Paper short abstract:

With urban land markets increasingly commodifying in East Africa, land rights are challenged by post-colonial meanings of land ownership. Research on land access revealed that transactions are complex and influenced by dynamic factors that are dependent on both customary law and new legislations

Paper long abstract:

As urban land markets are increasingly commodifying, the rights and customary laws that protect local residents are progressively challenged by an economic system that poses questions to both procedural as well as distributive spatial justice. When assessing the framework conditions for land transactions in East Africa, it can be observed that laws and concerned institutions present only one, though essential, part of the complex land market. However, this complexity does not necessarily translate into a fairer access or enhanced procedural justice. Socio-cultural aspects, such as status, sense of belonging and access to specific information indicate that there are multiple influential factors, related to the specific actors, that overrule the “modern”, i.e. westernized or post-colonial, understanding of land transactions as transferring property rights.

In nearly any transaction there are additional, informal practices at play that invoke varying outcomes at different scales. With the point of departure from the panel text, i.e. that there are a “myriad of local practices that are not cast into legal texts”, we focus on research findings from an intense quantitative and qualitative research conducted at the household level in Kampala and Arua, Uganda. From our research we conclude that the understanding of a “right to land” which would be based on customary law, is challenged by the post-colonial understanding of land as privately owned property. The trajectory of land transactions over time indicates that understandings of land law and tenure are dynamic.

Please note that we present in English, but follow the French discussion.