Immigration, land transfer and tenure changes in Divo, Ivory Coast, 1940–80

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThe relationship between land tenure forms and the twentieth-century transformation of agriculture throughout much of Africa from a strong subsistence to a market orientation – and from food crop production to predominantly export crop production – is a topic of great importance both to Africanists and to policy-makers. From a scholarly perspective, contemporary Africa presents an unusual opportunity to study dramatic changes in land use and especially in land tenure, similar to changes which took place in other parts of the world as commercial farming developed. From a policy-maker's point of view, too, the current shift in land tenure has major implications for possible government measures affecting security of tenure and land distribution – and, in turn, patterns of agricultural investment, productivity and output.