Agrarian Change, Property and Resources

Cluster leader: Kjell Havnevik

Despite growing urbanization on the African continent, the vast majority of Africans are still located in or are dependent on multiple ways on their relationship to rural or agrarian environments. Access to land and other natural resources, the nature of tenure regimes, the absence of various infrastructural, financial and social services, the dynamics of power relations, are all critical dimensions of rural lives and livelihoods. Many older rural institutions are embedded in customary traditions and norms, which emphasize redistribution and reciprocity, while at times reinforcing specific norms of exclusion. There are also increasing and often contradictory challenges raised by newer institutions and growing pressures towards modernization, commercialization and formalization.