Vernacular Land Markets and the Changing Face of Customary Land Tenure in Africa

Contemporary discourse on land in Africa suggest that customary or ‘communal’ tenure is the only check against freehold market-induced landlessness among the poor in the African countryside, and that ‘pro-poor’ land policy should therefore strengthen customary rights to land. This article draws on a growing body of evidence on the emergence of vernacular rural land sales and rental markets to question assumptions that underlie the non-market ‘ideal type’ communal tenure model that has historically dominated policy thinking in Africa. It argues that recognition of the specific characteristics of ‘vernacular land markets’—market-based transfers of land under customary tenure—is essential if state land policies are to succeed in promoting the interests of the poor.