Paper short abstract:

We study the governance of formal property in urban Tanzania. Through meso-level institutional bricolage, leaders associated with informal institutions are central in making formal property legitimate and operational. Yet, they are not adequately recognised and integrated in land administration.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on a case-study from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, we explore who governs formal property in African cities, how they make formal property legitimate and functional, and the consequences of these processes. Through the analytic lenses of institutional hybridity and 'meso-level' bricolage, we study the implementation of the Residential Licence programme, which offered a relatively affordable interim property right to the urban poor. We illustrate that formal property is constructed and managed by a hybrid governance of actors within and at the interface of the state - municipalities and mtaa offices. Some fifteen years after the programme start, the mtaa chairperson - an unpaid political figure and community representative, typically associated with informal land institutions - is still central to the governance of formal property. Both municipalities and mtaa offices engage in practices of bricolage, which, transform the RL into a hybrid institution, anchored to both old and new sources of authority and knowledge on property relations. On one hand, these practices lend legitimacy and functionality to the 'new' property right system. On the other, they open up grey areas for discretion and power relations. Therefore, we argue that this hybrid governance be supported by the state through adequate resources and some regulation. By offering a rare analysis of institutional bricolage within and at the interface of the state, our findings are important to advance current understandings on land reform implementation, land governance and land institutions in African cities.