ABSTRACT
The question of gender and land reform in sub-Saharan Africa is framed by competing discourses and policy processes. One discussion concerns the ongoing food security crises on the continent. Another is the familiar theme of market-based versus state-backed redistributionist reforms. A third concerns individual versus collective land titles. In African contexts, the ‘collective’ usually refers to land administered under traditional authorities in lineage-based systems rather than to collective farms (see Chapters 4 to 6). 1 The present chapter concentrates on the southern African case studies of Zimbabwe and South Africa. The dramatic example of Zimbabwe indicates some of the pitfalls as well as possibilities of land reform within what is to date, the largest scheme in Africa. The chapter also explores the conundrums thrown up in contemporary debates over gender, land, and land titling elsewhere, using the examples of Tanzania and Mozambique.
