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THE PAST AND SPACE: ON ARGUMENTS IN AFRICAN LAND CONTROL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2013

Christian Lund
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Abstract

The contemporary construction of the past is crucial for the successful vindication of political rights in Africa. Often, however, more than a single past proves potentially valid as a claim to land and office. When arguments of the past, furthermore, intertwine with competing projections of legitimate forms of land control, complex combinations of claims emerge. The ubiquity of ‘the past’ in African politics and the increasing competition over space suggest that the naturalness with which some refer to the past and others conceive of space should be under constant scrutiny. Based on work in northern Ghana, the article argues that the contemporary construction of the past, as either tradition or history, and the competing projections of land control, as either property or political territory, interdigitate in complex ways. This affords certain rhetorical or discursive combinations that competing social elite groups instrumentalize. Each group sees its interests best served by a particular reading of the past and a particular conception of space.

Résumé

La légitimation des droits politiques en Afrique passe par la construction contemporaine du passé. Or, il arrive souvent que plus d'un passé s'avère potentiellement valide pour revendiquer un droit d'accès à la terre et au pouvoir. Et lorsqu'aux arguments du passé se mêlent des projections concurrentes de formes légitimes de maîtrise foncière, des combinaisons complexes de revendications émergent. L'ubiquité du «passé» dans la politique africaine et la concurrence croissante pour l'espace suggèrent qu'il faudrait examiner constamment le naturel avec lequel certains se réfèrent au passé et d'autres conçoivent l'espace. S'appuyant sur des travaux menés dans le Nord du Ghana, l'article soutient que la construction contemporaine du passé, en tant que tradition ou histoire, et les projections concurrentes de la maîtrise foncière, en tant que bien ou territoire politique, s'intercalent de manières complexes. De cela découlent certaines combinaisons rhétoriques ou discursives que les groupes d’élites sociales concurrents instrumentalisent. Chaque groupe voit ses intérêts servis au mieux par une lecture particulière du passé et une conception particulière de l'espace.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 83 , Special Issue 1: Land Politics in Africa: Constituting Authority over Territory, Property and Persons , February 2013 , pp. 14 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2013

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References

REFERENCES

Many people have kept copies of letters, reports, newspaper clippings, petitions and minutes of meetings and I have only encountered trust and generosity as people let me make copies of their ‘private archives’. Such sources are not indexed with archival reference numbers, but I have specified the nature of the documents in the footnotes and noted ‘material in private possession’.

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Appadurai, A. (1981) ‘The past as a scarce resource’, Man (NS) 16 (2): 201–19.Google Scholar
Ayee, J. (1994) An Anatomy of Public Policy Implementation: the case of decentralization policies in Ghana. Aldershot: Avebury.Google Scholar
Ayee, J. (2000) ‘Sub-district structures and popular participation: a preliminary assessment’ in Thomi, W., Yankson, P. W. K. and Zanu, S. Y. M. (eds), A Decade of Decentralisation and Local Government Reform in Ghana: retrospect and prospects. Accra: Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.Google Scholar
Ayee, J. (2006) ‘Some thoughts on the institutional representation of chiefs in the district assemblies and the sub-district structures’ in Odotei, I. K. and Awedoba, A. K. (eds), Chieftaincy in Ghana: culture, governance and development. Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1973) ‘Indigenous concepts of boundaries and significance of administrative stations and boundaries in northern Ghana’, Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association 15: 7–20.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1974) ‘Location of regional and provincial capitals in northern Ghana, 1897–1960’, Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association 16: 54–66.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1975) ‘Foundations of the modern native states of northern Ghana’, Universitas 5 (1): 116–38.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1977) ‘Administration and development in northern Ghana, 1898–1931’, Ghana Social Science Journal 4 (2): 58–76.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1995) ‘Land policy and administration in northern Ghana’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 16 (2) (New Series 1): 227–66.Google Scholar
Benton, L. (2002) Law and Colonial Cultures: legal regimes in world history, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berry, S. (2009) ‘Property, authority, and citizenship: land claims, politics and the dynamics of social division in West Africa’ in Sikor, T. and Lund, C. (eds), Politics of Possession. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. (1977) ‘The past and the present in the present’, Man (NS) 12 (2): 278–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, C. (2003) Political Topographies of the African State: territorial authority and institutional choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. and Roberts, S. (1981) Rules and Processes: the cultural logic of dispute in an African context. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Crook, R. (1987) ‘Legitimacy, authority and the transfer of power in Ghana’, Political Studies 35 (4): 552–72.Google Scholar
Crook, R. (1994) ‘Four years of the Ghana District Assemblies in operation: decentralization, democratization and administrative performance’, Public Administration and Development 14 (4): 339–64.Google Scholar
Crook, R. and Manor, J. (1998) Democracy and Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa: participation, accountability and performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. and Robertson, A. F. (1973) Dependence and Opportunity: political change in Ahafo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Durkheim, É. (1915) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940) The Nuer: a description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic people. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. (1999) Expectations of Modernity. myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. (1940) ‘The political system of the Tallensi of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast’ in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (eds), African Political Systems. London: International African Institute and Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. (1945) The Dynamics of the Clanship among the Tallensi: being the first part of an analysis of the social structure of the Trans-Volta tribe. London: International African Institute and Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940) ‘Introduction’ in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (eds), African Political Systems. London: International African Institute and Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fortmann, L. (1995) ‘Talking claims: discursive strategies in contesting property’, World Development 23 (6): 1053–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gell, A. (1992) The Anthropology of Time: cultural constructions of temporal maps. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Guyer, J. (2007) ‘Prophecy and the near future: thoughts on macroeconomic, evangelical and punctuated time’, American Ethnologist 34 (3): 409–21.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. (1986) The Appropriation of Nature: essays on human ecology and social relations. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Jacob, J.-P. and Le Meur, P.-Y. (2010) ‘Citoyenneté locale, foncier, appartenance et reconnaissance dans les sociétés du Sud’ in Jacob, J.-P. and Le Meur, P.-Y. (eds), Politique de la terre et de l'appartenance: droits fonciers et citoyenneté locale dans les sociétés du Sud. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Kasanga, K. (1996) The Role of Chiefs in Land Administration in Northern Ghana. London: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (‘Our Common Estate’ Programme).Google Scholar
Ladouceur, P. A. (1979) Chiefs and Politicians: the politics of regionalism in northern Ghana. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (1995) ‘“Unity for development”: youth associations in north-western Ghana’, Africa 65 (3): 395–429.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (1998) ‘The chief, the mine captain and the politician: legitimating power in northern Ghana’, Africa 68 (1): 46–65.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (1999) ‘Colonial ethnography and political reform: the works of A. C. Duncan-Johnstone, R. S. Rattray, J. Eyre-Smith and J. Guiness on northern Ghana’, Ghana Studies 2: 119–69.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2000) ‘Of hunters, goats and earth-shrines: settlement histories and the politics of oral tradition in northern Ghana’, History in Africa 27: 193–214.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2006a) Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2006b) ‘Decentralization, the state and conflicts over local boundaries in northern Ghana’, Development and Change 37 (4): 901–19.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2002) ‘Negotiating property institutions: on the symbiosis of property and authority in Africa’ in Juul, K. and Lund, C. (eds), Negotiating Property in Africa. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2006) ‘Twilight institutions: public authority and local politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37 (4): 685–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lund, C. (2008) Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa. Cambridge and New York NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (1978) Law as Process. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (1986) Social Facts and Fabrications: ‘customary’ law on Kilimanjaro, 1880–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (1992) ‘Treating law as knowledge: telling colonial officers what to say to Africans about running “their own” native courts’, Law and Society Review 26 (1): 11–46.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (2001) ‘Certainties undone: fifty turbulent years of legal anthropology, 1949–1999’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7: 95–116.Google Scholar
Nugent, P. (1999) ‘Living in the past: urban, rural and ethnic themes in the 1992 and 1996 elections in Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 37 (2): 287–319.Google Scholar
Nugent, P. (2010) ‘States and social contracts in Africa’, New Left Review 63: 35–68.Google Scholar
Osborn, P. G. (1964) A Concise Law Dictionary (fifth edition). London: Sweet and Maxwell.Google Scholar
Peluso, N. L. and Lund, C. (2011) ‘New frontiers of land control’, Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (4): 667–81.Google Scholar
Peters, P. (1994) Dividing the Commons: politics, policy and culture in Botswana. Charlottesville VA and London: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Pogucki, R. J. H. (1951) Report on Land Tenure in Native Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, Part. II. Accra: Lands Department.Google Scholar
Pogucki, R. J. H. (1955) Gold Coast and Land Tenure, Vol. I. A Survey of Land Tenure in Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories. Accra: Lands Department.Google Scholar
Ribot, J. C., Agrawal, A. and Larson, A. M. (2006) ‘Recentralizing while decentralizing: how national governments reappropriate forest resources’, World Development 34 (11): 1864–86.Google Scholar
Rocha, B. J. and Lodoh, C. H. K. (1995) Ghana Land Law and Conveyancing. Accra: Anaseem Publications.Google Scholar
Rose, C. (1994) Property and Persuasion: essays on the history, theory and rhetoric of ownership. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Saaka, Y. (1978) Local Government and Political Change in Northern Ghana. Washington DC: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Sack, R. D. (1986) Human Territoriality: its theory and history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shipton, P. (2009) Mortgaging the Ancestors: ideologies of attachment in Africa. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staniland, M. (1975) The Lions of Dagbon: political change in northern Ghana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tait, D. (1952) ‘Book review of Land Tenure in Native Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast by J. H. Pogucki’, Africa 22 (4): 380–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, E. P. (1974) ‘Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism’ in Flinn, M. W. and Smout, T. C. (eds), Essays in Social History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. (1991) Customs in Common. New York NY: The New Press.Google Scholar
Vandergeest, P. and Peluso, N. L. (1995) ‘Territorialization and state power in Thailand’, Theory and Society: Renewal and Critique in Social Theory 24 (3): 385–426.Google Scholar
Walker, P. and Peters, P. (2001) ‘Maps, metaphors, and meanings: boundary struggles and village forest use on private and state land in Malawi’, Society and Natural Resources 14: 411–24.Google Scholar
Woodman, G. R. (1996) Customary Land Law in Ghanaian Courts. Accra: Ghana University Press.Google Scholar
Allman, J. and Parker, J. (2005) Tongnaab: the history of a West African god. Bloomington and Indianapolis IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Anafu, M. (1973) ‘The impact of colonial rule on Tallensi political institutions, 1898–1967’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 14 (1): 17–37.Google Scholar
Appadurai, A. (1981) ‘The past as a scarce resource’, Man (NS) 16 (2): 201–19.Google Scholar
Ayee, J. (1994) An Anatomy of Public Policy Implementation: the case of decentralization policies in Ghana. Aldershot: Avebury.Google Scholar
Ayee, J. (2000) ‘Sub-district structures and popular participation: a preliminary assessment’ in Thomi, W., Yankson, P. W. K. and Zanu, S. Y. M. (eds), A Decade of Decentralisation and Local Government Reform in Ghana: retrospect and prospects. Accra: Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.Google Scholar
Ayee, J. (2006) ‘Some thoughts on the institutional representation of chiefs in the district assemblies and the sub-district structures’ in Odotei, I. K. and Awedoba, A. K. (eds), Chieftaincy in Ghana: culture, governance and development. Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1973) ‘Indigenous concepts of boundaries and significance of administrative stations and boundaries in northern Ghana’, Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association 15: 7–20.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1974) ‘Location of regional and provincial capitals in northern Ghana, 1897–1960’, Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association 16: 54–66.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1975) ‘Foundations of the modern native states of northern Ghana’, Universitas 5 (1): 116–38.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1977) ‘Administration and development in northern Ghana, 1898–1931’, Ghana Social Science Journal 4 (2): 58–76.Google Scholar
Bening, R. B. (1995) ‘Land policy and administration in northern Ghana’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 16 (2) (New Series 1): 227–66.Google Scholar
Benton, L. (2002) Law and Colonial Cultures: legal regimes in world history, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berry, S. (2009) ‘Property, authority, and citizenship: land claims, politics and the dynamics of social division in West Africa’ in Sikor, T. and Lund, C. (eds), Politics of Possession. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. (1977) ‘The past and the present in the present’, Man (NS) 12 (2): 278–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, C. (2003) Political Topographies of the African State: territorial authority and institutional choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. and Roberts, S. (1981) Rules and Processes: the cultural logic of dispute in an African context. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Crook, R. (1987) ‘Legitimacy, authority and the transfer of power in Ghana’, Political Studies 35 (4): 552–72.Google Scholar
Crook, R. (1994) ‘Four years of the Ghana District Assemblies in operation: decentralization, democratization and administrative performance’, Public Administration and Development 14 (4): 339–64.Google Scholar
Crook, R. and Manor, J. (1998) Democracy and Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa: participation, accountability and performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. and Robertson, A. F. (1973) Dependence and Opportunity: political change in Ahafo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Durkheim, É. (1915) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940) The Nuer: a description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic people. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. (1999) Expectations of Modernity. myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. (1940) ‘The political system of the Tallensi of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast’ in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (eds), African Political Systems. London: International African Institute and Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. (1945) The Dynamics of the Clanship among the Tallensi: being the first part of an analysis of the social structure of the Trans-Volta tribe. London: International African Institute and Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940) ‘Introduction’ in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (eds), African Political Systems. London: International African Institute and Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fortmann, L. (1995) ‘Talking claims: discursive strategies in contesting property’, World Development 23 (6): 1053–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gell, A. (1992) The Anthropology of Time: cultural constructions of temporal maps. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Guyer, J. (2007) ‘Prophecy and the near future: thoughts on macroeconomic, evangelical and punctuated time’, American Ethnologist 34 (3): 409–21.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. (1986) The Appropriation of Nature: essays on human ecology and social relations. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Jacob, J.-P. and Le Meur, P.-Y. (2010) ‘Citoyenneté locale, foncier, appartenance et reconnaissance dans les sociétés du Sud’ in Jacob, J.-P. and Le Meur, P.-Y. (eds), Politique de la terre et de l'appartenance: droits fonciers et citoyenneté locale dans les sociétés du Sud. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Kasanga, K. (1996) The Role of Chiefs in Land Administration in Northern Ghana. London: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (‘Our Common Estate’ Programme).Google Scholar
Ladouceur, P. A. (1979) Chiefs and Politicians: the politics of regionalism in northern Ghana. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (1995) ‘“Unity for development”: youth associations in north-western Ghana’, Africa 65 (3): 395–429.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (1998) ‘The chief, the mine captain and the politician: legitimating power in northern Ghana’, Africa 68 (1): 46–65.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (1999) ‘Colonial ethnography and political reform: the works of A. C. Duncan-Johnstone, R. S. Rattray, J. Eyre-Smith and J. Guiness on northern Ghana’, Ghana Studies 2: 119–69.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2000) ‘Of hunters, goats and earth-shrines: settlement histories and the politics of oral tradition in northern Ghana’, History in Africa 27: 193–214.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2006a) Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. (2006b) ‘Decentralization, the state and conflicts over local boundaries in northern Ghana’, Development and Change 37 (4): 901–19.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2002) ‘Negotiating property institutions: on the symbiosis of property and authority in Africa’ in Juul, K. and Lund, C. (eds), Negotiating Property in Africa. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2006) ‘Twilight institutions: public authority and local politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37 (4): 685–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lund, C. (2008) Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa. Cambridge and New York NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (1978) Law as Process. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (1986) Social Facts and Fabrications: ‘customary’ law on Kilimanjaro, 1880–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (1992) ‘Treating law as knowledge: telling colonial officers what to say to Africans about running “their own” native courts’, Law and Society Review 26 (1): 11–46.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (2001) ‘Certainties undone: fifty turbulent years of legal anthropology, 1949–1999’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7: 95–116.Google Scholar
Nugent, P. (1999) ‘Living in the past: urban, rural and ethnic themes in the 1992 and 1996 elections in Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 37 (2): 287–319.Google Scholar
Nugent, P. (2010) ‘States and social contracts in Africa’, New Left Review 63: 35–68.Google Scholar
Osborn, P. G. (1964) A Concise Law Dictionary (fifth edition). London: Sweet and Maxwell.Google Scholar
Peluso, N. L. and Lund, C. (2011) ‘New frontiers of land control’, Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (4): 667–81.Google Scholar
Peters, P. (1994) Dividing the Commons: politics, policy and culture in Botswana. Charlottesville VA and London: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Pogucki, R. J. H. (1951) Report on Land Tenure in Native Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, Part. II. Accra: Lands Department.Google Scholar
Pogucki, R. J. H. (1955) Gold Coast and Land Tenure, Vol. I. A Survey of Land Tenure in Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories. Accra: Lands Department.Google Scholar
Ribot, J. C., Agrawal, A. and Larson, A. M. (2006) ‘Recentralizing while decentralizing: how national governments reappropriate forest resources’, World Development 34 (11): 1864–86.Google Scholar
Rocha, B. J. and Lodoh, C. H. K. (1995) Ghana Land Law and Conveyancing. Accra: Anaseem Publications.Google Scholar
Rose, C. (1994) Property and Persuasion: essays on the history, theory and rhetoric of ownership. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Saaka, Y. (1978) Local Government and Political Change in Northern Ghana. Washington DC: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Sack, R. D. (1986) Human Territoriality: its theory and history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shipton, P. (2009) Mortgaging the Ancestors: ideologies of attachment in Africa. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staniland, M. (1975) The Lions of Dagbon: political change in northern Ghana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tait, D. (1952) ‘Book review of Land Tenure in Native Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast by J. H. Pogucki’, Africa 22 (4): 380–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, E. P. (1974) ‘Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism’ in Flinn, M. W. and Smout, T. C. (eds), Essays in Social History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. (1991) Customs in Common. New York NY: The New Press.Google Scholar
Vandergeest, P. and Peluso, N. L. (1995) ‘Territorialization and state power in Thailand’, Theory and Society: Renewal and Critique in Social Theory 24 (3): 385–426.Google Scholar
Walker, P. and Peters, P. (2001) ‘Maps, metaphors, and meanings: boundary struggles and village forest use on private and state land in Malawi’, Society and Natural Resources 14: 411–24.Google Scholar
Woodman, G. R. (1996) Customary Land Law in Ghanaian Courts. Accra: Ghana University Press.Google Scholar