Securing Land Rights. Communal land reform in Namibia, by Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa

Securing Land Rights. Communal land reform in Namibia, by Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa. University of Namibia Press. Namibia, Windhoek 2020. ISBN 9789991642628 / ISBN 978-99916-42-62-8

Securing Land Rights. Communal land reform in Namibia, by Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa, is a result of doctoral research conducted between 2013 and 2017, and deals with communal land and tenure reform in north-central Namibia's communal areas.

Tenure reform is part of communal land reform, a process that aims to secure land rights on communal land. I analyse the implications of tenure reform for people's lived realities and social equity in terms of access to land and rights over land under the customary tenure system. My aim was to explore and examine people's lived experiences of communal land reform, and the changes resulting from the different restructuring processes that are underway. The book enters Namibia's scholarly landscape at a time when land reform is a strategic topic. Communal land and its reform need critical reflection, since the majority of Namibia's population depends on communal land in one way or another, and the demand for communal land for difife mt purposes continues to increase. Field research presented in this book was undertaken between 2013 and 2017. The key research participants were land users, landholders, traditional authorities, members of the Communal Land Boards, officials of the then Ministry of Land Reform1 at central and regional levels, and experts in the land sector. Data were collected through various avenues, including village meetings and events, district meetings, Communal Land Board meetings, through informant interviews, informal discussions, semi-structured interviews, questionnaire-based surveys, observation, and participant observation. To understand the status of customary tenure systems, land use, security of tenure and the implications of communal land reform, documentary analysis was also imperative to examine historical settings and circumstances that inform contemporary practices. In his book, titled Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in Literature, Ngugi wa Thiong'o states that work, any work, even literary creative work, is not the result of an individual genius but the result of a collective effort. There are so many inputs in the actual formation of an image, an idea, a line of argument and even sometimes the formal arrangements. The very words we use are a product of a collective history. So, too, is the present work. The empirical evidence is extensive and original and provides a nuanced understanding of what is a complex and dynamic communal tenure system and clearer insights into the challenges which confront the current land reform programme in north-central Namibia. Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Namibia. She obtained her PhD in Social Anthropology from the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Germany). [...]

This is an excerpt from Securing Land Rights. Communal land reform in Namibia, by Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa.

Title: Securing Land Rights
Subtitle: Communal land reform in Namibia
Author: Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa
Publisher: University of Namibia Press
Namibia, Windhoek 2020
ISBN 9789991642628 / ISBN 978-99916-42-62-8
Softcover, 17 x 24 cm, 164 pages, several b/w and colour photographs and tables