Chapters cover access to and distribution of land; land tenure, resource control, and conflicts; non-agricultural production strategies; agrarian labour processes and social relations; social services and reproduction strategies; local ‘grievances’ and social organisation; agrarian structure and class formation; emerging agrarian questions and politics.

Analyses the World Bank’s Policy Research Report (PRR) from a gender perspective and is critical of the consultation process on it thus far. It has important implications for women in Africa. The Bank believes land should be viewed not as a source of subsistence but of capital. It ignores women’s unpaid labour as a factor in agricultural productivity. It treats the household as an undifferentiated unit and ignores that the family often functions as a site of oppression. The Bank stresses ‘motivated’ family labour but ignores that much of women’s labour is far from voluntary.

Includes increased priority to land reform, development versus redistribution, an economic-oriented land reform, support following land redistribution, gender, securing land tenure, poverty and marginalisation, HIV/AIDS, mineral rights and land rights.

Includes women’s land rights and tenure security in a context of legal pluralism and land tenure privatization; competing legal systems and land rights protection on the ground � what is going wrong? Argues that in a context of increasing land scarcity, high population pressure and progressing land tenure privatization, men are increasingly taking advantage of their superior position within the patrilineal tenure system, advancing their own interests at the expense of weaker family members, first and foremost the women in the family.

Includes historical perspective – native land settlement scheme, Lifa land purchasing programme, Rural Development Areas Programme, some lessons learned, prospects for land reform, Land Policy objectives and principles.

Includes the global scramble for land; drivers of land grabs – global crisis and public incentives; counting the cost of land grabs (disempowerment and marginalisation, displaced communities, human rights violations, women bear the brunt, lost livelihoods and increased food insecurity, social breakdown and cultural impacts); developing alternative models of investment; conclusions and recommendation to governments.

Investigates the complex relationships between the decentralisation reform and implementation of the 1999 land laws in the rural areas of Tanzania. Considers the political implications of the neo-liberal citizenship model the reform tries to promote at the local level, with a particular focus on its link with the implementation of the Village Land Act of 1999. Concludes that these policies will have far-reaching effects on resource access and democracy at the local level.

A short analysis of the new draft Communal Land Rights Bill and of the tenure problems in the former homelands. Argues that the bill would greatly strengthen the powers of unelected traditional leaders at the expense of ordinary rural dwellers.

Examines relationships between inheritance, marriage and asset ownership. Land the most important asset in rural Uganda. The majority of couples (both married and those in consensual unions) report owning land jointly. Men who report owning a parcel of land are much more likely than women to say they inherited it. Inheritance not an important means of acquisition of other assets, e.g. livestock, business assets, financial assets, consumer durables, which are acquired through purchase, for both men and women.

Short analysis of the farm invasions from the perspective of Zimbabwe’s 300,000 farm workers, who are among those excluded from the distribution of land. In the past land invaders have been evicted by government which makes those now settled uneasy. Criticises technocratic proposals by the opposition which would also disqualify farm workers. One solution is to look at the local level, where various new forms of cooperation and sharing are occurring.

Argues that there are 5 shortcomings in both the old (World Bank) and contemporary (Hernando de Soto) arguments for formalisation of land title. First, legality is constructed narrowly to mean only formal legality. Therefore legal pluralism is equated with extra-legality. Second, there is an underlying social-evolutionist bias that presumes inevitability of the transition to private (conflated with individual) ownership as the destiny of all societies. Third, the presumed link between formal title and access to credit facilities has not been borne out by empirical evidence.

Includes communal tenure reform – a contested terrain; impacts of the legal challenge to CLARA; ‘rights’ as a medium of local struggle, advocacy, litigation, mobilisation and research agendas. Farm tenure reform – policies and progress since 1994; declining priority and shifting politics; why the slow progress on realising rights?; ‘rights’ as a medium of struggle among farm dwellers and owners and civil society strategies; agendas for litigation, research, activism and advocacy. Evaluation – potential and limits of a rights framework.