Masters of tradition: customary land tenure and new forms of social inequality in a Vanuatu peasantry

Abstract

The persistence of customary land tenure in a cash‐cropping context is giving rise to new forms of social inequality that masquerade as perquisites of traditional preeminence in Longana, Vanuatu. This paper examines the processes through which a few customary landholders were able to create relatively large coconut plantations in the 1930s, and the ways in which some of their heirs have maintained these holdings, emerging as wealthy individuals who are beginning to follow copra production and investment strategies that increasingly differentiate them from smaller landholders. A flexible system of customary land tenure has both legitimized the actions of such individuals and obscured the new consequences of following tradition. [land tenure, social inequality, differentiation in peasantries, copra, Melanesia]