Paper short abstract:

Women’s right to access and own land is one of the conspicuous markers that differentiate rural from urban Swaziland. Despite the introduction of legal instruments since independence that allow women rights to acquire land, they are free to do so only in urban settings.

Paper long abstract:

Women's right to access and own land is one of the conspicuous markers that differentiate rural and urban Swaziland. Swaziland's exceptionality in Africa is its rigid attachment to its culture and tradition underscored by its pervasive patriarchal attitudes which exclude women from land ownership. Land reforms envisaged in the 1968 and 2005 post-independence constitutions and Swaziland's commitment to international conventions of gender equality are laudable but not far reaching in enough in terms of women's rights to own land. There is stiff resistance from the Chiefs in rural Swaziland to allow women to acquire and own land without passing through their husbands or sons. In the urban setting, it is a different scenario were increasing court litigation and the use of formal structures such as Swaziland's Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and City Councils have allowed women to legally acquire land in their names. This has created jurisdictional conflicts between the formal structures and traditional leaders who are still very relevant in Swaziland. Using the Swaziland Urban Development Project as a case study, this paper examines the development of the engendered bifurcated land ownership in Swaziland and the its concomitant jurisdictional conflicts. Employing qualitative methodology and the conceptual lens of institutional multiplicity, the article concludes that patriarchal attitudes and rival jurisdictional claims restrict women's access to land exclusively to urban centres and this impedes development.