Paper short abstract:

Namibia’s land reform has resulted in a curious intertwinement of formal and informal spheres of governance, with the Traditional Authorities standing as the gatekeepers between the two. Their governing strategies thus reflect how manoeuvres may transgress and combine the boundaries to formality.

Paper long abstract:

The communal land reform in Namibia has resulted in a curious intertwinement of formal and informal spheres of governance. The formalisation of customary land titles reflects two efforts; to decentralise, and to prevent despotic behaviour of local authorities. Its core feature is the inclusion of Traditional Authorities, and integration of their laws, jurisdictions, and scope of local sovereignty into the national legal and institutional framework. While the legal frameworks state a clear legal subordination of the customary to the statutory laws, in reality, this demand is often ambiguous or simply impractical.

Despite extensive efforts to conform traditional institutions with the basic norms of national policy, there remain fundamental differences between national and local authorities. As each position refers to certain interpretations of jurisdiction, space and time, their understandings of justice and just governance differ. Consequently, the formal integration of Traditional Authorities amounts to the state's acceptance of informal practices and governance systems.

However, far from being indulged by their formal inclusion, Traditional Authorities are confronted with competing institutions, and their alternative paradigm of justice and control. Aiming for continued legitimisation, they are forced to manoeuvre in response to the state's institutional and spatial intrusions into communal land matters. Such manoeuvres may both or either refer to formal and informal norms, laws and understandings of just land management. This contribution thus looks at how Traditional Authorities negotiate their legitimacy at the threshold of informality and formality, and how they employ either scope to gain legitimacy in their local authority position.