Can the Law Secure Women's Rights to Land in Africa? Revisiting Tensions Between Culture and Land Commercialization

Ossome, Lyn

doi:10.1080/13545701.2013.876506

Cited by 36 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Women's claims to land are often stronger and more diverse than usually represented (Ossmone 2014). Survey data from 15 Sub-Saharan African countries shows that older, better-educated and wealthier women are better situated to negotiate favourable inheritance (Peterman 2012).…”

Section: 土地的性别化斗争：塞内加尔农村中，赛莱尔人(Serer) 的继承实践转变mentioning

confidence: 98%

Gendered struggles over land: shifting inheritance practices among the Serer in rural Senegal

Evans

2016

Gender, Place & Culture

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Although women's land rights are often affirmed unequivocally in constitutions and international human rights conventions in many African countries, customary practices usually prevail on the ground and often deny women's land inheritance. Yet land inheritance often goes unnoticed in wider policy and development initiatives to promote women's equal access to land. This article draws on feminist ethnographic research among the Serer ethnic group in two contrasting rural communities in Senegal. Through analysis of land governance, power relations and 'technologies of the self' , this article shows how land inheritance rights are contingent on the specific effects of intersectionality in particular places. The contradictions of legal pluralism, greater adherence to Islam and decentralisation led to greater application of patrilineal inheritance practices. Gender, religion and ethnicity intersected with individuals' marital position, status, generation and socio-ecological change to constrain land inheritance rights for women, particularly daughters, and widows who had been in polygamous unions and who remarried. Although some women were aware that they were legally entitled to inherit a share of the land, they tended not to 'demand their rights'. In participatory workshops, micro-scale shifts in women's and men's positionings reveal a recognition of the gender discriminatory nature of customary and Islamic laws and a desire to 'change with the times'. While the effects of 'reverse' discourses are ambiguous and potentially reinforce prevailing patriarchal power regimes, 'counter' discourses, which emerged in participatory spaces, may challenge customary practices and move closer to a rights-based approach to gender equality and women's land inheritance.Luchas generizadas por la tierra: cambio de prácticas de herencia entre los serer en la Senegal rural RESUMEN Aunque los derechos de las mujeres sobre la tierra son con frecuencia afirmados inequívocamente en constituciones y convenciones internacionales de derechos humanos en muchos países africanos, las prácticas tradicionales usualmente predominan en el terreno y con frecuencia niegan la herencia de tierra a las mujeres. Sin embargo, la herencia de tierra a menudo pasa inadvertida en las iniciativas de políticas y desarrollo más amplias para promover el acceso equitativo a la tierra para las mujeres. Este artículo se basa en una investigación etnográfica feminista con la etnia serer en dos comunidades rurales distintas en Senegal. A través del análisis de la gobernanza de la tierra, las relaciones de poder y las 'tecnologías del yo' , este artículo muestra cómo los ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: 土地的性别化斗争：塞内加尔农村中，赛莱尔人(Serer) 的继承实践转变mentioning

confidence: 98%

Gendered struggles over land: shifting inheritance practices among the Serer in rural Senegal

Evans

2016

Gender, Place & Culture

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“…Further, while the structures and impacts of such projects, including the one studied here (Millar , ), are quite variable (Borras and Franco :1724; Tsikata and Yaro :203–4), troubling patterns seem nonetheless evident. It has become clear, for example, that speculation over future land values is inspiring many of the reported land acquisitions (De Schutter :253; Fairbairn :342; Franco et al :1654; McMichael :49; Ossome :159), that much of this activity results in deals on paper that never reach the implementation stage on the ground (Buckley :432; Edelman et al :1525), and that local actors and national governments are often involved in what were initially framed as “land grabs” by external actors (Baglioni and Gibbon :1562; Cotula :1611; Margulis et al :11).…”

Section: Theorizing Power In the Global Land Rushmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐opting Authority and Privatizing Force in Rural Africa: Ensuring Corporate Power over Land and People

Millar

2018

Rural Sociology

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Large‐scale land investment projects in sub‐Saharan Africa have received substantial criticism for their negative local impacts, but few studies discuss specifically their application of corporate power on the ground. This article provides an examination of such application in rural Sierra Leone. The article describes how one corporation both directly and indirectly co‐opted authority and privatized force in order to wield power over the land and people. The data illustrate how local authorities and security actors were incentivized to defend the interests of the corporation as opposed to the local communities they supposedly represent and protect. Such processes ensured corporate power not only over the land but also over the local population. The findings, therefore, demand more robust and multidimensional accountability mechanisms to avoid the corporate acquisition of power in rural Africa. Such mechanisms would demand: (1) that investing corporations be more informed about local sociocultural, economic, and political dynamics on the ground; (2) that funders and local governments fund, report on, and enforce more regular, culturally sensitive, and independent assessments of project impacts; and (3) that funders, governments, corporations, and customary elites be held accountable for the negative impacts of such projects by international and national civil society organizations.

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“…We know now, for example, that speculation is playing a major role in the current rush for land (De Schutter , 253; Fairbairn , 342; Franco et al. , 1654; McMichael , 49; Ossome , 159), that many ‘deals’ initially reported in media stories and NGO reports actually never resulted in projects on the ground (Buckley , 432; Edelman et al. , 1525), that local governments often actively encouraged projects that were initially reported as ‘land grabs’ (Baglioni and Gibbon , 1562; Cotula , 1611; Grandia ; Margulis et al.…”

Section: The Global ‘Land Rush’mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, more recent publications have provided more nuanced accounts. It has become clear, for example, that host governments are often actively attracting such investments and that local elites are regularly willing beneficiaries of such deals (De Schutter , 274; Baglioni and Gibbon , 1562; Cotula , 1611; Ossome , 163), that such ‘land‐grab’ projects are often abandoned or stalled prior to implementation on the ground (Buckley , 432; Edelman et al. , 1525), and that the situation is generally far more complex than was initially reported by media and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) (Borras and Franco , 1724).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledge and Control in the Contemporary Land Rush: Making Local Land Legible and Corporate Power Applicable in Rural Sierra Leone

Millar

2015

Journal of Agrarian Change

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Substantial media and academic attention has recently focused on changing patterns of land control in the 'Global South', wherein foreign governments and corporations seek to control land for food, fuel and feed production. Recent scholarship describes such projects as symptomatic of a broader liberalization of global governance. However, few studies investigate how such liberal governance is applied on the ground in host countries. This paper fills this need by examining one such case in Sierra Leone, and describing the various technologies of control deployed to make local land legible to the corporate eye and therefore manageable within the liberal model. As I show, such imported technologies are disrupting and displacing traditional modes of authority and allowing the company concerned to apply power and manage both the land and the local people. At the same time, however, these technologies generate frictions on the ground, creating dangerous tensions between the various actors in the local setting. I would like to thank the Faculty of Management at Radboud University Nijmegen for funding the 6 months of fieldwork on which this paper is based, and the three peer reviewers for extremely helpful comments. 6 6 6 4While this new literature therefore nuances the earlier caricatures, it nonetheless attests to the fact that 'a renewed land rush is indeed happening worldwide, albeit unevenly' (Edelman et al. , 1520. Many recent contributions, therefore, have analysed not stand-alone acquisitions, but the dynamics of the broader global 'land rush'. While earlier reports noted the targeting of weak states for land acquisition, for example, more recent scholarship describes how this very weakness is a product of global economic policy transitions (McMichael 2013; Verma 2014, 66), and scholars have emphasized the progressive weakening of the state in comparison to the strengthening influence of corporations and capital (Franco et al. , 1659 Sassen 2013, 43). Such scholars are arguing, in essence, that the new land deals are nested within changing global 'configurations of power' (Margulis et al. 2013, 1) and 'new transnational political struggles for authority and control' (ibid., 3). While each particular land deal must be seen as engaging with a unique arrangement of actors, products, markets, regulations and laws, each such arrangement is nonetheless patterned by the broader global configurations of power, authority, and control.The nested nature of such land deals highlights, therefore, the need to analyse both global patterns and local particularities. But while recent contributions do a great amount of the former, they do very little of the latter. Scoones et al. have recently noted that '[f]ew assess whether anything is happening on the ground, and most reports offer very few insights into overall impacts, either positive or negative ' (2013, 473). Oya describes most studies so far as 'abundant in anecdotal or unsystematic evidence', and as 'empirically hasty and methodologically prone to cut corners' (2013...

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Can the Law Secure Women's Rights to Land in Africa? Revisiting Tensions Between Culture and Land Commercialization

Cited by 36 publications

References 19 publications

Gendered struggles over land: shifting inheritance practices among the Serer in rural Senegal

Gendered struggles over land: shifting inheritance practices among the Serer in rural Senegal

Co‐opting Authority and Privatizing Force in Rural Africa: Ensuring Corporate Power over Land and People

Knowledge and Control in the Contemporary Land Rush: Making Local Land Legible and Corporate Power Applicable in Rural Sierra Leone

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