van der Haar, G., van Leeuwen, M., & de Vries, L. (2020). Claim-making as social practice–Land, politics and conflict in Africa. Geoforum, 109, 111-114.

Abstract

This paper is an introduction to a special issue of Geo-forum that explores the multiple ways in which people seek to define their claims on land and defend their stakes vis-à-vis others, and how this structures resource access, land governance and land conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper introduces the notion of claim-making to land as situated social practice, and highlights how such an understanding may help better explore the articulation of claims, the intricacies between wider instability and local land disputes, and the manifold ways in which land policy conditions claim-making and create new opportunities for it, in particular for settings affected by violent conflict.

Read the full text at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.12.002.