ABSTRACT
Contests over property reflect and shape relationships betweenpeople over a period of time, as much as they do between people and resources.1 They also reflect competing representations of these relationships and notions of the ‘community’ in specific politicaleconomic contexts (Li, 1996). Women occupy a disadvantaged position in terms of property rights within traditional social structures, and as a result, in contexts of scarcity, their rights are likely to be the first to be challenged. But the claims for women’s rights to landed property also represent the struggles over institutions, status, identities, roles, rules and practices, not just between men and women, but between different groups of men as well.
