The reorganisation of rural space in Rwanda: Habitat concentration, land consolidation, and collective marshland cultivation
(2014) Everyday Forms of Land Grabbing in the Great Lakes Region of Africa — published
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- Abstract
- The chapter by An Ansoms, Giuseppe Cioffo, Chris Huggins and Jude Murison, (‘The reorganisation of rural space in Rwanda: Habitat concentration, land consolidation, and collective marshland cultivation’), builds upon the analysis of Huggins’ chapter. It further explores the influence of land use regulation policies on land rights and livelihoods of smallholder farmers living in the rural setting. The vision of the Rwandan government is to promote a professional, market-driven and efficient agricultural sector, which requires a reorganization of human habitat, land tenure, and cultivation systems. The government is putting in place the legal foundations and is building a capacity to implement these policies. However, these ambitions are at contrast with current Rwandan habitat patterns of scattered homesteads across the country’s hillside, and with practices of most smallholders, oriented towards risk reduction, for example through cultivating multiple crops, and through exploiting multiple plots. The government’s policy suits a small group of larger, wealthier farmers who often belong to the local elite, but the possibilities for most smallholders are shrinking in the growing space of ‘modernity’. As a result, the outcome of land use regulation policies is similar to more straightforward cases of involuntary land transfers: smallholders losing access to land and join a class of unskilled labourers in a context of limited rural and urban employment opportunities.
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Citations
Ansoms, A., Cioffo, G., Huggins, C., & Murison, J. (2014). The reorganisation of rural space in Rwanda: Habitat concentration, land consolidation, and collective marshland cultivation. In Ansoms, An and Hilhorst, Thea (ed.), Everyday Forms of Land Grabbing in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. James Currey. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/60700