Tenure and the law: The legality of illegality and the illegality of legality.

Understanding informal urban land access processes from a legal pluralist perspective: The case of Kampala, Uganda

“…Informal mechanisms have also been recognised as being neither chaotic nor anarchic (Leduka, 2000) and Fekade (2000) actually refers to the settlements resulting therefrom as 'self-planned settlements' instead of using the usual derogatory and pejorative nomenclature. To McAuslan (2002), informal settlements are far from anarchic but rather evolve 'systems of ordering' interpersonal relations with respect to various societal issues, including aspects of land tenure. Indeed, recent studies (Kombe & Kreibich, 2000;Leduka, 2000;Razzaz, 1998) indicate that various forms of 'social ordering', which regulate and underpin informal settlement processes, exist and evolve to undermine, accommodate, complement, or reinforce formal rules.…”

Paradoxes of Urban Housing Informality in the Developing World

“…in order to 1) guarantee the normative survival of [internal] law in a situation of legal pluralism in which the official law has the power to define normative problems but cannot solve them; 2) responds to social conditions and institutional resources of the community that differ from those in the larger society that have given rise to the official law. While the first process may require clear‐cut innovation (…) the second tends to preserve the outline of the borrowed norms, innovating at the level of substantive or procedural technicalities.”According to McAuslan (: 29), this is a widespread phenomenon as studies from around the world show that systems of normative ordering in settlements are generally modeled on the laws of the state in which official documents are copied and used, contracts have to be in writing, and dispute settlement processes are also modeled on the state system. In doing so, squatters reproduce within their settlements basic elements of the state legal system which has, in a sense, rejected them (McAuslan ).…”

“…While the first process may require clear‐cut innovation (…) the second tends to preserve the outline of the borrowed norms, innovating at the level of substantive or procedural technicalities.”According to McAuslan (: 29), this is a widespread phenomenon as studies from around the world show that systems of normative ordering in settlements are generally modeled on the laws of the state in which official documents are copied and used, contracts have to be in writing, and dispute settlement processes are also modeled on the state system. In doing so, squatters reproduce within their settlements basic elements of the state legal system which has, in a sense, rejected them (McAuslan ). However, as was already noted earlier, there is much variation between settlements and contexts in terms of the efficacy and the degree of sophistication of the informal systems operative within them, which seem to run the full gamut from very rudimentary to highly sophisticated.…”

“…However, the fact that one and the same action, the informal occupation of land, can either be penalized or legitimized constitutes a paradox that stands at odds with substantive law accounts. 1 Furthermore, the recognition of squatters' claims can be perceived as strengthening the rule of law (Sjaastad & Cousins 2009), but can be equally well understood as undermining it by violating existing property rights and urban planning norms (McAuslan 2003). In their attempts to deal with the rampant spread of informal settlements, governments and development agencies have sometimes actively tried to formalize them through mass legalization schemes.…”

Land Tenure Security in Informal Settlements of Kigali City. Case study in Muhima Sector

“…As such, secure tenure can exist without formal recognition by state authorities due to the fact that acceptance and acknowledgement by community institutions may in fact be valued more for fostering a feeling of tenure security among property owners, than the formal recognition through titles granted by the state (Kombe, 2005;McAuslan, 2001). It is widely acknowledged that for the urban poor, access to secure land and shelter is something of a precondition for attaining access to other benefits of urban life.…”