Whose Security? Deepening Social Conflict over ‘Customary’ Land in the Shadow of Land Tenure Reform in Malawi*

Pauline Peters and Daimon Kambewa

No 142, CID Working Papers from Center for International Development at Harvard University

Abstract: Malawi, like other countries in Africa, has a new land policy designed to clarify and formalise customary tenure. The country is poor with a high population density, highly dependent on agriculture, and the research sites are matrilineal-matrilocal, and near urban centres. But the case raises issues relevant to land tenure reform elsewhere: the role of ‘traditional authorities’ or chiefs vis-à-vis the state and ‘community’; variability in types of ‘customary’ tenure; and deepening inequality within rural populations. Even before it is implemented, the pending land policy in Malawi is intensifying competition over land. We discuss this and the increase in rentals and sales; the effects of public debates about the new land policy; a new discourse about ‘original settlers’ and ‘strangers’; and political manoeuvring by chiefs.

Keywords: Land Tenure; Land Reform; Land Rentals and Sales; Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cid:wpfacu:142

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