*4.3. Land Tenure Security and Psycho-Ontological Security*

A third pathway through which land tenure security connects with health is the psychological security afforded by security over land. Land tenure security contributes to improved health and well-being through two mechanisms: first, by allowing people to have a secure home, it allows some degree of ontological security. Second, it reduces stress associated with insecure tenure and frequent relocations [115]. Land tenure insecurity undermines the ontological security pertaining to the deep psychological need that all human beings have for a home or other locale to operate as a site of constancy, routine, and control in their lives [116]. Thus, the confidence of a person in the continuity of their self-identity and the constancy of the surrounding social and material environments of action [117]. On the contrary, secure tenure commands prestige, autonomy, and protection, which affect the individual's mental state and health. Mental health effects of tenure

are not only related to the patterns of stress and anxiety associated with insecurity; the instability of tenure over a reasonable period also means that there is a regular fracturing of social ties and networks which affects a person's psychological being [47]. Insecurity of tenure is detrimental to the sense of stability and belonging of individuals. People who make multiple transitions due to instability of tenure are observed to show worse mental health outcomes as psychological distress increases with the number of transitions [118]. Literature generally supports the notion that homeownership is associated with better psychological health as it offers greater feelings of security compared with other forms of tenure [78,119–122] which are characterized by lack of control and threats of eviction. Owning a home reduces depressive symptoms. Park et al. [55] posit that compared with homeowners, renters are more likely to have depressive symptoms and poor selfrated health. This is mediated by the health effects of housing unaffordability which was observed among renters. Gentrification and residential displacements due to high rents exerts psychological stressors, which affect a person's mental health. A study showed that women who reported depressive symptoms attributed their health circumstances to high mobility, eviction, and problems paying rent [123]. While these studies limit tenure to ownership and leasehold, they agree in their stance that the security and control offered by ownership and the instability associated with rental housing is the distinguishing feature of tenure that affects the psychological health of owners and renters differently. As observed in the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, a tenure regularization project led to a downward trend in stress-related homicides in regularized slums, compared to the non-regularized slum settlements [124]. Similarly, a study of migrant populations in urban China indicated that persons with informal tenure have the highest level of perceived stress and worse mental health compared to their counterparts with formal tenure [125]. All these findings suggest that land tenure insecurity predispose holders of such volatile rights to psychosocial distress and diminishing ontological security. Although the literature has dominantly emphasized on homeownership and rental which are forms of tenure [78,119,120,122], it shrouds the nuances of tenure especially in developing country contexts where focus is put on individual land access rather than mortgage and investor supplied housing. Hence, it is relevant to investigate these linkages in different contexts where socio-cultural dynamics present multiple forms of tenure along the tenure continuum.
