Land tenure
What is land tenure?
Think of land tenure as a set of rights, in this case, to land. We’re mainly interested in agriculture and the use of natural resources in this class, and the ways in which women’s access to these is limited by the system of land tenure. Land could be considered on type of property, and some refer to these issues under the broader umbrella of property rights. There are a few basic categories of property types:
- Private–private property rights generally are more exclusive–they define who the owners of property are, what the property is, and what rights the owners have. In the U.S. private property is a fundamental part of the economic system–for instance, if farmers want to invest in their land, they can go to the bank, ask for a loan, put up part of their property as collateral, etc., because they have title to the land (in reality, some lending institution probably has title . . . ).
- Public–In the Western U.S., much of the land is ‘publicly owned.’ For instance, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service–these are the agencies that manage the land. The taxpayers in theory ‘own’ it, but it doesn’t prevent the Bush Administration from continuing to promote expanded oil and gas drilling, despite widespread public opposition. Cities, states, boroughs, etc., can all be public land managers also.
- Common property–Common property is, in a sense, private property with multiple owners. It is common in Africa, where rights to use land are often granted to members of a community, or of a clan/lineage/household. Fisheries are common property resources, too–difficult to claim ownership over fish. The key to understanding common property is that its use takes away from the resource base. For instance, if you go to the library to borrow a book, the rules require you return that book for use by others. If you’re a commercial fisher off the coast of Maine, the fish you catch aren’t available to other potential users. See the difference (the former is called a ‘public good’)?
- Open access–open access is where no one has clear rights. In the case of fisheries, it likely leads to overfishing the resource. In the case of grazing lands, to overgrazing. Open access occurs where there are no rules governing access. Think of a vacant lot that turns into the neighborhood dumping ground. Common property resources, where there are rules, can also be overused, if there are not mechanisms to enforce the rules (e.g., littering in the park, smoking in a non-smoking area [what would be the resource here?]). Access to fuelwood is often open–women can’t keep others from harvesting it, for instance to sell in a nearby market for cash.
In very general terms, in Africa, Common property and open access are prevalent (the states usually claim all lands, but may not enforce these claims over local claims). In Asia, private property and common property are more prevalent–in many areas there are landlord/tenant relationships (in other words, the landlord leases land to tenants to farm, who owe something in return–part of their crop, money rent, etc.), along with common property systems, especially where irrigation takes place. Imagine the sorts of rules that running a system of irrigation canals, from the top to the bottom of a watershed, might entail. In Latin America, the (very) general tenure type involves many landless or small area landowners (minifundio), and a few wealthy landowners (latifundio). For instance, government puts in a road through a tropical forest, perhaps to ease stress on urban areas and encourage colonization, agriculture. Colonists, homesteaders, or squatters (illegally settling) clear patches for farming. Because most of the nutrients are in the vegetation, when they’re cut for agriculture, good yields will last only a few years without replacing the nutrients. The colonizers move on down the road; wealthy ranchers may move in, take over the abandoned clearings, and consolidate and claim the land for ranching.
Remember that the roles women play in agriculture are different in these three settings as well. From your study of statistical tables, where are the poorest countries in the world? What do you know about women’s roles in agriculture?
Rights
Land tenure can be thought of as a ‘bundle’ of rights. Think of a bundle of wood, each stick representing some right. These rights include use of land or a resource, control over its use (remember–women can use fuelwood, but can’t really control who else uses it, making it . . . what kind of property type?), transfer (the right to inherit or bequeath, pledge, loan, lease–what is sharecropping?); alienate (the right to sell); disposal (of resources–what does this mean?); Adjudicate (the right to settle disputes, be involved in dispute settlement); eviction (the right to exclude, kick off users–think of slumlords and apartment tenants… ). Women’s bundles of rights are usually much smaller than men’s, and may only include use rights. In addition, women have less security of tenure–that means they’re more liable to be evicted, excluded from use, or find others clearing land they were farming or using resources they depend on.
Concepts
- Customary versus statutory tenure. Statutory tenure is formal, legal tenure. Most societies have laws about property rights. However, most societies also have customs about use of property that may be shared and acknowledged. Customary tenure is extremely important in Africa. It is passed on from one generation to the next, and likely to change over time (can you think of why it might change? how might the distinction between statutory and customary tenure affect women?);
- Tenure security (protection from eviction; right to exclude others from use);
- Title (is this customary or statutory?); In what ways might women be disadvantaged in terms of applying for official legal title to land (remember our discussion of ‘gendered institutions’)?
- Niche (in the landscape, specific plant species . . . ); while women may be able to identify niches in the landscape they can gain rights to (for instance, borders to fields, areas around the back of huts), what is the likelihood of these niches containing or being able to produce high-value resources? Security becomes very important–once they do turn something into resources of value, do they risk eviction?
- A right versus a duty versus a privilege (rights for some imply duties for others–e.g., the right to own and operate farm property may imply others’ duty to respect that right within social bounds; however, if a farmer decides to build a 150-acre hog factory, others’ rights to reap benefits from their property may imply his/her duty to refrain from fouling the water and air);
- Patriarchy (authority); Patrilineage (descent, inheritance); Patrilocality (residence)
- Common property and free riding–Free riding is, for example, the person who’s swapping MP3 files on the Penn State Network, using up 20% of the network’s bandwidth (or speed). Can you think of how free riding might work in a small group project in a class? How might free riding disproportionately affect women and their use of resources and land?
- Land use and tenure–a change in land use can lead to a change in rights–try to think this one through and figure out why, and how it might affect women.
Resource Tenure (we’re not done yet!)
- In many cases rights to resources and rights to the land they’re on belong to different people. For instance, in the image below, there are several kinds of land uses: for residence, meeting places (e.g., under the shade tree), fields directly behind family compounds (the sokofeforow), fields that alternate from being farmed to recovering from a farming rotation (bush fallow lands), forestland (forestland commons in the image), and low-lying areas where moisture from rainy season storms evaporates more slowly (the draw areas). Other land uses might include a sacred forest (where religious rituals might take place), a cemetery, perhaps a woodlot, or a livestock corridor (where grazing cattle are supposed to stay during the rainy season to avoid crop damage), each with its own sets of users and tenure rights holders.
- Women’s access to land is often through their husbands, especially where inheritance is patrilineal, marriage is virilocal and residence patterns are patrilocal (see a good glossary of kinship terms).
- Agroforestry–Landscapes vary, and plant species vary, and many agricultural societies practice agroforestry–a combination of field crops, shrubs, bushes, even tree species, on the same land–taking advantage of vertical space. Add to this herds of cattle or other livestock (goats, sheep), and you can begin to see the complexity of their land use systems. This is quite different from the typical American agricultural landscape of treeless field crops, and it can complicate land and resource tenure. In some cases, though, women benefit–they may not have security of land tenure, but they may have rights to use resources on the land (e.g., collecting fuelwood used for cooking, tree fruit, medicinal plants, fodder for any small livestock they might own . . . food, fuel and fodder are generally the three most common uses made of forest products by women. To see a brief description of agroforestry (which will give you an idea of how resources and land might have different sets of rights), visit this agroforestry link
