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PERI-URBAN LAND TRANSACTIONS Everyday Practices and Relations in Peri-urban Blantyre, Malawi IGNASIO MALIZANI JIMU PERI-URBAN LAND TRANSACTIONS Everyday Practices and Relations inPeri-urban Blantyre, Malawi I GNASIO M ALIZANI J IMU Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon “THE STUDY CHALLENGES CONVENTIONAL IDEAS OF VALUE IN STUDIES OF CUSTOMARY LAND IN AFRICA….SYMBOLS OF LEGITIMATION AND UNEASY ARTICULATION OF TRADITION AND MODERNITY ARE A KEY DIMENSION OF THIS STUDY.” FRANCIS B. NYAMNJOH, PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA “JIMU’S UNDERSTANDING OF LAND TRANSACTIONS AS A PRACTICE THAT PRODUCES ITS OWN SOCIAL SPACE AND CREATES ITS OWN NORMATIVITY IS CERTAINLY A CHALLENGE TO MORE CONVENTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS.” PROFESSOR TILL FÖRSTER, INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF BASEL, SWITZERLAND This book explores the changing land relations in the peri-urban villages of Blantyre in Malawi. It questions and debates how and why the peri-urban villages have become the locus of the selling and buying of customary land, the practices and also the relations involved. The book provides rich ethnographic insights on the commodification of land relations, custom, practices, disputes and social relations between land sellers, land buyers, traditional leaders, and intermediaries. The transactions draw strength from the growing peri-urbanization and monetization of social relations, both of which push towards land decisions at family and individual levels. Bigger groups like the village, clan or extended family have minimal, if not symbolic role only. Village headmen benefit materially by taking gifts (signing fee) rationalized by custom on reciprocity, while estate agents claim commission. Numerous constraints are negotiated about the ownership, rights to sale, multiple selling and the use and sharing of land money. Peri-urban land transactions offer scope for examining a wider range of social and economic relations, and the subtle ways in which the state infiltrates the everyday lives of actors. Overtime, the practices reproduce but also transform land relations in significant but less appreciated ways. IGNASIO MALIZANI JIMU received his PhD from Universität Basel, Switzerland, in 2011. Prior to that he received the Master of Arts in Development Studies (University of Botswana) and a Bachelor of Education (University of Malawi). He is author of Urban Appropriation and Transformation (Langaa 2008), several journal articles and book chapters on development theory and practice, among others. Since 2009 he has held the position of associate professor of geography in Mzuzu University, where he serves as head of department. ...

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