Land and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa

Land and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa

Author: Richard Kuba

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2005-12-01

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9047417038

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


Book Synopsis Land and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa by : Richard Kuba

Download or read book Land and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa written by Richard Kuba and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2005-12-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.


Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa

Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa

Author: Carola Lentz

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2013-07-05

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0253009618

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An ethnographic study of issues of land rights, property regimes, and ethnicity in West Africa. Focusing on an area of the savannah in northern Ghana and southwestern Burkina Faso, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa explores how rural populations have secured, contested, and negotiated access to land and how they have organized their communities despite being constantly on the move as farmers or migrant laborers. Carola Lentz seeks to understand how those who claim native status hold sway over others who are perceived to have come later. As conflicts over land, agriculture, and labor have multiplied in Africa, Lentz shows how politics and power play decisive roles in determining access to scarce resources and in changing notions of who belongs and who is a stranger. “Illuminates the distinctive historical trajectory of land claims, authority, and belonging among the Dagara and Sisala peoples of the Black Volta region, and locates this specific case history within broader debates over transformation in access, use, and control over land in colonial and postcolonial Africa.” —Sara Berry, Johns Hopkins University “Important in the sense that it constitutes a detailed historical study of how complex narratives of belonging and notions of property interlock. . . . It is academic work of the first order.” —Christian Lund, Roskilde University


Book Synopsis Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa by : Carola Lentz

Download or read book Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa written by Carola Lentz and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-05 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ethnographic study of issues of land rights, property regimes, and ethnicity in West Africa. Focusing on an area of the savannah in northern Ghana and southwestern Burkina Faso, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa explores how rural populations have secured, contested, and negotiated access to land and how they have organized their communities despite being constantly on the move as farmers or migrant laborers. Carola Lentz seeks to understand how those who claim native status hold sway over others who are perceived to have come later. As conflicts over land, agriculture, and labor have multiplied in Africa, Lentz shows how politics and power play decisive roles in determining access to scarce resources and in changing notions of who belongs and who is a stranger. “Illuminates the distinctive historical trajectory of land claims, authority, and belonging among the Dagara and Sisala peoples of the Black Volta region, and locates this specific case history within broader debates over transformation in access, use, and control over land in colonial and postcolonial Africa.” —Sara Berry, Johns Hopkins University “Important in the sense that it constitutes a detailed historical study of how complex narratives of belonging and notions of property interlock. . . . It is academic work of the first order.” —Christian Lund, Roskilde University


Property and Political Order in Africa

Property and Political Order in Africa

Author: Catherine Boone

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-02-10

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 1107040698

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In sub-Saharan Africa, property relationships around land and access to natural resources vary across localities, districts, and farming regions. These differences produce patterned variations in relationships between individuals, communities, and the state. This book captures these patterns in an analysis of structure and variation in rural land tenure regimes. In most farming areas, state authority is deeply embedded in land regimes, drawing farmers, ethnic insiders and outsiders, lineages, villages, and communities into direct and indirect relationships with political authorities at different levels of the state apparatus. The analysis shows how property institutions - institutions that define political authority and hierarchy around land - shape dynamics of great interest to scholars of politics, including the dynamics of land-related competition and conflict, territorial conflict, patron-client relations, electoral cleavage and mobilization, ethnic politics, rural rebellion, and the localization and "nationalization" of political competition.


Book Synopsis Property and Political Order in Africa by : Catherine Boone

Download or read book Property and Political Order in Africa written by Catherine Boone and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-10 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In sub-Saharan Africa, property relationships around land and access to natural resources vary across localities, districts, and farming regions. These differences produce patterned variations in relationships between individuals, communities, and the state. This book captures these patterns in an analysis of structure and variation in rural land tenure regimes. In most farming areas, state authority is deeply embedded in land regimes, drawing farmers, ethnic insiders and outsiders, lineages, villages, and communities into direct and indirect relationships with political authorities at different levels of the state apparatus. The analysis shows how property institutions - institutions that define political authority and hierarchy around land - shape dynamics of great interest to scholars of politics, including the dynamics of land-related competition and conflict, territorial conflict, patron-client relations, electoral cleavage and mobilization, ethnic politics, rural rebellion, and the localization and "nationalization" of political competition.


African Alternatives

African Alternatives

Author: Patrick Chabal

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9004161139

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

To stimulate the exploration of African initiative and creativity beyond immediate socio-economic and political circumstances this book demonstrates that societies in Africa have always showed the ability to negotiate whatever constraining ecological, economic and political circumstances they faced.


Book Synopsis African Alternatives by : Patrick Chabal

Download or read book African Alternatives written by Patrick Chabal and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To stimulate the exploration of African initiative and creativity beyond immediate socio-economic and political circumstances this book demonstrates that societies in Africa have always showed the ability to negotiate whatever constraining ecological, economic and political circumstances they faced.


Land, Law and Politics in Africa

Land, Law and Politics in Africa

Author: Jan Abbink

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-11-11

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 900421738X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book offers a series of new studies on the dynamics of political and legal culture as well as of conflict management in contemporary Africa, taking inspiration from and honoring the scholarly contributions and impact of Prof. Gerti Hesseling (1946-2009) in African Studies.


Book Synopsis Land, Law and Politics in Africa by : Jan Abbink

Download or read book Land, Law and Politics in Africa written by Jan Abbink and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-11-11 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a series of new studies on the dynamics of political and legal culture as well as of conflict management in contemporary Africa, taking inspiration from and honoring the scholarly contributions and impact of Prof. Gerti Hesseling (1946-2009) in African Studies.


Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa

Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa

Author: Robtel Neajai Pailey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-01-07

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1108875440

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on rich oral histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, Robtel Neajai Pailey examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa's first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, she reveals that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too did the nature of citizenship, thus influencing claims for and against dual citizenship. In this engaging contribution to scholarly and policy debates about citizenship as a continuum of inclusion and exclusion, and development as a process of both amelioration and degeneration, Pailey develops a new model for conceptualising citizenship within the context of crisis-affected states. In doing so, she offers a postcolonial critique of the neoliberal framing of diasporas and donors as the panacea to post-war reconstruction.


Book Synopsis Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa by : Robtel Neajai Pailey

Download or read book Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa written by Robtel Neajai Pailey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on rich oral histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, Robtel Neajai Pailey examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa's first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, she reveals that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too did the nature of citizenship, thus influencing claims for and against dual citizenship. In this engaging contribution to scholarly and policy debates about citizenship as a continuum of inclusion and exclusion, and development as a process of both amelioration and degeneration, Pailey develops a new model for conceptualising citizenship within the context of crisis-affected states. In doing so, she offers a postcolonial critique of the neoliberal framing of diasporas and donors as the panacea to post-war reconstruction.


Making Nations, Creating Strangers

Making Nations, Creating Strangers

Author: Sarah Rich Dorman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 9004157905

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores the instrumental manipulation of citizenship and narrowing definitions of national-belonging which refract political struggles in Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Somalia, Tanzania, and South Africa, where conflicts are legitimated through claims of exclusionary nationhood and redefinitions of citizenship.


Book Synopsis Making Nations, Creating Strangers by : Sarah Rich Dorman

Download or read book Making Nations, Creating Strangers written by Sarah Rich Dorman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the instrumental manipulation of citizenship and narrowing definitions of national-belonging which refract political struggles in Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Somalia, Tanzania, and South Africa, where conflicts are legitimated through claims of exclusionary nationhood and redefinitions of citizenship.


Land, Labour and Entrustment

Land, Labour and Entrustment

Author: Pamela Kea

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 9004182322

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Challenging portrayals of West African female farmers as a homogenous group, the present study provides an ethnographic account of the contractual relations established between female hosts and migrants, in the exchange of land and labour for agrarian production in The Gambia.


Book Synopsis Land, Labour and Entrustment by : Pamela Kea

Download or read book Land, Labour and Entrustment written by Pamela Kea and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging portrayals of West African female farmers as a homogenous group, the present study provides an ethnographic account of the contractual relations established between female hosts and migrants, in the exchange of land and labour for agrarian production in The Gambia.


Trans-Atlantic Migration

Trans-Atlantic Migration

Author: Toyin Falola

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-11-21

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1135900779

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book argues that a new cadre of African immigrants are finding themselves in the New World—mostly well educated, high-income earning professionals, and belonging to the category termed "African brain drain," they constitute the antinomy of those Africans who were forcibly removed from Africa during slavery. Along with this sense of freedom and voluntary migration comes a paradox—that of living in two worlds and negotiating the pleasures and agonies that come with living in exile. For the new African immigrant, the primary factor motivating migration is the desire for a better life whether fleeing political persecution, economic crisis, refugee crisis, or a combination thereof. The overall consequences include displacement, alienation, and the not so enchanting reality of exile. In its encompassing structure and multivalent perspectives, Trans-Atlantic Migration sets in motion the shifting theoretical and pragmatic verity that the new African diaspora and transatlantic migrations are paths laden with paradoxes that only time, negotiations, compromises, and sense of identities can ultimately resolve.


Book Synopsis Trans-Atlantic Migration by : Toyin Falola

Download or read book Trans-Atlantic Migration written by Toyin Falola and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-11-21 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that a new cadre of African immigrants are finding themselves in the New World—mostly well educated, high-income earning professionals, and belonging to the category termed "African brain drain," they constitute the antinomy of those Africans who were forcibly removed from Africa during slavery. Along with this sense of freedom and voluntary migration comes a paradox—that of living in two worlds and negotiating the pleasures and agonies that come with living in exile. For the new African immigrant, the primary factor motivating migration is the desire for a better life whether fleeing political persecution, economic crisis, refugee crisis, or a combination thereof. The overall consequences include displacement, alienation, and the not so enchanting reality of exile. In its encompassing structure and multivalent perspectives, Trans-Atlantic Migration sets in motion the shifting theoretical and pragmatic verity that the new African diaspora and transatlantic migrations are paths laden with paradoxes that only time, negotiations, compromises, and sense of identities can ultimately resolve.


Land, Labour and Entrustment

Land, Labour and Entrustment

Author: Pamela Kea

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010-05-01

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9004185380

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Challenging portrayals of West African female farmers as a homogenous group, the present study provides an ethnographic account of the contractual relations established between female hosts and migrants, in the exchange of land and labour for agrarian production in The Gambia.


Book Synopsis Land, Labour and Entrustment by : Pamela Kea

Download or read book Land, Labour and Entrustment written by Pamela Kea and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging portrayals of West African female farmers as a homogenous group, the present study provides an ethnographic account of the contractual relations established between female hosts and migrants, in the exchange of land and labour for agrarian production in The Gambia.