Land Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in Nicaragua

This article uses empirical data from a case study in rural Nicaragua to demonstrate the need for a conceptualization of tenure security as seen from the perspective of the landholder. A large group of farmers in the case study area perceive their tenure situation as being insecure despite the fact that they possess a legal title to their land. The article argues that more attention must be paid to aspects such as inequalities of wealth and power, lack of enforcement and lack of impartiality on the part of the formal institutions when addressing tenure security in an institutionally unstable setting, such as that found in Nicaragua. The article contributes to the ongoing discussion by arguing that future research on how to increase rural land tenure security should explore the concept of tenure security as experienced by farmers.     

Land Tenure, Archaeology, and the Ancestral Pueblo Social Landscape

Archaeology relies upon evidence of past human modification of the natural landscape in order to infer past human social dynamics on the site, local, and regional levels. Given the inferential linkages between past landscape use and social relationships, archaeology can benefit from an approach that more explicitly delineates relationships between systems of land use and land tenure, the social means through which people define and assert land use rights. This research outlines a set of methods for modeling prehistoric land tenure systems and developing a middle range theory of land tenure relationships that may assist archaeologists in their investigations of prehistoric resource access systems. Land tenure systems are complex risk-buffering strategies that are conditioned by the labor invested in food production, the size of groups holding direct access to productive lands and resources, and the temporal duration of land access rights. The role of these variables is supported by cross-cultural data from a worldwide sample of food-producing societies. The land tenure model is applied to data from the prehistoric Southwest to help explain local and regional changes in food production, settlement size, and community organization in southwest Colorado between 900 and 1300 A.D.     

Defusing Land Disputes? The Politics of Land Certification and Dispute Resolution in Burundi

There is a growing interest in localized land registration, in which user rights are acknowledged and recorded through a community-based procedure, as an alternative to centralized titling to promote secure tenure in sub-Saharan Africa. Localized land registration is expected to reduce land disputes, yet it remains unclear how it impacts disputes in practice. This is an urgent question for war-affected settings that experience sensitive land disputes. This article discusses findings from ethnographic fieldwork in Burundi on pilot projects for land certification. It identifies three ways in which certification feeds into land conflicts rather than preventing or resolving them. First, land certification represents a chance for local people to enter a new round of claim making, as those ignored or disenfranchised in earlier rounds see new opportunities. Second, it offers an avenue for institutional competition between different land-governing institutions. Third, certification provides politicians with openings to interfere in tenure relations and to expand their support base. The authors conclude that these problems are not simply a matter of inadequate policy design. Rather, there are crucial political dimensions to land conflicts and land tenure in Burundi, which means that land registration programmes run the risk of inflaming conflictive property relations in rural communities.     

‘We Help our Husbands!’ Negotiating the Household Budget in Rural Burkina Faso

This article addresses the intra‐household division of responsibilities among the Bisa and Mossi in south‐eastern Burkina Faso. Based on a detailed village study of the land use which revealed that women cultivated 31 per cent of all the land in 1997, gendered practices in household budgeting are investigated. Although the proportion of women’s own‐account agriculture suggests that they contribute substantially to household consumption, the majority of women maintain that they only help their husbands when contributing in areas that, ideologically, are his responsibility, for example by providing food and by paying school fees and materials. In this way, women keep within the norms of showing respect for the husband but, at the same time, they may press him to fulfil his obligations.     

Land Policy and Farming Practices in Laos

The government of Laos has identified the eradication of poverty as a priority. Given the primarily agricultural character of the country, it has selected land reform as a core policy to reach this goal. The policy has two major aims: to increase land tenure security in order to encourage farmer involvement in intensive farming, and to eliminate slash‐and‐burn agriculture to protect the environment in a country still rich in forest resources. State intervention takes the form of land allocation, a process which combines the protection of some areas of village land with the formal recognition of private ownership in authorized farming areas. In a country with different types of geography, the effects of the policy are variable, but the research presented in this article demonstrates that the land laws have shortcomings which allow for differing interpretations depending on the local social relationships. Since local specificities are not taken into account, the reform is proving counterproductive for both forest protection and agricultural modernization, as well as having a negative social impact by marginalizing the poorest farmers.     

The Robustness of Aboriginal Land Tenure Systems: Underlying and Proximate Customary Titles

While Aboriginal 1 1 I do not deal with Torres Strait Islander land relationships in this paper, although the arguments may well apply in that case. I have restricted myself to systems with which I am more familiar
land use patterns may have been fragile in the face of colonisation, and severe limits were consequently placed on Aboriginal people's capacity to physically enact local traditional entitlements on many lands, the basis and key content of traditional title to such lands is not fragile but has generally been maintained with considerable robustness. In this paper I suggest that this robustness arises in a critical sense from the pre-existing and widely continuing dual structure of traditional land tenure, which may be understood as consisting of an underlying title held within the relevant regional jural and cultural system, which underpins proximate entitlements enjoyed by small groups of individuals. There is scope within Australia's Native Title Act (1993) for the recognition of this system of customary law under the western legal concept of native title.     

EXPLORING THE CONNECTIONS: LAND TENURE, SOCIAL IDENTITIES, AND AGROBIODIVERSITY PRACTICES IN GHANA

This article employs qualitative and quantitative evidence from primary social research in Ghana to examine the link between land tenure security and social identities (of wealth/income and gender), and how they condition farmers' investments in practices that contribute to the rehabilitation of tree biodiversity (agrobiodiversity). Statistical analyses of the significance of the effects of farmers' de jure land tenure security regimes, and income and gender on agrobiodiversity practices were inconclusive. The conventional causation link between investments and more secure formal land tenure rights, for instance, was confirmed in investments in four out of eight agrobiodiversity practices. Testimonial-based evidence of farmers provided a clearer concept of land tenure security and an explanatory framework about the interacting and complex effects of income and gender on land tenure security. The theoretical and empirical argument developed from these testimonies portrays land tenure as embodying negotiated social processes, influenced by gender and income of individuals, whereby breadth of land rights, duration of rights over land, and assurance of rights are established, sustained, enhanced or changed through a variety of strategies to shape tenure security. These processes – tenure building and renewal processes – are critical because all farmers have lingering anxiety about land tenure rights, even among farmers with more secure formal rights. Investments are made in agrobiodiversity practices as a strategy to strengthen land tenure security and thereby minimize anxiety, leading to reverse causation effects between land tenure, social identities, and investments.     

‘Best Practice’ Options for the Legal Recognition of Customary Tenure

Is there a ‘best practice’ model for the legal recognition of customary tenure? If not, is it possible to identify the circumstances in which a particular model would be most appropriate? This article considers these questions in the light of economic theories of property rights, particularly as illustrated by the World Bank's 2003 land policy report. While these theories have their flaws, the underlying concept of tenure security allows a typological framework for developing legal responses to customary tenure. In particular, this article suggests that the nature and degree of State legal intervention in a customary land system should be determined by reference to the nature and causes of any tenure insecurity. This hypothesis is discussed by reference to a wide variety of legal examples from Africa, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific. The objective is not to suggest that law determines resource governance outcomes in pluralist normative environments, but to improve the quality of legal interventions in order to assist customary groups to negotiate better forms of tenure security and access to resources.     

Making Law Work: Restructuring Land Relations in Africa

This article explores a number of issues concerning the appropriate role for the law to play in the restructuring and reform of land relations and land tenure in Africa. Given current (external) donor tendencies, and (internal) pressures for reform from within, this is a particularly topical issue: in seeking to explore it, the author draws on his own experiences and involvement in land law reform, as well as other sources of information, concentrating on countries and events in Eastern and Southern Africa. After examining various models and country experiences, the article concludes that, while there is no single ‘right way’ to tackle land tenure reform in Africa, there are a number of factors which may be crucial to success, and in which the law—and lawyers—can play a vital role.     

Land titling and poverty reduction in Southeast Asia: realising markets or realising rights?∗

AusAID has supported land titling projects in Southeast Asia with the World Bank for over two decades. These involve the first-time issuance of a land title in cases where the ownership rights of current occupiers are largely assured. Reflecting neoliberal thinking on private property rights and development, the rationale is that titling builds land markets and increases tenure security, investment and access to institutional credit. However, international research indicates that land titling can be neither sufficient or necessary to deliver such benefits and, under some circumstances, can harm poor landholders’ wellbeing. In this respect, attention is paid to political factors in addition to property rights per se which influence their tenure security. It is argued that the value which neoliberalism places on the exclusivity of ownership of land, to enable its efficient use and allocation, can be in conflict with the importance to poor people of secure access and use rights. If AusAID is to fully commit to poverty reduction goals, then there will need to be more attention paid to the social justice dimensions of land distribution in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.     

Land tenure and rancho expansion in Alta California, 1784–1846

Popular writers and historians have viewed the rancho as a symbol of the halcyon days of hispanic California and often have overlooked the role of rancho land grants in changing the land tenure system of Alta California during Mexican occupance. This paper views the rancho as an integral part of a land tenure system under which considerable land was granted and examines the patterns of rancho land grants to 1846. The majority of rancho grants were less than six years old at the end of Mexican rule, but they were instrumental in introducing a new land tenure system which imposed a distinct order and design on the Alta California landscape. The land policies of Mexico have been strikingly persistent; rancho boundaries still constitute a prominent part of the modern landscape of California. As a settlement institution, the rancho was more than boundaries delimiting ownership of land, it was the primary means by which resources were distributed, organized and exploited. While the granting of land in Alta California was a distinctive practice, an investigation of how this land system came about and its impact on the land adds to our understanding of tenure practices in general and in particular provides insights into the way in which cultural and economic values are impressed on the land through land ordinances.     

Land Tenures as Policy Instruments: Transitions on Cape York Peninsula

Over the last four decades, Australia's most remote marginal lands have provided an expansive space towards realisation of emergent national goals, involving recognition of Aboriginal land rights together with protection of ‘wilderness’ and semi‐natural ecosystems. This has been achieved by the revival of land tenures as instruments for the delivery of public policy, requiring innovative federal and state legislation, often driven by judicial determinations. More so than any other bioregion, Cape York Peninsula has experienced radical shifts in landownership, land titles, and property rights, reflecting its pivotal role as an arena in which emerging national goals are contested. The most immediately visible evidence of these changes is depicted in the tenure maps for 1970, 1990, and 2010. However, these maps provide an incomplete account of tenure changes, including new titles such as non‐transferable communal freehold and common‐law recognition of traditional native title, requiring belated responses by state and federal governments. The three benchmark maps provide a starting point for an examination of the currently resurrected role of land titles and land rights as policy instruments. The time‐specific attributes of each tenure category are discussed and linked to the policies underpinning each tenure and to the communities, political constituencies, resources, enterprises, and national values engaged with each tenure. Land titles and land rights are pivotal in political contests about regional futures, with the peninsula acting as a crucible in shaping wider national directions.     

Land Tenure and Food Security: Exploring Dynamic Linkages

Land tenure and food security have each been the subject of extensive—but generally separate—research in the past. Links between the two issues are now receiving increased attention, yet critical links between them remain unexplored. After a brief review of the two concepts, this article combines both issues within a dynamic framework that recognizes not just the conventional link between access to land and access to food in the short run, but also the recursive link between access to food and the ability to maintain sufficient resources to meet long-run needs. Such a framework makes explicit the trade-offs that poor households may face in bad years between consumption and investment in non-labour assets. Perhaps less intuitively, it also suggests that the need for self-insurance may force poor households to choose less efficient crops or production strategies than wealthier households even in good years. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for equity, efficiency, research, and policy.     

Family Property and the Limits of Intervention: The Article 27 Reforms and the PROCEDE Programme in Mexico

In the 1990s the Mexican peasants witnessed the introduction of a new Agrarian Law and the implementation of the land regularization programme, PROCEDE. In this article it is demonstrated that the privatization of previously communally held ejido land did not lead to the promised dynamic land market, nor to an increase in agricultural productivity. On the basis of an in–depth study of land tenure practices in the ejido La Canoa in Western Mexico, it is shown that the changes of 1992 did not address the main problems of peasant agriculture. The new Agrarian Law legalized practices which, although illegal, had already become quite common in ejidos throughout Mexico. In addition, it is argued that legal security does not necessarily reside in official registration by the state, but can also be based on local recognition of land rights. The main argument of the article is that property consists of complex sets of claims, rights and obligations that cannot be manipulated by forms of state intervention that reduce land tenure predicaments to technical problems.     

Land Rights under Stress in Darfur: A Volatile Dynamic of the Conflict

Abstract

The aggravation of land rights over time in Darfur was a primary factor in the initiation of the conflict, and has emerged as a particularly dif?cult set of issues in the search for viable peace. While the prospect of being able to keep land acquired in course of the conflict was a primary factor in recruitment for the Janjaweed, it came on the heels of a set of changes in the environment, land use and population patterns, institutions, law and governance that produced a highly unwieldy and volatile land rights scenario. This article explores the role of land tenure in the Darfur conflict, examining the aggravation of rights, custom, and law over time, and then focusing on two of the primary war-related tenure problems currently facing Darfur — use of land rights as tools of belligerence, and the land dispossession — secondary occupation problem.     

The Discourse that Silences: Beneficiaries' Ambivalence Towards Redistributive Land Reform in the Philippines

This article argues that the persistence of non-capitalist dimensions within land relations in the Philippines is basic to rural livelihood strategies, and has been a major but widely-neglected factor in the failure of land reform programmes. Addressing the issue of non-capitalist relationships brings into focus the indigenous or ‘customary’ land tenure relationships that exist in lowland land tenure arrangements, with the result that the conventional dichotomy between lowland and upland ‘cultural minority’ land relations becomes spurious. The article offers some suggestions as to why, for the major part of this century, the indigenous norms of lowlanders have been overlooked, with a discussion which links up to issues of national identity and nation building.     

Post‐Conflict Ambon: Forced Migration and the Ethno‐Territorial Effects of Customary Tenure

In post‐conflict contexts characterized by large‐scale migration and increasing levels of legal pluralism, customary land tenure risks being deployed as a tool of ethno‐territorialization in which displaced communities are denied return and secure land rights. This thesis will be illustrated through a case study of the Indonesian island of Ambon where a recognition of customary tenure — also called adat — was initiated in 2005 at the end of a high‐intensity conflict between Christians and Muslims. Although a system of land tenure providing multiple forms of social security for the indigenous in‐group, adat in Ambon also constitutes an arena of power in which populations considered as non‐indigenous to a fixed historical territory are pushed into an inferior legal position. The legal registration of customary tenure therefore tends to be deployed to settle long‐standing land contests with a growing migrant community, hereby legally enforcing some of the forced expulsions that were brought about by the recent communal violence.     

Changing Crafts in the Spaces Between States: Formal,Functional, and Decorative Transformations in Fifteenth-Century CE Ceramics at Kirikongo,Burkina Faso (West Africa)

The fifteenth century CE in central West Africa saw the rise and/or expansion of states and empires, major shifts in settlement patterns, and growth of new trading connections between the forest and Sahel. However, very little is known about how these events affected areas not incorporated into states, such as western Burkina Faso, which was likely home to diverse noncentralized societies. Previous archaeological work at the site of Kirikongo, in the Mouhoun Bend, Burkina Faso, examined the histories of these communities from ca. 100 to 1400 CE. This paper introduces the fifteenth-century (Red IV) ceramics from Kirikongo, exploring their form, function, and decoration and assessing their presence at other sites in the region. Based on these distributions, many communities in the Mouhoun Bend decreased in size or were abandoned during Red IV. During Red IV, potters also adopted new ceramic forms and decorations. These may be associated with new economic activities and with increasing entanglements with Mande and/or Dogon communities.     

Está listo (Are you ready)? Gender,race and land registration in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve

Geographers and political ecologists are paying increased attention to the ways in which conservation policies disrupt indigenous customary tenure arrangements. However, much less attention is given to the particular ways protected area management shapes natural resource access for indigenous women. With this in mind, this article examines how a recently proposed state land project in Honduras, Catastro y Regularización, requires that Miskito residents individuate collective family lands in the interests of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘biodiversity protection’. In the debates that followed the project's announcement, Miskito women feared that such measures would erase their customary access to family lands. As the state's project seeks to re-order Reserve land, intra-Miskito struggles intensified among villagers. Such struggles are not only gendered but are shaped by longstanding processes of racialization in Honduras and the Mosquitia region. Drawing upon ethnographic research, I argue that Miskito women's subjectivity and rights to customary family holdings are informed by their ability to make ‘patriarchal bargains’ with Miskito men inside the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve. Such findings suggest that scholars and policy makers continue to reflect on the ways global conservation and sustainable development practices may undermine indigenous customary tenure securities, whether intentionally or not.     

Property Rights and the Environment in Pastoral China: Evidence from the Field

It is widely perceived that the degradation of China’s rangelands has accelerated since the introduction of rural reforms in the late 1970s. The popular explanation for this phenomenon has been that a ‘tragedy of the commons’ exists, as privately‐owned livestock are being grazed on ‘common’ land. Since the passing of the Rangeland Law in 1985, Chinese pastoral tenure policy has emphasized the establishment of individual household tenure as a necessary condition for improving incentives for sustainable rangeland management. Yet household tenure has yet to be effectively established in many pastoral regions. The first objective of this article is to describe pastoral tenure arrangements in northern Xinjiang‐Uygur Autonomous Region. Its second objective is to explain pastoral tenure arrangements, particularly the observed persistence of collective action. It is argued that there is no ‘tragedy of the commons’ and that it is characteristics of rangeland resources and the social environment that give rise to the particular types of institutional arrangements found.