Home
International Peace and Co-existence Program
Prof. Mari Katayanagi (marikat[at]hiroshima-u.ac.jp)
*Please replace "[at]" with "@" when sending emails
IPC Seminar
Topic: "ʻWe Owned this Land Before the State was Establishedʼ: The State, Traditional Authorities, and the Land Question in Africa"
Lecturer: Prof. Horman Chitonge (University of Cape Town)
Date and Time: Monday, 3 July, 2023 / 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. (JST)
Venue: IDEC Large Conference Room
Language: English
Details
Customary land governance is one of the most contentious land issues in Africa. As many African governments seek to reform land policies to respond to the challenges of increasing population, expanding economic activities and rapid urbanisation, the proposed reforms are often challenged by traditional leaders who see land policy reforms as a ploy to undermine their authority over customary land. In this seminar, I look at land policy reform challenges in Africa, focusing on the struggle between the state and traditional leaders over the control of customary land, in particular. While the state sometimes attempts to co-opt traditional leaders to support the reforms, this alliance often does not hold for long, especially when traditional leaders sense that their interests are being undermined by the proposed land policy reforms. This situation sometimes leads to contestations which often frustrate the formulation and implementation of land policy reforms in many countries on the continent.
Contact
International Peace and Co-existence Program
This cross-disciplinary program aims to consolidate students’ basic knowledge and to enhance their critical thinking skills in the academic disciplines of Peace Studies, Cultural Anthropology, International Relations, Law, Ethics, Area Studies, and Memory Studies under the common key concept of “Peace and Co-existence.”
Students can choose a subject area and a specific topic to conduct independent research, with guidance from the academic staff who specialize in a variety of research fields, including nuclear damage, armed conflict, and the interrelations between development and culture. Other research interests include social inequalities stemming from issues of poverty, gender, ethnicity and religion as well as war and ethics, and security and nuclear weapons.
