Whose land is it anyway? An historical examination of land tenure and agriculture in northern Jordan

The way land is held profoundly affects agricultural practice. For farmers in northern Jordan, land tenure is a central factor affecting contemporary crop and animal management. Older farmers often contrast practices associated with the former pattern of communal agricultural landholding, under the system of mushā ‘, with contemporary practices associated with the system of individual title. In the last 150 years, northern Jordan has been a part of Ottoman Greater Syria, British-mandated Transjordan and now, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Each regime has implemented land reforms, with the most far reaching brought in by the Ottomans and the British. Each reform has implications for agricultural practice.