Identity, ethnicity, gender and citizenship in relation to land conflicts in Africa

Agriculture is very important in poor parts of Africa, but land is not only the plot where you cultivate, live or get hold of your assets. Land is so much more; it has a spiritual-, religious- and a historically meaning, connecting people to an identity. Land is also a tool of power; influencing or ruling the politics, the society, the culture, the values and the people. For very long the struggle has been all about anti-colonization and a will to create and strengthen the unity of nationalism and the right to own you own land. But this is not easy when the boundaries of the nations are created by a western ruler, taken no care of ethnicity, identity, migration or already existing local boundaries. It is very important for a nation to call upon unity and link the population to citizenship. But citizenship is hard to implement in a country were so many tribes are living side by side with their own traditions, own migration patterns, own language and their own connection to land. To improve the situation for especially poor farmers in rural areas the land rights must be upgraded to decrease the conflicts. Urban areas are often prioritized, excluding a big part of the population living in rural areas. The relations between different tribes and power holders must be developed. Conflicts are often between the government and the already existing land tenure systems, between land lords and farmers, and women are often the ones trapped in between; facing less status, less power, but more vulnerability.

It is easy to blame the conflicts over land and natural resources on diversification of ethnicities. But the authors of the book “Conflicts over Land and Water in Africa” stresses the fact that the situation is much more complex than that. (The authors’ definition of ethnicity is that it is: “historically created but sustained and changed through practice and ongoing social relations”) The conflicts are rooted much deeper in different identities changing over time, among each other and as a result of globalization. An identity is not something consistent, but it can still be very connected to land. The access to land depend on for example the social-, political-, economic-, religious identities as well as gender, age, ethnicity and place of living. Countries like South Africa and Namibia still face conflicts and clashes arisen from the color of your skin, but that originally depends on unequal status and unequal distribution of land. The identities are changing as well as the rights and the legal systems. The traditional identities are challenged by the modern world placing new generations between two options; fighting globalization and adapt modernization or encourage local traditions and preserve the culture. But the question is if it´s sustainable to choose or if it is possible to have them both?
Women in Africa are very much involved in the agriculture sector, but her status is often depending on other things such as marriage, kinship etc. Women or men should never been seen as a homogenous group since all kind of identities changes the access to land and ownership. But it is still often the case that it is the woman that works on the field and the man that has the right to own it, causing conflicts even within the family as well as in the society.

An additional thought that I want to add regarding this very complex problem of land and conflicts, is what I would call the “modern colonialism.” Rich countries like Saudi Arabia are buying agriculture land from Ethiopia to secure the food storage for their own citizens in the Middle East; with no further thoughts of what´s happening back in Ethiopia. Millions of Ethiopians are starving and already lack access to land. How could a poor peasant improve his ownership, competing against one of the richest countries in the world? The history is repeating itself and I am sure that it will cause terrible conflicts in the future. The status of “the others” (Africans) in comparison to the west is still declining. (Further readings see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/food-water-africa-land-grab) 2011-04-05

References
Derman Bill, Rie Odgaard, Espen Sjaastad (eds) 2007, Conflicts over Land and Water in Africa, Oxford: James Currey; East Lansing: Michigan State University Press; Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.

Back to India - check!

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