ABSTRACT
In tropical sub-Saharan Africa, up to 90 per cent of all farm land is held under communal tenure, notionally under the authority of chiefs (Chimhowu and Woodhouse 2006). This does not mean that individuals lack strong rights to defined areas, nor does it mean that there are no major inequalities. Nonetheless, except in southern Africa the major modern events discussed in the rural literature have not been conflicts over land as in Latin America; they have been about the diversification of labour inputs and sources of income. Colonialism began this diversification, with its inescapable demands for tax, export commodities and labour. Diversification went much further in the late colonial and early independence period, and then was dramatically accelerated under the ‘structural adjustment’ policies imposed in the 1980s and 1990s.
