Protecting Smallholder Land Rights in Mozambique, 1997–2017: Unfinished Business?

Abstract

Mozambique’s land law is notable for its intent to balance the recognition and protection of smallholder land use rights with attracting foreign and domestic investment to rural areas. However, the state’s legitimacy may be undermined through the process of recognition, as state actors and local elites circumvent the law for private gain. Walker focuses on two areas where the law has failed to protect smallholder rights: issues of women’s land rights, and the expansion of protected areas. These issues speak to the problem of recognition, revealing ways the state produces authority, but not necessarily legitimacy, in rural settings.

Resisting agrarian neoliberalism and authoritarianism: Struggles towards a progressive rural future in Mozambique

“…The reforms in that political and economic conjuncture opened the door to liberalization, and farmland was clearly on the list of sectors coveted by agrarian capital and the markets. In addition to the threat of privatization, there was also the question of what role the state would play as regulator and what would become of rural and peasant communities (Negrão, 1999; Walker, 2021).…”