Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 80, Fall 2000, p. 16
From time to time we bring you excerpts drawn from the LTC archives or from news sources around the world—chosen to provoke thought, highlight enduring land issues, or reveal how tenure approaches have or have not changed. Responses are always welcomed.
Contact the Editor or the LTC Tenure listserver: tenure@relay.doit.wisc.edu.
... from the archives ...
"Traditional land tenure is not something only ‘cultural,’ ethnically constant, but a means by which the community quite consciously attains ends which it values. When changes in circumstances occur which require a variation in the means for achieving those ends, the community is not unresponsive, though it may respond slowly and conservatively by our standards. Such changes in circumstances come about in a variety of ways, often unrelated to State action: changes in the natural ecology of a region, changes in population densities, or changes in ethnic group relations. Tenurial change may also take place as the inadvertent effect of State action, as when a change in tax law or administration affects land tenure patterns though introduced without a thought that it might do so. These changes are not land reform in the normal sense of the words, but they should be particularly rewarding for study. It is difficult to understand any living system if it is in a dormant state, and perceptions of fundamental values underlying a tenure system and the relative interests of various social groupings in those values will be greatly facilitated if change is occurring or in the air. There are opportunities to evaluate attitudes toward change in land tenure forms, to identify groups receptive to change, and to examine the operation of instrumentalities for changing tenure rules in the traditional society."
Bruce, John W. 1974. "Some Suggestions Concerning Policy-Oriented Research on ‘Communal’ Land Tenures in Africa."LTC Newsletter, no. 43, January-March, pp. 25-28.
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