Debating the land question in Africa

The following discussion is divided into two parts. It begins with a review of broad historical changes that shaped the political and economic conditions under which Africans made and exercised claims on land during the long twentieth century of colonial and postcolonial rule. This discussion is followed by several examples of recent land transactions or conflicts that illustrate the way land claims have been asserted, and historical precedents debated, in specific local contexts. The cases have been selected to illustrate differences in land scarcity, in sources and intensities of land conflicts, and the manner in which they have or have not been resolved. Together, they serve to illustrate both the complexity of contemporary land conflicts in Africa, and their importance as sites of debate over the social meaning of property, and the place of the past in contemporary struggles over governance and the distribution of resources.