Conflicts Over Land and Water in Africa edited by Bill Derman, Rie Odgaard & Espen Sjaastad

ISBN: 9781869141295

University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007

Description

Efforts to change the race-based systems of land ownership and land tenure in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe have pushed land issues to the forefront of social and economic discourses in Africa. This collection examines the broader context for the re-emergence of land reform and resource conflicts. The case-studies examine the links between identity maintenance, tenurial changes, state intervention, and forms and modes of conflict. The authors emphasise the need for a deeper understanding of local histories, cultures and motivations if efforts to attain a more just distribution of resources are to succeed. This title contributes to a rapidly developing field which focuses on the political reasons for failed development in Africa, and the environmental and natural resource dimensions of that failure.