Abstract
AbstractMotivationIn Cameroon, most land earmarked for allocation to foreign investors is communally owned. The state, however, considers such land as “empty” or “underutilized”—a faulty designation that confers upon the Cameroonian state and state representatives sweeping authority to allocate lands to potential investors without full consultation with communities whose livelihoods depend on them.PurposeThe article addresses the following questions: who are traditional authorities in the context of Cameroon? What is their place in the complex dynamics of neopatrimonial governance, and how does this influence their allegiance to state versus the people they ought to represent? How do they collaborate to enable state actions during land grabbing against their people?Methods and approachThe study is based on interviews, group discussions, and field observations conducted as part of a larger project on land grabbing in Cameroon; and supplemented with secondary sources through critical reading of published and unpublished scholarly and technical sources, including reports from national non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Nature Cameroon as well as Green Peace, the World Bank, and other bodies.FindingsIt argues that land grabbing in Cameroon should be understood as an outcome of the state’s strategic and/or opportunistic choice, within a neopatrimonial dispensation, to enforce its political power over land and related resources. Local traditional authorities paradoxically play the role of state facilitators in the process, rather than serving as custodians of the populations they represent.Policy implicationsThe article concludes that such pernicious land acquisition would not have been successful without the active collaboration of traditional authorities (so‐called state enablers) who act as “brokers” and facilitators of land deals—sometimes using threats, intimidation, and force on villagers. There is a need for policies to tackle the accountability problems arising from the ambivalent role that local traditional authorities play in Cameroon’s neopatrimonial order—doubly serving as de facto representatives of local peoples, and at the same time as proxy enablers of large‐scale land acquisition.
Highlights
Many studies investigating large-scale land acquisition (LSLA), a form of “land grabbing” in countries across the African continent have addressed the purpose, magnitude, and pace of this phenomenon, emphasizing its impacts on rural livelihoods, the social relations of community life, and changing agrarian structures (Anseeuw, 2013; Borras et al, 2010; Cotula et al, 2014; Hall et al, 2015; Moreda, 2017)
In the event of land loss that causes dispossession, the greatest impacts are felt by the actual land users (Cotula et al, 2014; De Schutter, 2012). This is a common tragedy experienced by many rural communities in the South-West Region of Cameroon under complex political economic processes of land ownership, management, and control—a reality further compounded by the fact that some local traditional authorities and local elites, who should serve as protectors of aggrieved and victimized populations, instead serve as proxies of the predatory political and economic forces that oppress them (Wanki & Ndi, 2019)
In the face of land grabbing in Africa, agents of Cameroon’s neopatrimonial state have made the strategic and/or opportunistic choice to maximize the pecuniary gains that foreign agro-capitalists brandish, sacrificing the rights of poor marginal communities to fully access land
Summary
Many studies investigating large-scale land acquisition (LSLA), a form of “land grabbing” (for plantation agriculture, mining, timber extraction, and conservation purposes, etc.) in countries across the African continent have addressed the purpose, magnitude, and pace of this phenomenon, emphasizing its impacts on rural livelihoods, the social relations of community life, and changing agrarian structures (Anseeuw, 2013; Borras et al, 2010; Cotula et al, 2014; Hall et al, 2015; Moreda, 2017). In the event of land loss that causes dispossession, the greatest impacts are felt by the actual land users (Cotula et al, 2014; De Schutter, 2012) This is a common tragedy experienced by many rural communities in the South-West Region of Cameroon under complex political economic processes of land ownership, management, and control—a reality further compounded by the fact that some local traditional authorities and local elites, who should serve as protectors of aggrieved and victimized populations, instead serve as proxies of the predatory political and economic forces that oppress them (Wanki & Ndi, 2019). These distinctions are less associated with the cultural stature linked with the functional role of traditional authorities, rather they are concerned with the alignment of their demonstrated allegiances either in support of local peoples’ interests (called “protector traditional authorities”) or in support of the interests of the state/foreign investors (pejoratively described by communities as “enablers”). They are often wrongly chastised and marginalized by political patrons from Yaoundé or local administrative
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