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POINTING TO PROPERTY: COLONIALISM AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LAND TENURE IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2013

Steven Pierce
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Abstract

Colonial contact created many African ‘traditions’ that are in fact novel; part of this process involved translation, in which cultural accommodations were determined not just by the political interests of negotiators but by the challenges of moving between languages and conceptual universes. This article focuses on the cultural translation of land tenure and property in colonial northern Nigeria, as legal paradigms and principles of governance. Beginning in the early colonial period, Western paradigms came to shape the ways colonial authorities understood indigenous landholding, which in turned influenced how they governed small-scale farmers. The article traces how different intellectual traditions came together to create a ‘traditional’ system of land tenure with very little purchase on past practices, and a somewhat attenuated relationship with the lives of ordinary farmers.

Résumé

Le contact colonial a créé de nombreuses « traditions » africaines qui sont en fait nouvelles ; une partie de ce processus mettait en jeu l'acte de traduction, dans lequel les accommodements culturels étaient déterminés non seulement par les intérêts politiques des négociateurs, mais aussi par la difficulté de passer d'une langue à une autre, et d'un univers conceptuel à un autre. Cet article traite de la traduction culturelle du foncier et de la propriété dans le Nord du Nigeria colonial, en tant que paradigmes juridiques et principes de gouvernance. Dès le début de la période coloniale, les paradigmes occidentaux ont modelé la manière dont les pouvoirs coloniaux comprenaient la propriété foncière indigène, influençant par là-même leur manière de gouverner les petits exploitants. L'article retrace les différentes traditions intellectuelles et la manière dont elles se sont articulées pour créer un système foncier « traditionnel » qui s'appuie très peu sur les anciennes pratiques et a un lien plutôt ténu avec la vie des agriculteurs ordinaires.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 83 , Special Issue 1: Land Politics in Africa: Constituting Authority over Territory, Property and Persons , February 2013 , pp. 142 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2013

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