversion of land held under customary tenure systems into marketised systems. The consequences of this include growing land concentration, land tenure insecurities, diminishing access to land by various sections of society, including the poor, women and less dominant ethno-religious groups. This volume brings together different studies on Africas land questions exploring emerging land issues on the continent in terms of the wider questions of development, citizenship, and democratisation. The chapters discuss the land question through a variety of themes. Some focus on the agrarian aspects of the land questions, while others elucidate the urban dimensions of the land question.
