Critical Insights on Tenure Security in the Global South

Interventions carried out in the name of development are typically guided by theories of change, “a structured set of assumptions regarding how an intervention works (or is expected to work) and how it influences (or is expected to influence) processes of change” (Vaessen 2016). Yet these theories often fail to hold up against the evidence, rest on ontological assumptions that are deeply situated (historically, culturally) rather than universal, and often mask the real underlying agendas driving change. In the land governance arena, “tenure (in)security” is perhaps the key concept animating a suite of recent interventions, from legislative changes to land titling campaigns, new voluntary codes of conduct, performance metrics, and related flows of funding and claims to expertise. Yet the questions of what exactly tenure security is, and whether interventions in its name have yielded the outcomes promised (and to whom the costs and benefits flow), remain contested in spite of development discourses that tend to render these things as settled facts.

This Special Issue will take a critical look at the assumptions driving land governance interventions in the Global South, with a focus on the ideas and practices surrounding tenure (in)security; the impacts these ideas generate for the purported beneficiaries; and other interests advanced and undermined in the process. Current papers explore theories of change guiding land governance interventions; the impacts of land titling campaigns on conflict, poverty and productivity; the consequences of the effective coupling of titling, collateralization and credit; gendered securities; and the ontological assumptions underlying dominant notions of tenure security and other ways of conceiving of security that are obscured in the process. We welcome additional theoretical papers, case studies and comparative work that draw on any of the relevant strands of critical social and economic theory: coloniality/decolonization; critical agrarian, development and legal studies; feminist and queer theory; ontological anthropology; political economy; heterodox economic theory; and others.  Papers that dig below the surface, illustrate connections to the real agendas driving change, and/or interrogate fundamental questions surrounding security (what it is, and whose security is being advanced) are particularly welcome, as are contributions from academics from the Global South.

It should be noted that waivers or partial waivers of the publication fees will be available to papers from institutions from the Global South.

Prof. Dr. Laura German
Prof. Dr. Howard Stein
Guest Editors

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