Land in Kwara'ae and development in Solomon Islands

Abstract

This paper documents land tenure and the effects of economic development in Kwara'ae on the island of Malaita. It uses local histories to confirm the essential flexibility of a system of cognatic inheritance, based on social and economic values which contradict the more exclusive unilineal emphasis preferred and promoted by government land and development policy in Solomon Islands. In considering the resulting problem of land disputes, the paper questions the value of reforms which undermine the tradition of communal control of natural resources.

Fasu Solidarity: A Case Study of Kin Networks, Land Tenure, and Oil Extraction in Kutubu, Papua New Guinea

“…The Fasu case stands as a paradigm of the impact of "globalization" where the isolated interaction of the local and global reveals a contrast between capitalist economic values and local tradition, and where "globalization" conflicts with the process of so-called resource development (see also Burt 1994;Ferguson 2005;Gilberthorpe n.d.;Robson 1999). In contrast to globalization, communities like the Fasu appear to be victims of progress exploited for their resource wealth without due reward or sustainable economic development (see also Polier 1996 for an Ok Tedi example, and Horowitz 2002 for a New Caledonia example).…”

“…I also acknowledge the development of bounded, land-owning groups to fit corporate conceptualizations of patrilineal models in Melanesia and the Pacific (see, esp., Burt 1994;Ernst 1999;Guddemi 1997;Sillitoe 1999;Strathern and Stewart 1998;Tiffany 1983;Weiner 1998). The process of institutionalizing groups in global contexts has been variously labelled, from entification (Ernst 1999) to substantivization (Thomas 1992), within a body of literature highlighting the link between development values and the emergence of bounded descent units.…”

Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia : Anthropological Perspectives

“…Consciously departing from their flexible pattern of land rights through 'highly pluriform principles' (ibid: 803), local people produced simplified models of descent-based landownership in the interests of facilitating recognition of their claims (see also McDougall 2005). Similarly, Burt (1994) reports that among the Kwara'ae of Malaita, local people found themselves under strong pressure to formulate land tenure in terms of membership in unilineal descent groups, despite a fundamentally cognatic kinship orientation. Although no mining activity was at issue in this case, it seems clear that in the Solomons too, governments prefer clans.…”

“…Yet surely there is something strange in all this. Much of what we know from detailed land tenure studies in Melanesia suggests that an untidy jumble of multiple overlapping claims is at least as common as clearly demarcated clan estates with similarly unambiguous lists of members (Lawrence 1967;Ogan 1971;Burt 1994). Despite this, I would argue that the state favours an image of clan-based tenure because such a view combines the ideological virtues of the Melanesian Way 14 Guddemi makes reference to a paper on mining and land rights by the East Sepik Province's Assistant Secretary for Lands, who claims a generality for the practice of 'Patriarch lineage ' (ibid: 641). with the attractions of a lawyerly desire for clarity.…”

"Living Other-Wise": The Bushmen Farming Network as an Example of "Alter-Native" Counter Practices to Agriculture and Development

“…These conflicts and tensions within families and clans have often been connected to the process of development and capitalist transformation in Solomon Islands (Gegeo 1991;Burt 1994) and have had a marked effect on social cohesion-something that nevertheless continues to be valued in small, rural communities (Schwarz and others 2011). In short, from the perspective of some "critical villagers" like the bfn, these land disputes reflect the erosion of social norms and customs that have been an important point of reference in the regulation of society throughout Solomon Islands (Kabutaulaka 2000, 89).…”