Hostname: page-component-65f69f4695-xtrld Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-26T22:58:31.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Whose security? Deepening social conflict over ‘customary’ land in the shadow of land tenure reform in Malawi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2007

Pauline E. Peters  and
Daimon Kambewa
Pauline E. Peters
Affiliation:
JFK School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Email: pauline_peters@harvard.edu
Daimon Kambewa
Affiliation:
University of Malawi, P.O. Box 249, Zomba, Malawi Email: kambewad@sdnp.org.mw
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 447 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Amanor, K. S. 2001. Land, Labour and the Family in Southern Ghana: a critique of land policy under neo-liberalisation. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet Research Report no. 116.Google Scholar
Bassett, T. J. & Crummey, D. E. eds. 1993. Land in African Agrarian Systems. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Beall, J., Mkhize, S. & Vawda, S.. 2005. ‘Emergent democracy and “resurgent” tradition: institutions, chieftaincy and transition in KwaZulu-Natal’, Journal of Southern African Studies 31, 4: 764–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjaminsen, T. A. & Lund, C. eds. 2003. Securing Land Rights in Africa. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Berry, S. S. 2002. ‘Debating the land question in Africa’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, 4: 638–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besteman, C. & Cassanelli, L. V. eds. 1996. The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: the war behind the war. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Bruce, J. & Mighot-Adholla, S. E.. 1994. Searching for Land Tenure Security in Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Bryceson, D. F. 2006. ‘Ganyu casual labour, famine and HIV/AIDS in rural Malawi: causality and casualty’, Journal of Modern African Studies 44, 2: 173–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryceson, D. F. & Fonseca, J.. 2006. ‘Risking death for survival: peasant responses to hunger and HIV/AIDS in Malawi’, World Development, 8: 1654–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chauveau, J.-P. 2006. How does an institution evolve? Land, politics, and intergenerational relations and the institution of the tutorat among autochthons and immigrants', in Kuba, R. & Lentz, C. eds. Land Rights and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa. Leiden: Brill, 213–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chimhowu, A. & Woodhouse, P.. 2006. ‘Customary vs. private property rights? Dynamics and trajectories of vernacular land markets in sub-Saharan Africa’, Journal of Agrarian Change 6, 3: 346–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colin, J.-P. & Ayouz, M.. 2006. ‘The development of a land market? Insights from Côte d'Ivoire’, Land Economics 82, 3: 404–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorward, A. & Kydd, J.. 2004. ‘The Malawi 2002 food crisis: the rural development challenge’, Journal of Modern African Studies 42, 3: 343–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Englund, H. 1999. ‘The self in self interest: land, labour and temporalities in Malawi's agrarian change’, Africa 69, 1: 138–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, A. & Mulwafu, W.. 2004. ‘Irrigation reform on Malawi's Domasi and Likangala smallholder irrigation schemes: exploring land-water intersections’, Final Research Report, University of Malawi and BASIS Project, Zomba, Malawi.Google Scholar
Ferguson, A. & Mulwafu, W. O.. forthcoming. ‘“If government failed, how are we to succeed?” The importance of history and context in irrigation reform in Malawi’, in Van Koppen, B., Butterworth, J. & Juma, I. eds. The Interface Between Community-Based Water Arrangements and Integrated Water Resource Management Reform in Africa. Oxford: CABI Publishers.Google Scholar
Government of Malawi (GoM). 2000. Draft National Land Policy. Version 1. Lilongwe: Ministry of Lands & Housing.Google Scholar
Government of Malawi (GoM). 2002. Malawi National Land Policy. Lilongwe: Ministry of Lands & Housing.Google Scholar
Griffin, K., Rahman, A. Z. & Ickowitz, A.. 2002. ‘Poverty and the distribution of land’, Journal of Agrarian Change 1, 4: 550–74.Google Scholar
Harrigan, J. 1988. ‘Malawi: the impact of pricing on smallholder agriculture 1971–88’, Development Policy Review 6, 415–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrigan, J. 1997. ‘Modeling the impact of World Bank policy-based lending: the case of Malawi's agricultural sector’, Journal of Development Studies 33, 6: 848–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrigan, J. 2003. ‘U-turns and full circles: two decades of agricultural reform in Malawi 1981–2000’, World Development 31, 5: 847–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holden, S., Kaarhus, R. & Lunduka, R.. 2006. Land Policy Reform: the role of land markets and women's land rights in Malawi. Noragric Report No. 36. Ås: Norwegian University of Life Sciences.Google Scholar
Jamu, D., Chimphamba, J. & Brummett, R.. 1999. ‘Land use patterns in the Domasi and Likangala catchments and their effects on soil erosion, water quality, river flow rates, siltation rates on Barbus reproduction in Lake Chilwa’, preliminary report, Zomba: Lake Chilwa Wetland Project.Google Scholar
Juul, K. & Lund, C. eds. 2002. Negotiating Property in Africa. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Kambewa, D. 2006. ‘Access and control in Lake Chilwa wetlands: an analysis of social and power relations’, Ph.D. dissertation, Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi.Google Scholar
Kandawire, J. 1977. ‘Thangata in pre-colonial and colonial systems of land tenure in southern Malawi, with special reference to Chingale’, Africa 47, 2: 185–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kishindo, P. 2004. ‘Customary land tenure and the new land policy in Malawi’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 22, 2: 213–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klopp, J. M. 2000. ‘Pilfering the public: the problem of land grabbing in contemporary Kenya’, Africa Today 47, 1: 7–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kydd, J. & Christiansen, R.. 1982. ‘Structural change in Malawi since independence: consequences of a development strategy based on large-scale agriculture’, World Development 10, 5: 355–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahiff, E. & Cousins, B.. 2005. ‘Smallholder agriculture and land reform in South Africa’, IDS Bulletin 36, 2: 127–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandala, E. 1990. Work and Control in a Peasant Economy: a history of the lower Tchiri valley in Malawi, 1859–1960. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Mathieu, P., Zongo, M. & Pare, L.. 2003. ‘Monetary land transactions in western Burkina Faso: commoditisation, papers and ambiguities’, in Benjaminsen, T. A. & Lund, C. eds. Securing Land Rights in Africa. London: Frank Cass, 109–28.Google Scholar
Mathis, S. M. 2007. ‘The politics of land reform: tenure and political authority in rural Kwazulu-Natal’, Journal of Agrarian Change 7, 1: 99–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, J., Carter, M. & Padayachee, V.. 2004. ‘Is poverty and inequality leading to poor growth?’, South African Labour Bulletin 28, 2: 18–20.Google Scholar
Mbalanje, A. T. B. 1986. ‘Land law and land policy in Malawi’, in Arntzen, J. W., Ngcongco, L. D. & Turner, S. D. eds. Land Policy and Agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa. Tokyo: United Nations University.Google Scholar
Ng'ong'ola, C. 1982. ‘The design and implementation of customary land reforms in central Malawi’, Journal of African Law 26, 2: 115–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ntsebeza, L. 2005. Democracy Compromised: chiefs and the politics of land in South Africa. Boston, MA: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyambara, P. S. 2001. ‘The closing frontier: agrarian change, immigrants and the “squatter menace” in Gokwe, 1980–1990s’, Journal of Agrarian Change 1, 4: 534–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E. 1994. Dividing the Commons: politics, policy, and culture in Botswana. Charlottesville, VA and London: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Peters, P. E. 1997. ‘Against the odds: matriliny, land and gender in the Shire Highlands of Malawi’, Critique of Anthropology 17, 2: 189–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E. 2002. ‘Bewitching land: the role of land disputes in converting kin to strangers and in class formation in Malawi’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28, 1: 155–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E. 2004. ‘Inequality and social conflict over land in Africa’, Journal of Agrarian Change 4, 3: 269–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pike, J. G. & Rimmington, G. T.. 1965. Malawi: a geographical study. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Place, F. & Otsuka, S.. 2001. ‘Population, tenure, and natural resource management: the case of customary land area in Malawi’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 41: 13–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, P. 2005. ‘To fight or to farm? Agrarian dimensions of the Mano River conflicts (Liberia and Sierra Leone)’, African Affairs 104, 417: 571–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahn, D. E., Arulpragasam, J. & Merid, L.. 1990. Policy Reform and Poverty in Malawi: a survey of a decade of experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program Monograph 7.Google Scholar
Sender, J. & Johnston, D.. 2004. ‘Searching for a weapon of mass production in rural Africa: unconvincing arguments for land reform’, Journal of Agrarian Change 4, 1 & 2: 142–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vail, L. 1983. ‘The state and the creation of colonial Malawi's agricultural economy’, in Rotberg, R. I. ed. Imperialism, Colonialism and Hunger: east and central Africa. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 39–88.Google Scholar
Walker, C. 2005. ‘The limits to land reform: rethinking “the land question”’, Journal of Southern African Studies 31, 4: 806–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, L. 1987. Magomero: portrait of an African village. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar