Overview

Recognizing that land rights are ambiguous, negotiable and politically embedded, these case studies explore the long-term processes and recent changes in contemporary rural West Africa affecting the conversion of control over land into social and political capital and vice versa. They point to the colonial origins of what came to be viewed as ‘customary’ tenure and to the legal pluralism characterizing pre-colonial tenure arrangements. Furthermore, they show the spiritual and ritual importance of land that can be converted into political power and economic prerogatives, a dimension neglected by much of the recent literature. Analyses cover forest and savannah, state and segmentary societies, facilitating comparison and insights across the Anglo-Francophone divide.

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9789004148178

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Richard Kubais an Historian and Anthropologist at the Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt (Germany). Focusing on pre-colonial history, ethnic identities and interethnic relationships, he has edited several volumes including Histoire du peuplement et relations interethniques au Burkina Faso (Karthala, 2004). Carola Lentz is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Main (Germany) and has been conducting research on ethnicity, elites, chieftaincy and the politics of belonging. She is author of numerous articles and Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana (Edinburgh UP, 2006).

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