Policy discourses on women's land rights in sub-Saharan Africa: the implications of the re-turn to the customary.
Policy discourses on women's land rights in sub-Saharan Africa: the implications of the re-turn to the customary.
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关于撒哈拉以南非洲妇女土地权利的政策讨论：回归习俗的影响。
DOI：
10.1111/1471-0366.00051
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发表时间：
2003
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
D. Tsikata
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Whitehead;D. Tsikata
这篇文章考察了撒哈拉以南非洲关于土地保有制改革的一些当代政策论述及其对妇女土地利益的影响。它表明，一系列有影响力的政策机构、律师和学者正在就所谓的习惯土地保有权制度的潜力达成共识，以满足所有土地使用者和申索者的需要。这一共识源于对过去土地所有权和登记尝试的批评，特别是在肯尼亚，这种共识植根于关于土地保有权的现代化论述和/或进化理论，并包含对习惯法和法律多元化的特殊和有争议的理解。它还引发了对这个后殖民国家在非洲的失败的广泛批评，这在这个国家目前在结构调整计划下的撤退中发挥了重要作用。非洲女律师是持不同意见的少数群体，她们更加模棱两可地相信惯例，而更愿意指望国家制定保护妇女利益的法律。我们同意，在妇女的土地要求方面，在实现性别公正方面，所谓的土地保有权和管理的习惯制度存在相当大的问题。没有充分重视农村的权力关系及其对妇女等社会群体的影响，这些群体在地方一级的权力结构中没有得到很好的地位和代表性。但是，在非洲国家能够开始在土地问题上实现性别正义之前，需要对政治和法律实践和文化进行相当大的改变。
This article examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub–Saharan Africa and their implications for women's interests in land. It demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions, lawyers and academics about the potential of so–called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. This consensus, which has arisen out of critiques of past attempts at land titling and registration, particularly in Kenya, is rooted in modernizing discourses and/or evolutionary theories of land tenure and embraces particular and contested understandings of customary law and legal pluralism. It has also fed into a wide–ranging critique of the failures of the post–colonial state in Africa, which has been important in the current retreat of the state under structural adjustment programmes. African women lawyers, a minority dissenting voice, are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring instead to look to the State for laws to protect women's interests. We agree that there are considerable problems with so–called customary systems of land tenure and administration for achieving gender justice with respect to women's land claims. Insufficient attention is being paid to power relations in the countryside and their implications for social groups, such as women, who are not well positioned and represented in local level power structures. But considerable changes to political and legal practices and cultures will be needed before African states can begin to deliver gender justice with respect to land.