Questions about land control have invigorated thinkers in agrarian studies and economic history since the nineteenth century. Exclusion, alienation, expropriation, dispossession, and violence animate histories of land use, property rights, and territories. More recently, agrarian environments have been transformed by processes of de-agrarianization, urbanization, migration, and new forms of primitive accumulation. Even the classic agrarian question of how the social relations of agriculture will be influenced by capitalism has been reformulated at critical historical moments, reviving or producing new debates around the importance of land control.

The authors in this volume focus on new frontiers of land control and their active creation. These frontiers are sites where established power relationships are challenged by new enclosures and property regimes, producing new social and environmental dynamics in their stead. Contributors examine labor and production processes engaged by new configurations of actors, new agrarian and environmental subjects and the networks connecting them, and new legal and violent means of challenging established or imminent land controls. Overall we find that land control still matters, though in changed degrees and manners. Land control will continue to inspire struggles for a long time.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

This collection of research papers from across the African continent illustrates the complex and ever-changing rules of the land tenure game, and how government legislation and reform (formalization) interact with local innovations (informalization) to form land tenure systems.

This collection of research papers from across the African continent illustrates the complex and ever-changing rules of the land tenure game, and how government legislation and reform (formalization) interact with local innovations (informalization) to form land tenure systems.

The issue of rights is increasingly gaining interest among scholars of developing societies. This probably reflects the growing prominence of rights on political agendas in general. A great deal of research is centred around classical human rights, but other types of rights have also come into focus in the context of development, some under the candidacy of human rights. We talk about cultural rights, social rights and property rights - for example, rights to natural resources or to intellectual property.

The issue of rights is increasingly gaining interest among scholars of developing societies. This probably reflects the growing prominence of rights on political agendas in general. A great deal of research is centred around classical human rights, but other types of rights have also come into focus in the context of development, some under the candidacy of human rights. We talk about cultural rights, social rights and property rights - for example, rights to natural resources or to intellectual property.

Questions about land control have invigorated thinkers in agrarian studies and economic history since the nineteenth century. 'Exclusion', 'alienation', 'expropriation', 'dispossession', and 'violence' animate histories of land use, property rights, and territories. More recently, agrarian environments have been transformed by processes of de-agrarianization, urbanization, migration, and new forms of primitive accumulation. Even the classic agrarian question of how the social relations of agriculture will be influenced by capitalism has been reformulated at critical historical moments, reviving or producing new debates around the importance of land control. The authors in this volume focus on new frontiers of land control and their active creation. These frontiers are sites where established power relationships are challenged by new enclosures and property regimes, producing new social and environmental dynamics in their stead. Contributors examine labor and production processes engaged by new configurations of actors, new agrarian and environmental subjects and the networks connecting them, and new legal and violent means of challenging established or imminent land controls. Overall we find that land control still matters, though in changed degrees and manners. Land control will continue to inspire struggles for a long time. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Access to land and property is vital to people's livelihoods in rural, peri-urban, and urban areas in Africa. People exert tremendous energy to have land claims recognized as rights with a variety of political, administrative, and legal institutions. This book provides a detailed analysis of how public authority and the state are formed through debates and struggles over property in the Upper East Region of Ghana. While scarcity may indeed promote exclusivity, the evidence from this book shows that when there are many institutions competing for the right to authorize claims to land, the result of an effort to unify and clarify the law is to intensify competition among them and weaken their legitimacy. The book explores how state divestiture of land in 1979 encouraged competition between customary authorities and how the institution of the earthpriest was revived. Such processes are key to understanding property and authority in Africa.

Access to land and property is vital to people's livelihoods in rural, peri-urban, and urban areas in Africa. People exert tremendous energy and imagination to have land claims recognized as rights with a variety of political, administrative, and legal institutions. This book is dedicated to a detailed analysis of how public authority and the state are formed through debates and struggles over property in the Upper East Region of Ghana. While scarcity may indeed promote exclusivity, the evidence from this book shows that when there are many institutions competing for the right to authorize claims to land, the result of an effort to unify and clarify the law is to intensify competition among them and weaken their legitimacy. The book particularly explores how state divestiture of land in 1979 encouraged competition between customary authorities and how the institution of the earthpriest was revived. Such processes are key to understanding property and authority in Africa.

An exploration of the relationship between possession and legalization across Indonesia, and how people navigate dispossession The old aphorism "possession is nine-tenths of the law" is particularly relevant in Indonesia, which has seen a string of regime changes and a shifting legal landscape for property claims. Ordinary people struggle to legalize their possessions and claim rights in competition with different branches of government, as well as police, army, and private gangs. This book explores the relationship between possession and legalization across Indonesia, examining the imaginative and improvisational interpretations of law by which Indonesians navigate dispossession.