Urban land conflict in the Global South: Towards an analytical framework

Abstract

In cities of the Global South, access to land is a pressing concern. Typically neither states nor markets provide suitable land for all users, especially low-income households. In the context of urban growth and inequality, acute competition for land and the regulatory failures of states often result in conflict, which is sometimes violent, affecting urban authorities and residents. Conflicts are often mentioned in analyses of urban land, but rarely examined in depth. This paper develops a framework for land conflict analysis, drawing on relevant literature and the papers in this special issue. In order to explore the drivers, dynamics and outcomes of urban land conflicts, diverse disciplinary perspectives are discussed, including environmental security, political ecology, legal anthropology, land governance, conflict analysis and management, and urban conflict and violence. The papers focus on conflicts in the peri-urban areas of Xalapa, Mexico, and Juba, South Sudan, and during informal settlement upgrading in eThekwini (Durban), South Africa, and Nairobi. A second paper on South Africa examines how current tenure law reflects the characteristics and outcomes of previous conflicts. We suggest that an analytical framework needs, first, to consider definitional categories, including the material and emotional dimensions of access to land, conflict and violence, and tenure. Second, it needs to identify and examine the interests and behaviour of the many actors involved in urban land conflicts. And third, it needs to analyse the interactions and relationships between those involved at different levels, from the individual/household, through the local to the citywide, national and international.

Violence in the city that belongs to no one: urban distinctiveness and interconnected insecurities in Nairobi (Kenya)

“…With migration to urban centres, settlement patterns change and generate dynamics of competition for space and land in cities. 19 While this may increase the general risk of violence, the effect is not direct: For instance, Østby finds no direct effect of urban in-migration on urban violence, but concludes that the effect is conditional on the marginalisation of certain groups. 20 We build on these insights to explore how rural conflicts and national-level politics influence violence in the city, while simultaneously considering how violence, because it takes place in the city, manifests.…”

Planning and financing urban development in the context of the climate crisis

“…This figure likely underestimates the scale of urban poverty: hundreds of millions more city dwellers do not have secure tenure or safe, reliable, affordable drinking water, sanitation and electricity (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2013). Urban areas of all sizes and at all levels of income are grappling with rising inequality, whichin the context of competition for well-located urban landdrives the displacement of low-income urban residents either rapidly (through forced evictions) or gradually (through gentrification) (Lombard and Rakodi 2016;Soederberg and Walks 2018;Rodríguez-Pose and Storper 2019).…”

Bridging Research and Policy on Climate Change and Conflict

“…Climate change mitigation projects, such as the siting of renewable energy generation or forest conservation programs (for example REDD/REDD+) can result in changes in land use, the costs and benefits of which often accrue unequally [35, 36]. When these changes impact human security, such as livelihoods and quality-of-life, it may exacerbate existing conflicts or create new ones [37]. Froese and Schilling particularly highlight the likelihood of land use change to negatively impact already poor and marginalized populations, due in part to their weak or informal land tenure [38].…”