Tenure Reform in South Africa: Titling versus Social Embeddedness

Cousins, Ben

doi:10.1080/08039410.2005.9666322

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…He also states that land certificates can serve as evidence to protect farmers' rights to their land in court cases. However, De Soto's works were criticised for what some claim is the failure to (i) acknowledge the informal land market in which farmers access land through a variety of exchange mechanisms (Cousins, ), (ii) recognise that formalisation of land titles might also lead to insecurity, for instance, by reinforcing existing inequality within the community, (iii) explain how land titles can be important for improved access to credit facilities such as under conditions of poor access to credit and (iv) recognise that title registration might not contribute to productivity, for instance, in sub‐Saharan Africa, where the importance of securing customary land tenure has more acceptance than formal land titles by the rural communities (Musembi, ; Bromley, ; Otto, ; Rahmato, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

After All, Land Belongs to the State: Examining the Benefits of Land Registration for Smallholders in Ethiopia

Yami

Snyder

2015

Land Degrad Dev

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The role of land registration in reducing rural poverty has been debated for several decades. This article analyses the impacts of land registration on land rentals, security of land tenure, disputes over land, use of credit facilities from formal financial institutions and gender access and control over land. Our findings are based on data collected between April and December 2011 in irrigation systems in three regional states of Ethiopia using in‐depth interviews and field surveys. Land registration has a positive influence on land rentals by reducing the fear of landholders in losing land to renters. Important benefits of land registration also include enhancing tenure security through ensuring usufruct rights over land and addressing the conflicts that arise from the competition to access irrigable land. Joint land titling secures women's access to land and encourages women's decision‐making on land rentals, input use, cropping patterns and the marketing of harvest from irrigable plots. While land registration allows for improved tenure security, gender equity and reduced disputes over land, it does little to facilitate access to credit or increase the use of farm inputs. The findings suggest that more work needs to be carried out to translate the benefits of land registration into improved livelihoods by increasing investment in farm inputs, production of high value, off‐season crops and increase market participation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

After All, Land Belongs to the State: Examining the Benefits of Land Registration for Smallholders in Ethiopia

Yami

Snyder

2015

Land Degrad Dev

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“…Although de Soto's ideas have been most fully adopted in the cities of his native Peru, he has also been active in sub-Saharan Africa, giving new life to debates about the titling of agrarian land in the continent. As a result, the current literature on formalization is dominated by Africanist scholars writing primarily from a rural perspective (Cousins 2005(Cousins , 2007Meinzen-Dick & Mwangi 2009;Sjaastad & Cousins 2009). De Soto's Africanist critics challenge his arguments as a misguided imposition of Western norms.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…De Soto's Africanist critics challenge his arguments as a misguided imposition of Western norms. Their position is summarized in the phrase ''titling versus social embeddedness'' (Cousins 2005). The dualism points to the polarization of debate that has opposed customary group rights to individual private rights.…”

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confidence: 99%

Modest Expectations: Gender and Property Rights in Urban Mexico

Varley

2010

Law Soc Rev

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This article examines gender and property in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the light of debates that oppose formal title to the social embeddedness of rights in customary law and assert that titling is bad for women. The article focuses on urban homes, private property, and civil law but finds that qualities regarded as characterizing customary property relations also shape popular understandings of property in urban Mexico. Discussion groups and social surveys in four low-income neighborhoods addressed two aspects of family law and property: whose name should appear on titles, and who should inherit the home. The results show that women, as wives, sisters, and daughters, have a secondary relationship to property. They also suggest that the opposition of individual title to socially embedded rights is a false dichotomy and that generalizing arguments about formalization and especially the negative gender implications of titling risks replicating the universalizing tendencies of Western property models.

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“…Both of them, together and separately, have been prolific in terms of their academic and policy publications setting out their extensive criticisms of CLARA (Claassens & Cousins 2008;Cousins 2005aCousins , 2005bCousins , 2007Cousins & Claassens 2004, 2006.…”

Section: T R a D I T I O N A L L E A D E R S A N D T H E A N C: P O Lmentioning

confidence: 98%

Struggles with activism: NGO engagements with land tenure reform in post-apartheid South Africa

Fortin

2010

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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In 2004, a long-awaited piece of post-apartheid legislation, the Communal Land Rights Act – to reform the land tenure of those living in the former ‘homelands’ of South Africa – was passed into law unanimously by parliament. This unanimity, however, conceals the extent to which the process towards this moment was deeply contested. Exploring the efforts by land sector NGOs to secure legitimacy in their engagements with this process reveals the extent to which wider power relations and contestations have determined their positioning. Those within the non-governmental land sector who opposed the legislation pitted themselves against African National Congress politicians and high-profile traditional leaders. However, the adoption of a Mamdani-inspired discourse to contest such politics and oppose the proposed legislation contributed to reinscribing narrow readings of knowledge considered to be legitimate. Their engagements were also shaped by changes in the NGO sector. Reduced funding for land sector NGOs and an increasingly ambivalent relationship between them and government contributed to contestations between NGOs and among people working within them. Their strategic engagements in such wider and internal politics influenced both the frames within which such policy change could be debated and the ways in which individuals working for NGOs consequently positioned themselves in relation to their constituents.

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Tenure Reform in South Africa: Titling versus Social Embeddedness

Cited by 12 publications

References 12 publications

After All, Land Belongs to the State: Examining the Benefits of Land Registration for Smallholders in Ethiopia

After All, Land Belongs to the State: Examining the Benefits of Land Registration for Smallholders in Ethiopia

Modest Expectations: Gender and Property Rights in Urban Mexico

Struggles with activism: NGO engagements with land tenure reform in post-apartheid South Africa

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