Suchergebnisse

Using Lesotho as a case study, this dissertation examines the changing forms of land tenure in a rural Southern African population. Land tenure in Lesotho is seen to have undergone many transformations over the last 200 years. These transformations are illustrated through an historical analysis of political and of social relationships in rural Lesotho. For example, the chieftainship in Lesotho is analysed to illustrate how changes in its structure have led to a strengthening of commoners' usufruct land rights. In turn, by examining how commoners' land rights have been expressed over time, this study demonstrates the contemporary significance of kinship ties in a rural Lesotho community. The significance of kinship is seen to lie in the flexibility which its principles allow, for members of the rural community, to accommodate the demographic, ecological and economic pressures of living in a peripheral part of Southern Africa. In effect, such flexibility is seen to have enabled the rural community to allocate, as optimally as possible, the scarce resources it has and can utilise. By examining how those resources have been utilised, this study demonstrates how relations of production in the rural community have become defined by communal control over rather than individual ownership of resources. As a result, this study illustrates how groups of agnatically related households have been formed into units of production in which the permanent rural residents, rather than the wage earning migrant workers, have control over resources, including the latter's' cash incomes. The development of such a unit of production is seen to be based on a sustained and vital interest by Basotho in land. That interest, which has been defined by principles of kinship, has prevented the alienation o Basotho from land. In effect, that interest has been a response by Basotho to the many and diffuse threats to their material existence brought about by their incorporation into a Capitalist politico-economic system. Consequently, this dissertation argues for a reconsideration of kinship in anthropological history, in view of the historical rather than synchronic anthropological perspective adopted in this study.

Discussions of land tenure in social anthropology have usually been deeply embedded in broader empirical and theoretical explanations of social, economic, legal, and political institutions. In this volume the editors have sought to correct the emphasis of previous studies by focusing our attention directly on land tenure in Oceania, without, it must be added, losing sight of the connections between land tenure principles and general social structure. The editors have deliberately looked for similarities by analyzing each tenure system from the same analytical and conceptual perspective. Chapters 1 and 9 specifically discuss the methodological and theoretical framework that evolved in the course of analyzing the seven tenure systems described in chapters 2 through 8. The difficulties and problems encountered by the contributors in presenting their data in comparable form is reflected by the more than three years of analysis, writing, editing, and rewriting necessary to complete this volume. The seven substantive ethnographic chapters illustrate the range and diversity in the land tenure practices which are found within the vast culture area of Oceania. The similarities in basic tenure principles between all seven systems seem all the more remarkable in light of the varied geographical and cultural settings of the seven societies. In all of these societies we find a complete absence of fee simple ownership and a corresponding presence of entailed family estates. The ethnography reveals tenure principles that detail an impressive number and variety of separate categories of property. Each category, in turn, includes an even greater number of rights and duties that symbolize different forms of proprietorship. The differential allocation of these rights and duties among persons and groups represents the exact point of connection between land tenure and social structure. For example, kinship principles that specify the distribution of authority within age, sex, descent, and status categories converge on such tenure ...

Tenure security is believed to be critical in spurring agricultural investment and productivity. Yet what improves or impedes tenure security is still poorly understood. Using household- and plot-level data from Ghana, this study analyzes the main factors associated with farmers' perceived tenure security. Individually, farmers perceive greater tenure security on plots acquired via purchase or inheritance than on land allocated by traditional authorities. Collectively, however, perceived tenure security lessens in communities with more active land markets and economic vibrancy. Migrant households and women in polygamous households feel less secure about their tenure, while farmers with political connections are more confident about their tenure security. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; CRP2; PIM 7.1 Collective action, property rights (CAPRi); F Strengthening institutions and governance; F.4 Strengthening Property Rights and Assets ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)