Swaziland is an alluring place to do research. The tranquil beauty of green pastures and fertile farmlands mesmerizes the newcomer, yet scarcely hints that land disputes are boiling in many parts of the countryside. Such disputes are ripe for research exploration: they have been granted little attention in several major land tenure studies that have been conducted. Even the customary legal forums in which land disputes are fought out have not been adequately described in the literature.

Good fortune was with me during the early weeks of my anthropological field work when my research assistants unwittingly tantalized my curiosity with half-told tales of struggles over land. I seized the opportunity to redesign my planned study of Swazi customary law as a specialized study of land disputes. My luck continued when an unusually hospitable chief supported my interests, allowing me to attend public sessions of his court where land was a frequent topic of debate. Unfortunately, soon thereafter, when I began to attend such sessions, the promise of my early successes began to deteriorate: my Swazi hosts began to suspect and resist my research effort. Clearly, my probings were exposing some hidden and delicate developments in customary land law. As I gradually delved into the reasons for my hosts' resistance, I came to understand that their land disputes revealed much more than rules of land law; in fact, such disputes were an important although often cloudy mirror of the changing social and political order.