Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa
Christian Lund
Mar 2008 · Cambridge University Press
Ebook
About this ebook
Access to land and property is vital to people's livelihoods in rural, peri-urban, and urban areas in Africa. People exert tremendous energy to have land claims recognized as rights with a variety of political, administrative, and legal institutions. This book provides a detailed analysis of how public authority and the state are formed through debates and struggles over property in the Upper East Region of Ghana. While scarcity may indeed promote exclusivity, the evidence from this book shows that when there are many institutions competing for the right to authorize claims to land, the result of an effort to unify and clarify the law is to intensify competition among them and weaken their legitimacy. The book explores how state divestiture of land in 1979 encouraged competition between customary authorities and how the institution of the earthpriest was revived. Such processes are key to understanding property and authority in Africa.
Access to land and property is vital to people's livelihoods in rural, peri-urban, and urban areas in Africa. People exert tremendous energy to have land claims recognized as rights with a variety of political, administrative, and legal institutions. This book provides a detailed analysis of how ...
About the author
Christian Lund has worked on issues concerning land and politics in West Africa for almost twenty years. He is the author of Law, Power, and Politics in Niger: Land Struggles and the Rural Code (1998) and the editor and coeditor, respectively, of Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa (2007) and Negotiating Property in Africa (2002). In addition, he has published in Africa, Development and Change, the Journal of Modern African Studies, and World Development. Lund is a member of the Social Science Research Council in Denmark and director of the Graduate School in International Development Studies at Roskilde University. Lund was also editor of the European Journal of Development Research from 2000 to 2004.
Christian Lund has worked on issues concerning land and politics in West Africa for almost twenty years. He is the author of Law, Power, and Politics in Niger: Land Struggles and the Rural Code (1998) and the editor and coeditor, respectively, of Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local ...
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
