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155 Chapter Five Practices and legitimation in peri-urban land transactions Introduction In this chapter I will narrate everyday practices, if perceived as ways of operating, in peri-urban land transactions. As peri-urban customary land is no longer perceived as embodying use values only but also exchange values, access rights and rights to sell it are often subject to perpetual negotiation. I will pay attention to three thematic areas, namely: who is entitled to sell land, sale agreements, and the signing or legitimation fee (gift). These aspects relate to two domains of social action. The first aspect (who is entitled to sell land) is structured along norms actors refer to, use or upon which claims are made, but also represent ideal relations. In other words, it details the basic principles that have basis in acceptable customary values. The other two related to the actions and practices some or all the actors perform or are expected to perform from time to time in any given land transactions. These fall into the category of social practices. This chapter shows that sometimes social practices are not always structured in terms of the normative expectations; even though behind every social practice involved in peri-urban land transactions there is a structure or set of principles by which particular practices can be explained, legitimated and sometimes defended and predetermined. For some reasons the actors appear to be followers of rules while also operating as makers of choices at other points. Eventually, practical considerations appear to be the reason for or cause of action. Yet, looking at it through the practices it becomes evident that there are schemes of meaning-rules and normative expectations. In practice a ‘gift’ follows or is contingent on the signing of the written sale agreement by the customary holder of the traditional rank of village headman. The question is to what degree is this form of reciprocity sanctioned by custom. The discourse on the signing fee, its material and symbolic value in particular, will be followed by an overview of the process of applying for lease by which customary rights in land are extinguished once leasing such land converts it from customary to private land. Noteworthy is the fact that ‘customary land’ exists as a legal category side by side with public land and private land. This normativity in 156 the legal framework becomes, of course, visible in the practices of the actors. Here a gift takes two different forms: a gift to a traditional leader of significant rank and extra-legal payment to state officials. I will focus on the principles and practices, but also the contradictions; and in doing so proceed to demonstrate at a certain level of abstraction how custom serves as a means of inclusion, exclusion and of legitimation in peri-urban land transactions. Group membership and peri-urban land Even though land is considered a commodity, the customary notions about descent, communal ownership and matrilineal inheritance have not disappeared from the consciousness of many peri-urban villagers. Also, one of the important parameters in peri-urban land transactions is the disproportionate predominance of young men as land sellers; though it might not be correct to say that young women, older men and older women are not involved. The previous chapter has shown this relationship clearly. However, the young men happen to be those who meet membership norms, that is, the standards for including or excluding any person within a group or social position (cf. Cancian 1975:3) on the basis of descent. The young men are sometimes prominent as fronts. Women (mothers, sisters, aunts or grandmothers) are sometimes in the background, but in fact the force behind a decision to sale land and oftentimes principal price setters. Hence, even where women might be invisible their views on land transactions are not virtually muted. There are also some transactions in which women have generally and visibly been in charge of the process. The first transaction encountered relates to the old woman I was introduced to by one of her grandsons. In another transaction the young woman who coincidentally divorced her husband two months into my fieldwork and got remarried two months before the end of my fieldwork also sold land located behind her house just a month before getting remarried to the man who contributed to the collapse of her previous marriage. Several other transactions involving single and divorced women and widows reselling land acquired jointly with the deceased husband have been described in the previous...

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