Competing jurisdictions: settling land claims in Africa

The papers included in this volume were earlier presented at a conference on the settlement of land claims in Africa, which was held in Amsterdam in September 2003. The papers are written primarily from an anthropological perspective. Contributions: Introduction: competing jurisdictions: settling land claims in Africa, including Madagascar (Sandra Evers, Marja Spierenburg and Harry Wels); Communal tenure 'from above' and 'from below': land rights, authority and livelihoods in rural South Africa (Ben Cousins and Aninka Claassens); Land tenure reform in South Africa: a focus on the Moravian Church land in the Western Cape (Lungisile Ntsebeza); Contestation, confusion and corruption: market-based land reform in Zambia (Taylor Brown); 'We fought the war to return to the old ways': conflicts about land reforms in Dande, northern Zimbabwe (Marja Spierenburg); Fractionating local leadership: created authority and management of State land in Zimbabwe (Bill H. Kinsey); First-comers and late-comers: the role of narratives in land claims (Carola Lentz); State formation, access to the commons and autochthony among the Berbers of the Middle Atlas, Morocco (Bernhard Venema); Land and the politics of identity: the case of Anywaa-Nuer relations in the Gambella region (Dereje Feyissa); Trumping the ancestors: the challenges of implementing a land registration system in Madagascar (Sandra Evers); The struggle for land rights in the context of multiple normative orders in Tanzania (Rie Odgaard); Traditional additional authorities in Uganda and the management of legislatively decentralised forest resources (Frank Emmanuel Muhereza); Participative approaches and decentralized management of the Samori forest in the Baye municipality, Mopti region (Mali) (Br‚hima Kassibo); Insiders out: forest access through village chiefs in Senegal (Sagane Thiaw and Jesse C. Ribot); Fighting over crumbs? : small valleys in West Africa as a new locus of land claims (Mayke Kaag). [ASC Leiden abstract].