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Envi13


Land conflicts in Africa 
Convenors:
Frankline Ndi (Bonn University)
Conrad Schetter (Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC))
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Format:
Panel
Streams:
Environment and Geography (x) Violence and Conflict Resolution (y)
Location:
Philosophikum, S58
Sessions:
Saturday 3 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin

Short Abstract:

Across Africa, communities, governments, and investors are competing for resources and land. This competition in turn generates conflicts in disparate forms. We invite contributions that critically engage discussions around land, land acquisition and conflicts in Africa.

Long Abstract:

Across Africa, communities, governments, and investors are competing for resources and land. This competition in turn generates conflicts in disparate forms. Land contestations are embedded in discourses, which legitimize land claims by referring to different sources, such as indigeneity, ethnicity, efficiency, or biodiversity. In addition, many rural communities draw their land rights from customary tenure, which are not fully recognized by formal statutory land institutions. In contrast, governments legitimate claims based on existing legal provisions and land institutions. These justifications of land claims and contestations in tenure arrangements have provoked wider debates about the future of rural Africa characterized by increasing land conflicts, but more so because the majority of people in rural areas depends on land for their livelihood. In the light of this debate, many governments have revisited their land tenure systems and initiated land reforms (e.g. through formalization, titling, redistribution etc.). These reforms often enough threaten rural livelihoods, the legal recognition of customary land use systems, and lead to accumulation by dispossession, and consequently, to (violent) conflicts. We invite contributions that critically engage discussions around land conflicts in Africa focusing on any of the following themes.

- Role of the state, non-state actors and institutions (statutory and customary) in land governance, negotiation and conflict management,

- Drivers of land-related conflicts,

- Claim-making discourses

- Power dynamics amongst competing land users/claimants,

- Land reforms and conflicts,

- Conflict management mechanisms.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Saturday 3 June, 2023, -
Session 2 Saturday 3 June, 2023, -