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Customary Transfers and Land Sales in Côte d'Ivoire: Revisiting the Embeddedness Issue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Jean-Pierre Chauveau  and
Jean-Philippe Colin
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Abstract

The article offers an empirical perspective regarding customary land sales in Côte d'Ivoire, focusing on their socio-political embeddedness as well as on the implications of such processes for the content of the rights and duties transferred. Two interlinked aspects of land transfers, which usually come together in African contexts, are to be taken into account: rights and obligations regarding land access and control (‘the land resource dimension’), and rights and obligations regarding group membership, and more generally the socio-political dimensions that condition the social recognition and effectiveness of the transfer of land rights (‘the socio-political dimension’). These two dimensions are empirically explored, together with the processes of their connection and possible disconnection/reconnection. We show that the diverging interpretations of land transfers, from emic as well as from etic viewpoints, do not necessarily correspond to mutually exclusive explanatory models, or to a simple transition phase from customary to ‘pure’ market land transfers. Access to land may become commoditized without extinguishing the socio-political dimension of land transactions. Another point is that the articulation of these two dimensions of land transfers is a specific and always contextualized issue. This has direct consequences on the legitimacy of land transfers as well as on the security of the stranger right holder within the local community and more generally on the politicization of land issue.

L'article offre une perspective empirique des ventes de terres coutumières en Côte d'Ivoire, en s'intéressant à leur enchâssement sociopolitique et aux implications de tels processus pour le contenu des droits et des obligations transférés. Il prend en compte deux aspects interconnectés des transferts de terres, généralement réunis dans des contextes africains : d'une part les droits et les obligations impliqués dans l'accès à la terre et son contrôle (« la dimension ressource foncière »), et d'autre part les droits et les obligations impliqués dans l'appartenance à un groupe, et plus généralement les dimensions sociopolitiques qui conditionnent la reconnaissance sociale et le caractère effectif du transfert des droits fonciers («la dimension sociopolitique»). L'article explore ces deux dimensions de manière empirique, ainsi que les processus afférents à leur connexion et leur déconnexion/reconnexion possible. Il montre que les interprétations divergentes des transferts de terres, tant du point de vue émique que du point de vue étique, ne correspondent pas nécessairement à des modèles explicatifs mutuellement exclusifs, ni à une simple phase de transition d'un transfert coutumier à un transfert de marché « pur ». Une marchandisation de l'accès à la terre peut survenir sans effacer la dimension sociopolitique des transactions foncières. D'autre part, l'articulation de ces deux dimensions du transfert de terres est un sujet spécifique qui s'inscrit toujours dans un contexte. Il en découle des conséquences directes sur la légitimité des transferts de terres, ainsi que sur la sécurité du titulaire de droit étranger au sein de la communauté locale et, plus généralement, sur la politisation de la question foncière.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 80 , Special Issue 1: Interpreting Land Markets in Africa , February 2010 , pp. 81 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2010

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