Impact of privatization on gender and property rights in Africa

World Development, Vol. 25, No. 8, pp. 1317-1333,1997 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. printed in Great Britain 0305-750)(/97 $17.00+0.00

Pergamon

PII: SO305-750X(97)00030-2

Impact of Privatization

on Gender and Property

Rights in Africa SUSANA

LASTARRIA-CORNHIEL”

University of Wisconsin-Madison,

U.S.A.

Summary. -

This paper explores the transformation of customary tenure systems and their impact on women’s rights to land in Africa. Emphasis is placed on the diversity of land rights within customary tenure systems, the different institutions and structures (e.g., inheritance, marriage) that influence rights to land, and the trend toward uniformity and increasing patrilineal control. With privatization, different rights to land have become concentrated in the hands of those persons (such as community leaders, male household heads) who are able to successfully claim their ownership right to land, while other persons (such as poor rural women, ethnic minorities) lose the few rights they had and generally are not able to participate fully in the land market. 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd Key words -

land tenure, Africa, intrahousehold,

privatization,

1. INTRODUCTION Political changes and, more specifically, the influence of donor agencies and development programs have prodded African land tenure systems toward Western-styled private property regimes and away from indigenous customary (often communal) land tenure systems. In large part, this change is motivated by the prevailing argument that customary tenure systems constrain long-term investment in land; therefore, agricultural development and production is likewise constrained. Individual and private ownership of holdings, the argument continues, tends to provide greater security of access and control over land. Farmers without this security may lack incentives to invest. Yet, certain groups may not benefit from the shift toward private property tenure systems. The very process of privatization may tend to exacerbate the difficulties these groups have in gaining access to and/or controlling land and resources and benefiting fully or equitably from their labor. Women compose the largest of these groups whose benefits from the trend toward privatized land tenure systems are problematic. Does the transformation of African land tenure systems further constrain women’s already tenuous access to and control of land and resources? Does it strip women of the land rights they had under customary tenure systems? The privatization process in much of Africa transforms customary land tenure (where different rights to land are distributed among different groups and individuals) into structures in

gender

which most land rights are concentrated in the hands of a minority that, due to economic factors, ideology, and the influence of powerholders, almost never includes women. The consequences for effective and fully productive management of land and resources should be obvious when we keep in mind that gender is a fundamental aspect in land tenure systems, that women participate heavily in agricultural production, and that development programs that ignore this will be hampering their efforts from the start.

2. SOCIETAL INSTITUTIONS, RELATIONS, AND LAND RIGHTS Land tenure is, in brief, the social relations established around land that determine who can use what land and how. A land tenure system and its set of tenure relations are interwoven and related to other societal structures and institutions, including family structure and its marriage and inheritance *The author would like to thank Mark Schoonmaker Freudenberger, John Bruce, Michael Roth, and Kurt McGinnis Brown for their comments on previous drafts of this paper. Partial support for earlier versions came from the United States Agency for International Development, Women in Development Office, Technical Assistance and Women in Development Centers (Project No. 930-0300). All views, interpretations, recommendations, and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of the supporting or cooperating organizations. Final revision accepted: April 3, 1997.

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systems. All these structures tend to reinforce each other within a society; if there is a change in one of them, the others often modify and adjust to that change. In other words, a person, household, or group of persons does not possess, use, and transfer land independent of and isolated from other persons and institutions. A person’s (or household’s) rights to land are derived from his/her relations with other persons in the household and in the community, and are also determined by local and national laws.

How land is allocated and transferred among households in a community and within households and who has access to and control of land are based in part on marriage and inheritance laws and practices. For customary tenure systems, such as those in Africa, family structure, marriage laws and inheritance practices are most influential (Guyer. 1987). Thus, most land transfers are affected by inheritance, as has been documented in Uganda (Troutt et al., 1993), Ghana (Okali, 1983), Madagascar (Robles, 1995), and Togo (Akibode et d., 1989). Where private property tenure is operational, market forces and commercial transactions are most determinant in land transfers, and family structure has less influence; access to land is obtained primarily through purchase or lease agreements based on the value of the land. Since gender plays a significant role in kinship systems and is a basic factor in sociocultural structures, values, and practices, it is also a significant determinant of who has land rights in customary tenure systems.’ Thus. one might expect that one impact of the privatization of property would be the elimination of gender as a determinant of land rights. In other words, a tenure system based on private property and market forces should be gender-blind and gender-neutral. The experience in Africa, however, seems to demonstrate that gender bias is not so easily eliminated. On the contrary, it would appear that in the privatization process, certain groups (e.g., community leaders and household heads) are able to strengthen their control over land to the detriment of woman and some minority groups. The following section gives a general background to these changes and explores how gender-differentiated property rights are being modified.

(b) Control and access to land To understand the different rights that persons have to land and what impact privatization of property has on land tenure systems, it is concep-

tually and empirically useful to distinguish between access to land and control of land.’ Control of land is the command an individual has over a particular piece of land and over the benefits that derive from that land; this right is based on some type of recognized possession (customary or formal. temporary or permanent). Access to land simply means that a person is able to make use of the land. Access rights do not necessarily include ownership or possession (Bruce. 1993). but usually do include some decision-making power over the production process, products, and use of that land. In other words, access to a piece of land does not necessarily include the power to control it and the benetits from it nor to transfer it. Often. the person who exercise\ control over a piece of land and gibes access rights to another person also tends to control and benefit from that person’s labor. Examples of this situation are the sharecropper who enters into a contractual arrangement with the owner of the land, or women who work family land over which they, as women, have no ownership rights? An example of women’s access to land without ownership rights is described in the following text excerpted from Funk’s (Funk, 1988) work on the land tenure system in Guinea B&au. Men receive h~ltrnha and /~,q~r (upland fields) after they are married. usually when they are in their mid-20s and have set up a separate household. The father gives at least one holanha to each son. Married men do not have to wait for the death of their father to inherit land, but are provided with the basis for attaining economic independence upon marriage. If possible, husbands give each wife a separate /XI/N&U in which to plant rice. Women receive the drier holmha on the upper border areas of swamps which they hoe themselves.... If wives want to plant peanuts or beans. they ask the husband for a Ircgor. Women can also borrow fields from other men. In almost al1 cases, women only have indirrcr access to land, through the relationship with a man. But even though men control land. women do have access to personal fields and can u
Though until recently largely ignored, or left out of analysis due to insufficient data, gender is one of the most basic and prevalent factors in determining tenure relations and tenure rights of control and access in customary societies. Other determinants, such as economic, ethnic, political, and social factors have been recognized and oi%en incorporated into tenure research and projects. Development workers and rural scholars in Africa have long recognized that land tenure systems are quite complex, yet examining how gender fits into these systems reveals even more intricacies than previously thought. and our understanding has been enriched by incorporat-

IMPACT OF PRIVATIZATION

ON GENDER AND PROPERTY

ing gender analysis. There is also an emerging realization that designing development programs that do not prejudice women’s rights to land and that may even enhance them is not always an obvious and clear-cut process. This is well demonstrated by the now well known Jahaly Pacharr irrigation project in Gambia, reported in Carney and Watts (1991). Among the Mandinka in this area of Gambia both common and individual property rights are recognized: family-cleared land designated I~IU~UO collectively farmed by the family but under the control of the male household head: and individually cleared land designated kamnnytrngo which if cleared by a woman gives her access to land with partial autonomy, controlling the profits and able to transfer land to daughters. In the late 1940s and early 1950s women sought to establish kamcrrr~ungo rights of new rice lands by clearing former mangrove swamps. In 1984, the Jahaly Pacharr irrigation project, designed to increase productivity of the rice paddies by enabling year-round cultivation, recognizing that women were the key farmers on this land, sought to title the land to women. Household heads (generally male) registered the land in women’s names but then designated it as I~UTUOland. As Carney and Watts (1991) note, The subtle process by tenure has changed women’s labor, unpaid product of nominally appropriated.

3. CUSTOMARY

which the classification of land enables senior men to claim and uncompensated, while the collective fields is individually

LAND TENURE SYSTEMS

Africa has offered a great diversity of land tenure systems, most of them quite complex. When European colonizers arrived in Africa they encountered different customary tenure systems.’ In addition, customary societies and their attendant tenure systems are not static. Changes within them have occurred based on both internal and external influences. In general, however, it can be said that land and other resources belonged to the community’ and access to them was regulated by the community or community authorities. Among the Anlo of Ghana, for example, the ultimate owner of land is the clan, but the lineages hold their piece of land to the total exclusion of all others (Pogucki, 1955a; Nukunya, 1972). This does not mean that customary systems were egalitarian; on the contrary, most African societies were not and neither were their tenure systems (Linares, 1992; Meillassoux, I98 I ). In most areas, a person’s gender and lineage, ethnic origin, or slavery status determined her or his rights to land and other community resources.’ In Africa,

RIGHTS

1319

the present tendency toward private ownership of land (i.e., private property in the freehold sense) does not necessarily mean the change from communal to individual property (generally, individual possession and use of agricultural land has been the practice in customary systems). Rather, where previously a number of persons and community groups held different rights to a piece of land. with privatization most of those rights are brought together and claimed by one person,

(a)

Rights

to land and other

re,smrces

Customary tenure systems differ across Africa and are constantly changing in response to economic and social processes.’ Common among these systems, however, is that ownership (at least nominal ownership) of land and other natural resources within the community’s geographical area is vested in the community. Most resources, such as forests, water, and grazing land, are used and managed collectively by the community; the great exception is agricultural land which is allocated to individual households (Bruce, 1988; Cheater, 1990). All households recognized by the community have the right to arable land for cultivation. If the land a household possesses is not sufficient, may be allocated additional land. Allocations of land for farming are also given to new households; in some areas a one-time, token fee is charged by the village head. In general, the main mechanism for acquiring land for farming has been, with authorization from the community authorities. for a household or individual to clear a piece of unoccupied land. (see Vercruijsse, 1988 for a description of this system in Ghana). While in some areas land has been reallocated periodically (for example, in northern Ethiopia), in most areas land allocations are permanent and inheritable (for example, among the Kikuyu of Kenya). Thus, although the community is the owner of the land, the household has secure rights to cultivate or otherwise use the land and, in most areas. to pass it on to heirs. In contemporary Africa, there is usually no unclaimed land in the vicinity of inhabited areas. Consequently, most agricultural land is now acquired through transfers that are interhousehold (for example, through sale or borrowing) or intergenerational (for example, through inheritance or gift). In general, customary land is not supposed to be alienated. that is. sold or allocated permanently to someone outside the community without consent of community or family.x In northern Ghana, for example, a distinction is made between self-acquired and family land. The former can be sold without the consent of the family head and senior lineage members. Family or clan land, however. can be sold

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DEVELOPMENT

only with the family’s or clan’s consent. This type of land is usually only sold for certain occasions such as raising funds to pay family debts. educate family members, or repair the ancestral house (Pogucki, 1955b). The question of exclusive rights, particularly the right to sell, rent or mortgage, has become an issue as agricultural production has become more marketoriented, and land scarcer and more valuable. Berry (1975) describes how the planting of commercial cocoa trees in western Nigeria has resulted in the tendency to consider that land as the exclusive property of the person who planted the trees even if it was owned under customary tenure rules. Nigerian land courts have ruled that such planters can even sell the land.’ Customary land is being sold or otherwise alienated to persons outside the community in many other regions of Africa, such as Tanzania (Eisenhauer, 1994), Uganda (Troutt et al., 1993), and periurban areas in The Gambia (Roth et al.. 1994b).

(b) Attempts to reform customuq

tenure sytems

During the colonial era, European settlers and governments took over vast land areas in eastern and southern Africa”’ and this expropriated land was turned over to white settlers to farm or made into parks. Their control over indigenous labor, however, in spite of laws, coercion, and taxes, was not entirely successful and customary tenure systems survived, albeit much modified. By the 195Os, most of the land appropriated by colonizers had become personal property holdings (either as freehold or long-term leasehold from the state), and land in possession of indigenous groups remained under customary tenure systems. In a few countries (e.g., Kenya and certain areas of Uganda) land reform programs to convert customary tenure systems into private property systems have been attempted.” While most of these movements have occurred after independence, some did take place during the late colonial period. The conversion of customary land to private property is usually done by the state granting private property titles to heads of households for the land families already occupy. With few exceptions, the ideological basis has been that the state rather than the community is the origin of ownership and title (Bruce. 1989). Studies have shown that titlinqzand registration programs have had mixed results. Although these programs have been conceived as formalizing tenure rights of households to the land they possess under customary tenure, it is not unusual for bureaucrats and strategically placed persons (such as local chiefs and wealthy urban residents) to claim land and have it titled in their name. Rural families with little

education and little knowledge of these programs can find themselves displaced from the land to which the titling program was designed to secure their rights (see Goheen, l988b for an example from Cameroon; Roth, 1993 for Somalia). In spite of these reforms, the majority of land, including farmland, in Africa is under customary tenure structures. The following section will explore contemporary customary and private property land tenure systems in Africa.

4. GENDER IN CONTEMPORARY TENURE SYSTEMS

LAND

Customary tenure structures in precolonial Africa offered a greater variety of gender patterns than they do now. While historical material is not abundant on this subject, it appears that women in some areas exercised considerable control over land and agricultural production. for example, in Ethiopia (Crummey, 1981; Hoben, 1975, pp. 145-250). Among the Baganda (in Uganda), women’s customary rights to land were stronger and more extensive in the precolonial era than contemporary times (SebinaZziwa, 1995). Nukunya (1972) maintains that among the Anlo in Ghana, while the right of daughters to inherit their father’s property was clearly recognized in the past, there has been a growing tendency to regard daughters’ claims as only a privilege and not a right. The spread of Islamic culture and the colonialists’ particular gender ideology reinforced male domination and encouraged a tendency for male control over land and labor (Feder and Noronha, 1987; Linares, 1992, pp. 130-132; Davison, 1988b).

(a) How gender and class relate to land rights Who controls land in a community, particularly the best land,” is still determined by both gender and class dynamics within the community, and even within a region.14 Men control allocated land, but elite men control more and better land than lower status men (see Freudenberger and Freudenberger, 1993 for an example from Senegal). Women usually have only cultivation rights; however, these rights can also be differentiated by status. In The Gambia, for example, women from the most privileged social categories may obtain cultivation rights to the best lands through the influence and position of their male relations, while those who do not have a high social position may have access only to marginal lands (Freudenberger, 1994). Bloch (1989), using regression analysis results of a survey on an irrigation project in Senegal, describes gender and caste differentiation with regard to land allocations. Women of lowerstatus castes in Bake1 had signifi-

IMPACT OF PRIVATIZATION

cantly less access to irrigated higherstatus castes.

ON GENDER AND PROPERTY

land than women of

Today, in most of Africa, men control household land because the community authorities have allocated the land to male household heads; these lands are then passed down to male heirs. For most women, access to land depends on their relation to male relatives and the specific laws and practices of the area. A husband. for instance, has an oblioation to provide arable land to his wife to farm’? and decides which specific piece of land the woman can use and for how long. Generally, as long as a woman is married, her husband is responsible for providing land. Difficulties arise in cases of separation or divorce: women lose cultivation rights to their husband’s land. Usually. these women return to their birth families and try to obtain cultivation rights on their land.” These rules differ from one system to another and in how rigidly they are applied. Nevertheless, use or cultivation rights for tnarried women are recognized in customary law and women insist on their recognition. One of the principal rationales of African tenul-e systems and control of land has been and continues to be access and control of labor. Thus, higher caste households are able to obtain labor from lower caste households, older men can control the labor of junior men, and men can oblige women to work on their land.” A frequent pattern of land and labor allocation that reflects the dynamics between land tenure and labor control is one based on individual and household cultivation. In this system. arable land is controlled by the household head. but household members have cultivation rights to different pieces of that land. Men and women usually cultivate and manage separate plots; they also control the sale and use of crops from these plots. Generally, women grow food crops for their family and men grow cash crops. In addition, women are obliged to work on their husband’s crops. doing certain tasks such as weeding. How much they are obliged to work on a husband’s fields varies: in North Cameroon the obligation is minimal (Jones, 1986), but in other areas, particularly where cash crops are prevalent. women’s labor on these fields is significant (&vane, 1986; Hulsebosch and van Koppen, 1993, Akibode rr al.. 1989). Most household members are also expected to work on the household plot which is cultivated to provide certain foods for the entire household.‘8 Thus, women dedicate extensive amounts of time to agricultural work. They also have their household work, such as fetching water and firewood, cooking. washing, and taking care of their children. As a result, women work very long hours and have little leisure time to rest or acquire an education or additional skills, an important constraint for development projects that attempt to involve women.

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(b) Conflict between formal und custnmury law In most African countries, contemporary constitutional and civil law declare that men and women have eqital rights, that women and men have the right to own property, and that women (as daughters and sometimes as wives) have inheritance rights (if not always equal inheritance rights). In many countries, however, the law also recognizes and makes exceptions for traditional family law and land tenure. Thus, women married under customary law, which constitute the majority, are found to be ruled by customary family and inheritance laws. In Zimbabwe, for example, the Customary Law and Primary Courts Act of 1981 recognizes the code of African intestate succession (customary inheritance law), in effect denying black African women their statutory inheritance rights (Stewart, 1987).‘” Later laws have not substantially changed the situation of the majority of Zimbabwen women (Vukasin, 1992). In a few countries. such as Mozambique, statutory law does not recognize the validity of customary law. Where cultural norms and practices are in conflict with these laws. however, women’s legal rights are often ignored (Welsh et ul., 1987). A legal case from Niger illustrates how when a man is in conflict with female relatives over land inheritance the contradictions between customary and statutory legal codes are proffered in his favor (Ngaido. 1995). The death of a Dogo man left a wife and three young daughters. Given her deceased husband’s status the widow remained with his family for support and continued to cultivate his fields. Once her daughters were grown and had left the widow returned the land to the customary heir, her late husband’s uncle, the lineage patriarch. On the patriarch’s death some 22 years later the land passed to his son. Some 18 years later the now widowed eldest daughter of the Dogo laid claim to the land based on her statutory legal right to inherit from her father. In the ensuing litigation the patriarch’s son claimed: [O]ur litigation finds its solution in the legal guide entitled Rrc,rrrrl tle.5 Lois ef Reglemrnts. This guide, which has been in use since independence, recommends referring systematically to custom in the case of land disputes unless the law’s application could foster social disorder. According to Zarma custom, a woman, regardless of her social class or wealth, does not inherit land. In virtue of the aforementioned article, which until this day has nor suffered amendments nor modifications, the widow finds herbelf again automatically disqualified and therefore eliminated from the claim. I am and remain the only heir of this field. Thus, cultural norms if not legislation in most of Africa dictate that men are the owners of land and that women have access to land through their relationship with a male relative, be it father,

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husband, Gambia,

brother,

or even brother-in-law.

DEVELOPMENT

In The

women...do not control definitively the use and allocation of land. Rights of access to land and other resources is determined by a woman’s marriage status. Rights of use accrue to her through her male relative or spouse

(Freudenberger, 1994, pp. 40). Women are generally not directly allocated land by their communities nor their families, and seldom do they inherit land.‘” For example, a recent study in Uganda of 300 rural households showed that only 9% of the women had inherited a parcel of land compared to 77% of their spouses. Exceptions to this exist in West Africa, such as the Mandinka in The Gambia, where women do own some types of agricultural land and pass them on to their daughters (Dey, 1982).

5. LAND TRANSFERS

AND GENDER

The transfer of agricultural land within contemporary customary systems is effected through various mechanisms: inheritance, borrowing, gift, and, although not commonly, through leasing and sale. The most common type of transfer in Africa is still done within the family through inheritance from the men of one generation to the men of the next. A man may actually receive his land before his ancestor dies. For example, when an adult son marries, his father will usually give him a piece of the household land. Female children seldom inherit land. Transfers that entail an exchange of money for land (leasin 8 and sale) are usually token or symbolic payments.

(a) Patrilineal and matrilineal systems of land transfers

One of the major distinctions in inheritance systems and in how land is transferred from one generation to another in Africa is gender related: that is, whether the society is matrilineal or patrilineal. A patrilineal tenure system is the less complex of the two because both lineage and property are traced though the male line and in most cases from father to son, and control of land is also passed from father to son. Land is initially allocated by community authorities to male heads of household. During his lifetime, a holder of customary land directly cultivates part of it and gives access or cultivation rights to the remaining land to his wife (or wives) and other immediate family members, such as adult sons, daughters still living at home, or siblings. At his death, his rights to land are assumed by his sons or other close male relatives. Wives and daughters

are not usually entitled to inherit any land allocated to the household. An example of a patrilineal tenure system was described in section 2. Marriage practices in patrilineal societies are usually exogamous and virilocal, that is, the woman marries a man from outside her birth community and goes to live in her husband’s father’s community. Since a daughter is expected to leave her community upon marriage, customary law does not give her the right to inherit or to be allocated any of her birth family’s or community’s land (see Ngaido, 1993 for an example from Senegal). The most common reason for denying women rights to land is that her husband’s family (or community) would then control that land. A daughter may even be denied cultivation rights on her birth family’s land. Sometimes, a woman’s family, usually her mother, will give her land to cultivate if her husband’s family does not have enough land and she lives reasonably close. In patrilineal Ghana, for example, women traditionally could not own real property “as she is herself the property of her husband and her father” (Pogucki, l955a, p. 52). While women could earn income from farming on her husband’s or his lineage’s land, she was usually obliged to spend that income on certain items such as clothing for herself and specific food items for the lineage (Pogucki. 1955a). Nukunya (1972), however, maintains that among the patrilineal Anlo both sons and daughters inherited land but daughters were at a disadvantage vis-a-vis their brothers. The amount of land passed on to daughters was much smaller than that passed on to sons. In fact, it appears that while sons generally inherited land from their father, whether daughters received any land and the amount of land received was determined by her personal relations with her father and other male relatives (Nukunya, 1972, pp. 1416). Freudenberger and Sheehan (1994) also found that in The Gambia, while patrilineal inheritance is the general rule, women can inherit rice land from their mothers and fathers. A widow, especially a widow with young children, usually retains access and cultivation rights to her dead husband’s land, but it is understood that her sons will ultimately receive that land. If a widow leaves her husband’s community, she loses all access and user rights to any land in that community. If she remarries, she loses all rights to her previous husband’s land (Pogucki, 1955a for Ghana). She may request land from her father when she returns to her parents’ community; however, patrilineal cultures in Africa are not obligated to grant even widowed daughters long-term cultivation rights. In fact, the mother is usually expected to permit her daughter to farm part of the land on which she (the mother) has cultivation rights. There are exceptions to this generalized description of patrilineal societies. Ward (19.50, 1955) and

IMPACT

OF PRIVATIZATION

ON GENDER

Brydon (1987) describe the Avatime patrilineal society in Ghana where residential organization and land allocation patterns differ from the one described above. In Avatime, while households are patrilocal and the ideal is for men and women to marry and set up their own households separate from that of the husbands’ parents, women usually marry within their own village and both men and women are allocated land by their respective kin elders. Matrilineal societies have a more complex tenure system: while lineage and property are traced through the mother’s line, property itself is controlled and owned by the men in the family. Marriage practices and inheritance systems reflect these differences from patrilineal society. Marriage practices in traditional matrilineal communities differ from that of patrilineal ones. In northern Mozambique, for example. marriage is matrilocal: the woman remains in her village and household and the man leaves his parents home and village to live with his wife’s household (Welsh et al., 1987). In Ghana, in contrast, both husband and wife are usually from the same community. and each one continues to live with their birth family, rarely, therefore, forming a new household (Okali, 1983). Since many matrilineal communities are also polygamous, a husband may have several wives. each one living with her birth family. In recent decades, it has become less unusual for the woman to marry someone outside her community and to go live with her husband’s family, as in patrilineal societies. In African matrilineal systems, women are generally not allocated community land nor do they inherit family land. While the family line is traced through women, land is usually passed on from men to men.22 Children belong to their mother‘s line or clan. but the men in the family, brothers, uncles, male cousins exert power and authority and control most land.” In Ghana. for example, the matrilineage head is usually a male; and he represents the lineage in the Council of Elders. approves marriage and divorce among lineage members, and administers lineage property (Vercruijsse, 1988). Sons do not usually inherit land from their fathers but from their mother’s male relatives. Among the Akan of Ghana, for example, the intergenerational transfer of land is through members of the matriclan: brothers of a deceased male are the first in line to inherit property: next in line is the son of his sister; third in line are the sons of the deceased mother’s sister (Awusabo-Asare, 1990). If the nephew is still a child, his mother (the dead man’s sister) holds the land in trust for her son; the land or any other property he inherits from his uncle does not belong to her. In central Sudan, young male children join their maternal uncle’s household, and the uncle’s land

AND PROPERTY

RIGHTS

1323

would eventually pass, at least in part, to the nephew (Roden, 1971). Daughters tend to have cultivation rights to a parcel of her family’s land, even after she marries. But she does not have inheritance rights and loses all rights to that land when her father dies. A father can give his daughter a piece of land as a gift. In this case, the family respects the rights of the father, and the daughter may keep the land upon the father’s death. Women who move away from their communities to live with their husbands’ households, however, lose cultivation rights to their birth families’ land and are not likely to be given land as a gift from their fathers. When a woman marries, she has the duty to work on her husband’s crops on the land he has been allocated or has received from his matrilineage and receives either money or part of the production in compensation. The rest of the production from that land belongs to the husband and he can dispose of the crops and income as he wishes. Okali (1983) documents the amount and kind of labor that wives are expected to put into their husbands’ cocoa farms in Ghana and concludes that it is significant, Wives worked more than any other relative, more than hired labor, and sometimes more than the husband himself (Okali, 1983, pp. 76-98). Women in matrilineal Ghana can acquire land. When Ghanaian women with property die intestate, their property is inherited by their mothers or their uterine sisters. If she has none, then the property can pass to their daughters or even sons. A husband rarely has claim to land acquired by his wife (Awusabo-Asare, 1990). A woman may also receive a small plot of land as a gift from her husband. Her rights to this land, however, are valid only during his lifetime, unless he advises the village authorities that the gift is permanent and completes the necessary procedures. In Ghana, for example, these gifts of land involve the consent of the donor’s matrikin and confirmation of the gift by a token pa ment from the beneficiaries to J them (Okali, 1983).Although there are many variations within matrilineal and patrilineal societies, some general comparisons between the two customary tenure systems in Africa can be made. Common to both is that land is allocated to males and is transferred from man to man: to nephews in matrilineal communities, to sons in patrilineal ones. Women are given access to land through a male relative: in patrilineal communities a woman gains access through her husband and in matrilineal communities through her father or, sometimes, through her husband. In neither society do women generally have inheritance rights to land, although, in matrilineal communities, a daughter who stays in her birth community can receive a small piece of family land as a gift from her

1324

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

father. Women in matrilineal societies who receive customary land as a gift can leave it to whomever they wish-to their daughters, sons, or sisters. Another advantage for a woman in a matrilineal society is that she has cultivation rights on her birth family’s land, even after she marries, as long as she lives in her community. Even when she marries outside the community, she has the option of returning to her birth community and reclaiming her cultivation rights. This gives her some independence from her husband’s household. In patrilineal societies, a daughter does not have cultivation rights to her birth family’s land nor can she expect to receive any of her father’s family land as a gift. The more common manner for women to inherit land is when a woman who has acquired land leaves it to her daughters or her sisters. There is anecdotal evidence that sometimes fathers who have the means to purchase land or property, such as a house in town, will do so and give it to their daughters. This property would not be considered customary family land. Obviously, these are not ordinary smallholder families. While this is still unusual, it also appears that the practice of giving daughters a piece of family land as a gift is becoming more common, particularly to daughters who are single parents. This may be a result of the growing instability of marriages in recent decades.

(b) Interhousehold

land transfers

Transfers of land between households do occur, particularly temporary transfers such as long-term borrowing and renting. Land not being used by the household can be lent to other community members or even persons from other villages, usually free of charge or for a token gift. The borrower is sometimes allowed to use the land for as long as he or she needs it, but in some regions this borrowing period is for only specific growing seasons or crops. The land is usually returned to the family when the owner dies. The owner may also ask for the land back if his/her household has increased in size. Freudenberger and Sheehan (1994) document the practice of borrowing in The Gambia. “Dumbutu residents share a common principle that all residents...should have access to land if they have the means either to cultivate or to build compounds. This principle is accentuated by the fact that many of the land-rich kundas [compounds] do not have enough labor to use all the land under their tutelage [and] kunda heads gladly loan out what they cannot use.” Freudenberger (1994) maintains that borrowing rice land is an essential feature of Jola and Mandika rice farming systems in The Gambia. Sheehan (1994) found that women in The Gambia who cannot gain access to land in their own village will travel to

neighboring villages to borrow land. Pala (1983) describes the practice of kwayo puodho in Kenya where women who have usufructory rights to land belonging to their own or their husband’s patrilineage exchange garden plots for limited periods of time. Sale of land is becoming more common as more areas of the economy enter the market. Customary land tenure systems that had restrictions against land sales (particularly to outsiders) are adjusting to market conditions. In addition some customary systems, particularly those influenced by Islamic law, have allowed land purchases since at least the last century. In The Gambia, “traditional tenure systems permit selling, lending, renting, and gifting of land and other natural resources” (Freudenberger, 1994, pp. 19-20). While both men and women frequently borrow land in these interhousehold transfers, it is mostly men who are involved in the sale and renting of land. As the previous sections have documented, women seldom receive land from their families or are allocated land by the community. Thus, with some notable exceptions, their ability to participate in land transfers is greatly hampered. In the next section, private property systems and their impact on women are explored.

6. CHANGES IN CUSTOMARY TENURE AND ITS IMPACT ON WOMEN Generally, customary societies and tenure systems are structured to ensure that members of the community have the means to take care of themselves. While women are secondary members of the community and the family, with restricted rights to acquire and transfer land, these systems, under optimal circumstances of land abundance and peace, do provide the means and access to land for women to maintain themselves and their children, usually through their husband’s family, and sometimes their own birth family (Mackenzie, 1995). For a number of diverse reasons (such as commercialization of agriculture and land, migration, poverty, population pressure on land and resources, restructuring programs, urbanization, AIDS) these systems have been breaking down and/or becoming more individualized, releasing the family and the community from its customary obligation to some of its members, such as women (Nhlapo, 1987b). The major factor behind these different processes is the transformation of land from a source of food to an asset, from an abundant resource valued for its ability to provide food to a scarce commodity that has cash value. As cash crops, population growth, and urban development have made land valuable and have increased demand on

IMPACT OF PRIVATIZATION

ON GENDER AND PROPERTY

good arable land, certain sectors of the population, generally men with control rights to land, have been able to reinforce those rights and even claim rights that others have customarily held. In the process, women have tended to lose their customary (and sometimes even statutory) rights. Thus, a widow may find that her husband’s family is trying to force her off the land to which she has cultivation rights (Davison, 1988a). An unmarried woman who has cultivation rights on her own family’s land may feel pressure by her brothers to give up her rights. In Ghana, for example, marshy land which was not valued as arable land was turned over to women who gathered reeds there to weave their baskets. Even though the Anloga land tenure system is patrilineal, these marginal pieces of land were handed down the female line. When the cash crops sugar cane and shallots were introduced on these lands at the end of the 19th century, men claimed this land for their own and handed it down to their male offspring (Nukunya, 1972). These developments in customary systems and the adoption of private property regimes have had different impacts on women’s rights to land. These changes have not been unilinear, nor have they affected all women in the same way. Two historical phenomena have influenced tenure systems in Africa toward both individual and private ownership of immovable property: the spread of Islam, which has occurred in a series of waves since the 1 lth century (Ega, 1983; Linares, 1992), and European colonialism (in the 19th and 20th centuries). The most prevalent tendency with regard to women’s rights to land in both matrilineal and patrilineal societies has been an erosion of the few rights they had as matrilineal tenure systems have become more like patrilineal ones, and land rights have become concentrated in the hands of certain male groups. Thus, where previously many persons held different rights to the same land, now some persons have accumulated these different rights, resulting in others not having any rights at all, not even access rights. Contact with patrilineal systems often results in men preferring to pass their land on to their sons, not to their nephews, thus bypassing their uterine sisters. This change seems to take place gradually; men will divide their land between their sons and their nephews, gradually increasing their sons’ inheritance and decreasing their nephews’ portion. In Sudan, Roden (1971) describes the practice of men selling their best land to their sons for a nominal price, leaving less desirable land to nephews. Eventually, only sons inherit land and nephews inherit nothing or perhaps movable property. In effect, this means that women in matrilineal societies lose the indirect rights to land they may have had in their birth family or community, becoming dependent on marriage and on the husband and his family for land.

RIGHTS

1325

The gender ideology of Islamic culture has had a mixed effect on women’s rights to land. Islamic inheritance laws prescribe that male children receive equal shares and female children half of a male’s share. The tendency, however, has been for sons to receive land as inheritance and daughters to receive movable property rather than land (Feder and Noronha, 1987). An interesting case of Islamic influence on inheritance rights and its mixed impact on women is that described by Ross (1987) in northern Nigeria where individual ownership rights to arable land are very secure. Owners can rent out, lend, or leave their land idle without fear of losing their rights to it. In the Wudil District (Kano State), daughters have been successful in having their inheritance rights to land recognized by their brothers and the community in general. This is true even of women who have moved to another community upon marriage. Ross offers two explanations for this change. First, there has been a tendency for fathers and household heads to decrease their contribution for children, leaving it to mothers to increase their economic support not only toward their daughters but even toward their sons’ search for wives. Thus, women feel the need to acquire land for themselves and their children (Ross, 1987, pp. 240-242). Second, the increasing strength of purdnh in the area means that while women own the land, they cannot cultivate it, thus leaving it to their brothers or husbands to work. Thus, Ross concludes, ownership of land by women is not threatening to men since it is men who actually control its use (Ross, 1987, pp. 233-237). Patriarchal colonial societies, plus the colonialist pressure on African men to grow cash crops,25 have also been instrumental in eroding women’s rights and emphasizing men’s rights to land. In addition, both these influences have individualized property rights, reducing the importance of communal property.26 Awusabo-Asare (1990) maintains that the incorporation of the Akans in Ghana into the global economy through the cultivation of oil palm and cocoa has led to permanent control over land by men. [Before,] during subsistence production, each member of the matriclan had usufruct over lineage land.... [With cash crop production,] men who held laud in trust for the lineage and who were encouraged by the colonial system to cultivate cash crops obtained automatic permanent control over land to the disadvantage of female members (p. 9).

Okali’s study in Ghana showed a tendency for the nuclear family, as opposed to the matrikin, to emerge as the most important unit of economic cooperation. Joint farm ownership, however, did not necessarily

1326

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

result from this cooperation; instead, wives were likely to be in a dependent position working on their husband’s farms (Okali, 1983, pp. 143-144). The tendency toward private property has continued with certain types of modernization programs such as titling and registration of land and agricultural development programs. Sometimes, these programs are explicitly focused toward men; even those that appear to be gender-neutral. may be biased against women because project design has not taken into account women’s land rights, their participation in agriculture, and gender ideology in the project area. Berry (1988, p. 5 1) calls this a concentration not of land but of “different rights or bundles of rights in land.” Brock (1969) documents a similar process in Uganda. The results of a resettlement program among the Nso in Cameroon indicate the bias that women may encounter at implementation level. The National government instituted a Young Farmers Resettlement program with the intent of both increasing food production for urban areas and stemming the tide of rural urban migration. Despite the fact that women are the main farmers in Nso they were clearly disadvantaged in trying to gain access to the program as Goheen (1988a) reveals:

Studies also show, however, that simply titling and registering land does not transform a customary tenure system into a freehold one. Commercial agriculture and/or development of the factor market is also necessary for this transformation. In the absence of a market economy, individuals. families, and clans tend to give little importance to land titles and continue to behave within the parameters of the customary system.lx The existence of the titling system, however. does assure that. when land ceases to be valued for what it can produce and becomes an asset (capital). those who hold title will assume statutory ownership and exert disposal and exclusionary rights. Women farmers. particularly smallholders, find themselves falling through the cracks as customary tenure systems adjust to changing economic, agricultural, and political conditions. During the transition from customary tenure to private property systems, women tend to lose the few rights they had under customary tenure and do not gain the rights that. theoretically at least. every person has in a private property and market system.

Neither lineage authorities nor national bureaucrats are willing to allocate land which will come permanently under a woman’s control.... A District Officer, when questioned as to why so few women had been granted loans, replied, This program is designed to help young families stay in the rural areas, and of course no selfrespecting man would want to move to a farm owned by his wife.

Customary systems often are replaced by property systems based on private property and monetary market transactions. The private property system. however, does not always offer all persons in a community the same opportunities to acquire land and participate in the market system. Women, particularly, find themselves at a disadvantage because of their inability to claim ownership rights to land during the time of transition: since their access rights to land are generally indirect and dependent on a male relative, they often find themselves stripped of the few rights they had under customary law. On the other hand. those who are in a privileged position (such as household heads and community authorities) are able to take advantage of the market economy and government programs (such as land titling).

Titling and registration programs began to be implemented in Africa during the colonial period, continuing after independence. For example. in the Buganda region, the Land Law of 1908 gave freehold title for large tracts of land to the clan chiefs and Baganda royalty, introducing private property in Uganda. In Kenya, the Native Land and Registration Ordinance was enacted in 1959 to transform customary tenure into freehold tenure by registering land parcels to an individual and issuing a title. This person in the great majority of cases has been the male head of household. In statutory legal terms, titling has gathered and deposited into the hands of one person (normally the “owner” in the customary sense), the different rights, particularly use rights, once held by persons other than the “owner.” Thus, while under customary tenure different persons held different rights to a piece of land, titling and registration gives just one of those persons absolute and exclusive right to that land. Usually, women lose access or cultivation rights, while male household heads have strengthened their hold over the land.”

7. THE IMPACT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY REGIMES AND MARKET FORCES

(a) Is the market gender-neutrul? In a tenure system based on private property rights and a land market, women, theoretically, are able to access land through purchase. If kinship and sociocultural factors are not predominant in determining access to and transfer of land, then women should face few obstacles. Yet, often women enter the market system with no property, little cash income, minimal political power. and a family to maintain. Thus, women now encounter serious factor market constraints along with a persistent male bias against

IMPACT OF PRIVATIZATION

ON GENDER AND PROPERTY

women owning land. No systematic study has been done demonstrating bias against women who wish to purchase land or acquire a title to land; however, there is much anecdotal evidence. In Swaziland, for example, while the Deeds Registry has interpreted the law to allow women, even women married according to customary law, to purchase and register land in their name, the practice of local authorities is different. Town councils have insisted that married women attempting to register land bring in their husbands. The husband’s name is then recorded as the buyer of the property (Nhlapo, 1987b, pp. 48-50). Even widows and divorcees must bring in a male “guardian,” such as a son, since they have no husband. Freudenberger (1994, p. 47) documents gender discrimination in the sale of land administered by traditional authorities in The Gambia. Authorities “in the peri-urban areas feel that if they allow married women to purchase land without the consent of their husbands then divorce will ensue.... They...discourage women from buying land.” Women in The Gambia also encounter difficulties purchasing leases. There has been gender discrimination in selecting applicants for grants of land in new urban “layout” areas. Land administrators view women applicants as less able to develop a plot of land. As one government official responsible for overseeing the granting of land remarked... We all know that women have a minor role to play in the allocation of land and the management of land.... I would need to be convinced that a particular woman is in a position to develop the land.... I know most of them here and they could not even afford to build a hut [and] 1 just laugh when they come in here all sophisticatedly dressed (Freudenberger, 1994. pp. 4748). In addition to gender ideology that discriminates against women, the other difficulty is the constraints in other factor markets: capital and labor. Women find it difficult to accumulate capital needed to buy land or make investments and improvements on the land they work. Capital in Africa is scarce-the most commonly owned asset is land, and, since customary practices do not allow women to control land in most of Africa, women have difficulty accumulating capital. As has been noted, women often do not have complete control over the land to which they are given access; therefore, it is difficult for them to invest in cash crops and earn significant cash income, or to dispose freely of the income from the sale of crops. Jones (1986) describes the little control Massa women in north Cameroon have over the cash crops they grow: they must turn over the proceeds from their rice paddies to their husbands or risk being beaten.

RIGHTS

1327

Women also encounter capital and labor shortages for growing cash crops, Their subordinate position within the household and the community makes labor recruitment difficult-men work on their own fields first. Sheehan’s case study (1994) of the Sandu district in The Gambia documented men’s control over remittances from migrant family members, capital which is then invested by these men to purchase work animals and farm implements. Women are then dependent on their male relatives’ animals and tools to work their land.

(b) Women’s efforts to overcome obstacles gaining access to and controlling land Women do not remain passive while their rights are being eroded. If they perceive they have lost their rights, they have, under certain circumstances, fought to regain them. Women have successfully formed informal groups, associations, or cooperatives to secure their rights, protect or acquire more land, or mobilize labor and inputs.29 Individually, women have utilized whatever social and political influence they can muster to protect their rights to land. One illustration of this is Jahaly-Pacharr irrigation project described in section 2 (Camey, 1992). Women lost substantially when their kamanyango rights to swamp land rice cultivation were eroded by male household heads designating the new irrigated land marun, despite the land being registered in women’s names. This designation enabled male household heads to increase their demands for female labor and increase their own approl$ation of profits from much higher rice yieldsThe differential impacts of the project development became evident during the first year and: Women...actively resisted the increased work burdens posed by project development...[by] reaffirming preexisting kamanwngo [individual] crop rights which returned to [hem some benefits from their toil... The incorporatron of lowland swamps into the project made Mandinka women landless... [They] were well aware that unless their kamanynngo property rights were defended and renegotiated, they faced the erosion of all protection against household claims to their labour... [Sluccess in bargaining for labour compensation, however, has been uneven. But by the end of the project’s third cropping year ]1986], three generalized resolutions were evident. One adaptation is found in villages with pumped as well as improved swamp rice plots: women’s crop rights are generally recognized through granting them kumunpzngo rights to tidal irrigated and rainfed areas. Another adaptation also honouring women’s crop rights occurred in households with no or limited access to other types of project land; in this agreement men remunerate their wives’ labour in

132x

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

pumped plots with a share of paddy. In the third generalized response, women‘s knrnmvan~o crops rights have not been reasserted; the family unit does not provide remuneration

access to other project (Camey, 1992).

plots nor labour

While still unusual, women have been incrensingly successful in acquiring direct rights to land, either from their families or by simply purchasing land. Some women have been able to receive permanent rights to land from their fathers, though most of the literature indicates that customary tenure laws do not generally allow for this kind of transfer of rights to women. There is evidence, however, of women claiming customary rights to their birth families land. which seems to indicate that, previously, customary tenure did allow for daughters and nieces to inherit land rights. Mackenzie (1995) in Kenya, Bruce (1994) in Tanzania, and Ngaido (1995) in Niger cite cases of women claiming custotnary rights to family land. Women who gain possession of land tend to pass it to their daughters or sisters, thus keeping the land under women’s control. A relatively small number of women have also been able to accumulate capital and invest it in land, thus securing their own future and that of their children, particularly daughters. While these cases represent a small minority of women, it does show that women recognize the importance of direct rights to land and will uiidertake activities to secure them whenever possible.

The increasing rate of female-headed households in Africa, as in most regions of the world. highlights the difficulties women face when they are not able to gain independent access to land. Migration patterns that deprive families of adult workers (often men) and increasingly high separation and divorce rates mean that women are in charge of the day-to-day management of the land and of supporting their families. Wars and diseases such as AIDS also result in cases where women (wives, grandmothers. and sisters) must assume cotnplete responsibility for raising, feeding, and educating young children. Thus, though women have always had the tnain responsibility of maintaining their families, circumstances increasingly put them in the position of being sole supporter and caretaker of families. Female-headed households in rural areas face a number of disadvantages. in addition to the ones all women face. A woman may find herself in charge of farming the land yet unable to recruit the labor she needs for tasks such as plowing and harvesting. In addition, she is unlikely to obtain credit because the land is not hers or because only tnen can enter into

contracts. Single women will most likely not receive extension services since these services are often provided by and directed toward men. Chipande’s (Chipande. I Y87) work in Malawi found that femaleheaded households encountered labor constraints and inappropriate innovation packages when they attempted to adopt agricultural innovations. Staudt ( 1978) demonstrated that women farmers in western Kenya do not receive the same level of government assistance as men farmers, even though women were as likely to be innovators as their male counterparts. A single woman fzzrmer may find also that her cultivation rights to land are not recognized by her own family. her husband’s family, or community authorities. The following excerpt from Davison (198%) describes the land rights situation of women without husbands in Kenya. The welfare of a significant proportion of rural families depends on facilitating these women’s ability to produce and earn sufficient income to support themselves and their families. This ability is seriously affected if women are denied access to land. An unmarried woman without children has the right to remain in her father‘s compound where she cultivates with her mother, or the may be given a temporary plot of Innd to cultivate. It i:, assumed that she will eventually marry away. In cases where a woman is unmarried but has one or more children the situation is economically precarious. Either yhe must leave her father’s home to become a wage earner in an urban center or she remains at home and contributes her labout to her mother‘s production unit. Occasionally it father will give his daughter il plot of land. though he is reluctant to do 50 because it means in the future there will be lest land ior hl< Sony.

Similarly. a separated woman must return to her natal home becoming part of her mother’s production unit. Widows are also finding use rights to their household land threatened by the deceased husband’s male relatives. or even adult sons.

8. CONCLUSIONS When a customal-y tenure system is able to ensure that every household in the community has been allocated sufficient land to provide for its subsistence needs, women normally have the means to provide for themselves and their families-though their access to land and land-based resources is indirect and often dependent on a male relative. The reality today, however is that customary tenure systems are changing rapidly and no longer are capable of assuring households, and the women of these households, access to sufficient land. A number of factors, including land scarcity, AIDS, increasing poverty, and cotnmercial agriculture (Joekes and

IMPACT OF PRIVATIZATION

ON GENDER AND PROPERTY

Pointing, 1991), have resulted in land acquiring commercial value, rights to land becoming more individualized, and men’s obligations toward women and children being ignored. While women’s rights to land under a customary system are usually very limited, women can insist, legally and morally, on their traditional access to land and on some type of compensation for their labor. A woman’s cultivation rights to part of her husband’s or birth family’s land or her rights to compensation for her agricultural work give her some autonomy and independence, albeit limited. It is under the increasing transformation of customary tenure systems to market-based, individualized tenure systems that women’s limited but recognized land rights may be ignored and consequently lost. During the transition (be it through land reform, market forces. or a land titling project), men and particularly male heads of household acquire total, legal ownership of household land. Individualized and private ownership transfers the few rights, such as cultivation rights, that women had to land under customary law to some men who are able to claim all rights to land, particularly when they possess land titles. The increased proportion of female-headed households means that many families are essentially landless. Under a private property system, women who are able to accumulate money (such as urban women who have employment, or women in peri-urban areas who grow food products for city markets) can buy land in their own name with full property rights. In general, however. most smallholder women are

RIGHTS

1329

unable to participate fully in the market system because of little or no education, low monetary income, little capital, low social status, little political power, and imperfect factor markets. Consequently, not only do women find themselves losing the few rights to land they could claim under customary tenure systems, but also find that gender bias remains prevalent in the private property system and market economy. Thus, it would seem that particularly smallholder women are at risk in the market system. Whether these women fare better in a market-based property system depends on several circumstances: how land is registered and titled, how effectively land-grabbing is controlled, what inheritance rights (both legal and in practice) women have to property, what opportunities women have for obtaining money and/ or credit, and how well the markets for other production factors and products operate. The relevance of this process to development projects is that quite often project interventions occur during this transition period, usually with the objective of speeding along the transition to a market system. Or they occur after transition, when it is recognized that the market system is not functioning well and/or important sectors of the population are not benefiting from the market system. One reason that market development does not bring about hoped-for results may be that women’s roles and participation in economic activities, and her rights under a customary system, were not understood and taken into account during the modernization process.

NOTES I. In addition to gender, land rights are differentiated based on ethnic and family background, as well as class position, e.g., Ngaido (1993) on Senegal.

2. The concept of “bundle of rights” is useful in understanding the complex structure of rights that different people have over resources, particularly land. These rights can be likened to a bundle of sticks, with each stick representing a separate right. Some of these include the rights to use. sell. lease, grant a mortgage, subdivide, lend out, and leave to an heir. In most societies, not all rights are held by any individual - different sticks are held by different-individuals both within and across households. Some rights are held by the state Simpson (1976): Bruce (1993). 3. For specific examples of gender bias with regard to land rights, see Goheen (1988b) and van den Berg (nd.) on Cameroon; Schroeder (1993).Freudenberger (1993). Carney (1988) on The Gambia; Fortmann (1986) on rights tc trees; Davison (1988b), Fleuret (1988) Mackenzie (1990) on Kenya; Funk (1988) on Guinea-Bissau; Rose (1988) on Swaziland; Pankhurst and Jacobs (1988) on Zimbabwe;

Himonga

and Munachonga

(1991)

(I 979), Eritrean Women’s Organization

on Zambia; Tadesse (1979) on Ethiopia,

4. Noronha (1990); Feder and Noronha (1987); Ault and Rutman (1979). Karanja (1991) cite examples for Kenya; Linares ( 1992) for the Jola of Senegal; Pogucki (1955a) and Pogucki (I 955b). Kludze (1973) for Ghana. In some areas, land and resources belonged nominally to a particular lineage or person. such as the lineage head, but. in practice, households in the community were entitled to them. 5.

6. See Karanja ( 199 I ) and Ciekawy ( 1988) for examples from Kenya; Vercruijsse (1988) for Ghana. 7. Examples of contemporary tenure patterns and the changes they have undergone -are described by Bruce (1988), Berry (1988) Ault and Rutman (1979) Goheen (1988b) for Cameroon: Brock (1969) for Uganda; and in several edited volumes such as Bassett and Crummey (1993), Bruce and Migot-Adholla (1994).

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

1330

See Goheen (I 98Sb) for Cameroon; Berry (I 975) for Nigeria; Akibode et ul. (1989) for Togo; Benneh (197 I ) for Ghana.

8.

Other cases are described b) Brock (1969) for 9. Tanzania and Uganda; Noronha (1990) for \ub-Saharan Africa: Goheen (19X8b) for Cameroon. 10. Particularly in Kenya, Swaziland, and Malawi.

Zimbabwe.

South

Africa.

1I Major exceptions to this type of land reform occurred in the 1960s and 1970s when several countries with socialist-oriented governments (such as Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique) attempted to institute collective production. Even in these cases, however, legal and de,fkto exceptlons have often been made for already existing private property. These land reforms have perpetuated the practice of restricting women’s rights to land by making it conditional on their marital status (see Jacobs, 1983 for a description of how this has been done in Zimbabwe). There have also been some redistributive land reforms in Africa (e.g., Somalia), and there are current proposals for this type of land reform in South Africa. 12. Roth (1993): Roth rf al. (1994a); Place ef
describes

these practices

in the Luo

(1994) has documented divorced in gaining access to land in The

17. Linares (1992); Meillassoux (1981); Berry (1989); Jarosz (1987); Schroeder (1993): Hulqehosch and van Koppen (I 993). 18. Examples of intrahousehold labor allocation from different regions of Africa are found in Moock (1986).

19. Other countries that recognize both statutory and customary laws are Zwaziland (Nhlapo, 1987a), Uganda (Sebina-Zziwa, 1994), Tanzania (Gondwe, 1990). Ghana (Wanitzek, 1991), Kenya (Karanja, 1991), and South Africa (Kompe and Small, 1991). 20. Set Akeroyd ( IYYI) for examples from Swaziland and Zimbabwe; Raikes (1992) and Karanja (1991) for Kenya: Kompe and Small (I991 ) for South Africa. 2 1. As land becomes an asset, for example in peri-urban areas. these payments begin to approximate a market value. 22. This differs from many Asian matrilineal societies Wazir (1988) where both lineage and property are traced through the mother’s line and where, historically at least, women have owned the land and pass it on to their daughters. as in Malaysia (Stivens, 1985) and India (Agarwal, 1988). 23. Gastellu (1987) describes different matrilineal systems in Senegal and the Ivory Coast; Roden ( 1971) in Central Sudan: Vercruijsse (1988) in Ghana. 24. See Awusabo-Asare an oral will in Ghana.

(1990) for a description

of such

25. Guyer (1980) describes two rural societies in west Africa with different division of labor structures (one where agriculture was mainly men’s work and another where women did the farming). but where the growing of cocoa for export (introduced by the Europeans in the 19th and 20th centuries) became almost exclusively men’s work in both areas. 26. Ega (1983) describes this Nigeria, Benneh (I 989) in Ghana.

process

in Northern

27. Some examples are documented in Fleuret (1988); Haugerud (1989); Davison (1988a), Karanja (1991), and Pala (1983) for Kenya; Brautigam (1992) for The Gambia; Joekes and Pointing (199 1) for pastoral lands. 28. See Haugerud Kenya.

(1989)

29. See Thomas-Emeagwali ( 1992) on Senegal.

and

Mackenzie

(1995)

(1991) on Nigeria;

on

Linares

30. Irrigated rice requires twice the labor input of traditional swamp rice, and three times as much as groundnuts (a traditional female crop) but yielded four times the rice produced by swamp cultivation.

REFERENCES Agarwal, B. (1988) Who sows? Who reaps? Women and land rights in India. Journul ofPeu.rurzt Studks 15. 531581. Acarid, A.V. (1991) Gender, food production and property rights: Constraints on women farmers in Southern Africa. In Women, Development and Survival in the Third World. ed. H. Afshar. Longman, London.

Akibode, A. K., Carot, S., Foli, M., Kenkou, G. K.. Kpakote, G. K. and Donou, M. K. (1989) The dynamics of land tenure and agrarian systems in Togo. In The Dynamics of Land Tenure and Agrarian Systems in Africa. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome.

IMPACT OF PRIVATIZATION

ON GENDER AND PROPERTY

Ault, D.E. and Rutman. G.L. (1979) The development of individual rights to property in tribal Africa. The Journal of Law and Economics 22, 163-182. Awusabo-Asare, K. (1990) Matriliny and the new intestate succession law of Ghana. Canadian Journal of African Studies 24, I- 16. Bassett, T. J. (1993) Introduction: The land question and agricultural transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Omd in @icon Agrarian Systrm.s, eds. T. J. Bassett and D. E. Crummey. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Bassett. T. J. and Crummey. D. E. eds. (1993) Land in A,frican Agrarian Systems. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Benneh. G. (I 97 1) Land tenure and sabala, farming system in the Anlo area of Ghana: A case study. Institute of Afric,an Studies Research Review 7, 74-94. Benneh, G. (1989) The dynamics of customary land tenure and agrarian systems in Ghana. In The Dynamics of Land Tenure artd Agrarian Systems in Africa. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. Berry. S. (197.5) Cocoa, Custom and Socio-economic Churzge in Rural Western Nigeria. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Berry, S. (1988) Concentration without privatization? Some consequences of changing patterns of rural land control in Africa. In Lnnd and Society in Contemporury Africa, eds. R. E. Downs and S. P. Reyna. University Press of New England. Hanover. Berry, S. (1989) Social institutions and access to resources. Africa 59. 41-55. Berley, T. (1993) Property rights and investment incentives: Theory and micro-evidence from Ghana. Discussion Paper 170, Center of International Studies, Princeton University, Princeton. Bloch. P. C. ( 1989) The Dynamics of Land Tenure on the Bokel Small Irrigated Perimeters. Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin. Madison. Bra&am. D. (1992) Land rights and agricultural development in West Africa: A case study of two Chinese projects. The Jortrnul of Development Areas 27, 21-32. Brock, B. (1969) Customary land tenure, ‘individualization’ and agricultural development in Uganda. East African Journal
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