Land, mobility, and belonging in West Africa / Carola Lentz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lentz, Carola, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Farmers--Africa, West.

Farmers.

Migrant agricultural laborers--Africa, West.

Migrant agricultural laborers.

Rural development--Africa, West.

Rural development.

Land use--Africa, West.

Land use.

West Africa.

Physical Description:

xii, 331 p : maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2013.

Summary:

Focusing on an area of the savannah in northern Ghana and southwestern Burkina Faso, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa explores how rural populations have secured, contested, and negotiated access to land and how they have organized their communities despite being constantly on the move as farmers or migrant laborers. Carola Lentz seeks to understand how those who claim native status hold sway over others who are perceived to have come later. As conflicts over land, agriculture, and labor have multiplied in Africa, Lentz shows how politics and power play decisive roles in determining access to scarce resources and in changing notions of who belongs and who is a stranger. Book jacket.

Contents:

Pushing frontiers: the social organization of mobility

Staking claims: earth shrines, ritual power, and property rights

Setting boundaries, negotiating entitlements: contested borders and bundles of rights

Ethnicity, autochthony, and politics of belonging

History versus history: contemporary land conflicts in a context of legal and institutional pluralism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780253009531

0253009537

025300957X

9780253009579

OCLC:

829055586