The Privatisation of Indigenous Land Tenure and the Future of African Indigenous Law

This book examines the future of Indigenous law in Africa in connection with the legislative privatisation of Indigenous land tenure in Africa. It seeks to determine whether this privatisation has destroyed, altered, amended, or improved Indigenous law through a legislative process that has been a source of relief, controversy, concern, and frustration. The central question it addresses is: What remains of Indigenous law in the wake of this privatisation?

The book highlights Africa’s multiple legal regimes and the need to constantly question the future of these diverse legal orders, particularly Indigenous law, which paradoxically represents the majority legal order yet remains subordinate to state law and practice, even in African states that have constitutionalised indigenous law. It argues for reimagining multi-stakeholder-managed land tenure as part of the search for a moral order – a search that Indigenous African communities should continue to pursue, guided by the norms of solidarity, care, compassion, and sustenance evident in the relationships nurtured in property relations.