Hegemony on a shoestring: indirect rule and access to agricultural land

Abstract

In their efforts to govern African colonies through traditional rulers and customary law, British officials founded colonial administration on contested terrain. By committing themselves to uphold ‘native law and custom’ colonial officials linked the definition of Africans' legal rights with their social identities, which were, in turn, subject to conflicting interpretations. As agricultural growth and commercialisation intensified demand for land, competition for access to land and control over agricultural income gave rise to disputes over customary jurisdictions and structures of authority. Using evidence from colonial Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Kenya and Northern Rhodesia, this article argues that, under indirect rule, the commercialisation of transactions in rights to rural land was accompanied by, and served to promote, unresolved debate over their meaning.RésuméEn s'efforçcant de gouverner les colonies africaines à travers les dirigeants traditionnels et le droit en usage, les représentants ofnciels britanniques ont fondé l'administration coloniale sur un terrain contentieux. En choisissant de maintenir ‘le droit et la coutume indigènes’, les représentants coloniaux ont lié la définition des droits légaux des africains à leurs identités sociales, qui à leur tour, étaient sujettes à des interprétations contradictoires. Comme le développement de l'agriculture et de la commercialisation ont intensiné la demande d'acquisition de terres, la concurrence pour accéder a la propriété et contrôler le revenu agricole ont engendré des controverses sur les juridictions usuelles et les structures de l'autorité. En prenant les exemples des colonies du Nigéria, de la Côte-d'Or, du Kenya et de la Rhodésie du Nord, cet article soutient que sous une représentation indirecte, la commercialisation des opérations dans les droits fonciers ruraux a contribué à engendrer un débat non résolu sur leur sens.

Policy Discourses on Women's Land Rights in Sub–Saharan Africa: The Implications of the Re–turn to the Customary

“…As a result many implicit and explicit contestations over meaning run through the literatures. Basset and Crummey (1993), Berry (1992Berry ( , 1993, Bruce and Migot-Adholla (1994), Chanock (1991b), Deininger and Binswanger (1999), Downs and Reyna (1988), Falk-Moore (1998), Feder and Feeny (1991), IIED (1999), McAuslan (1996), Mackenzie (1998), Migot-Adholla et al (1991), OkothOgendo (1989OkothOgendo ( , 1998, Platteau (1996), Shipton and Goheen (1992), Toulmin and Quan (2000a).…”

“…created new rights and conditions of access that became the subject of considerable dispute' (Berry 1997). Many of the supposed central tenets of African land tenure, such as the idea of communal tenure, the hierarchy of recognized interests in land (ownership, usufructory rights and so on), or the place of chiefs and elders, have been shown to have been largely created and sustained by colonial policy and passed on to post-colonial states (Okoth-Ogendo 1989;Berry 1992Berry , 1993Berry , 2000Shipton and Goheen 1992;Bosworth 1995;McAuslan 1996;Lavigne-Delville 1999;Yngstrom 1999;Heyer and Williams no date). In addition, the content of so-called customary rules reflected only some of the voices of indigenous society.…”

Securing Access to Seed: Social Relations and Sorghum Seed Exchange in Eastern Ethiopia

“…The absence of formal rules or institutions around reciprocal aid allow for unequal exchange relationships, as the party with more structural power sometimes is able to withhold rewards. Sara Berry (1989Berry ( , 1992Berry ( , 1993) also emphasizes structural power in analyzing social exchange networks. She argues that farmers invest in mutual aid to strengthen relationships and raise their status to help gain favorable access to factors of production.…”

The Politics of Property: Gender, Land and Political Authority in Solomon Islands

“…5 Indirect rule, like the new commercial opportunities opened 5 British colonial regimes in Melanesia, like those elsewhere in the world, sought to establish and exercise administrative control through a version of indirect rule (see Berry 1992). up by colonisation, provided new avenues for the enactment of political authority and territoriality-opportunities that were overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of those men who were able to convince British colonial officers and foreign planters to recognise them as leaders, 'chiefs', and the 'owners' of the land.…”