Browsing by Author "Nghitevelekwa, Romie"

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    Communal land
    (Namibia University of Science and Technology, Integrated Land Management Institute, 2018) Nghitevelekwa, Romie
    Communal land is one of the land tenure systems in Namibia, the other being freehold land tenure system. At independence in 1990,Namibia resolved to retain communal land on the basis that majority of the population derived their livelihoods from communal land.Notwithstanding the increasing urban population in the country since independence, the majority of the Namibian population still lives in the communal areas, and many of the urban-based population continue to have close relations in rural areas. Similarly, while sources of livelihoods in the communal areas have been diversified, communal land continues to serve as an important basis of people’s livelihoods.
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    Social meaning and material constraints of land scarcity in Northern Namibia (ILMI Working Paper No. 13)
    (Integrated Land Management Institute, Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2021-03) Bloemertz, Lena; Nghitevelekwa, Romie; Prudat, Brice; Weidmann, Laura; Dobler, Gregor; Graefe, Olivier; Kuhn, Nikolaus J.
    The paper scrutinizes perceptions of and discourses about scarcity of land in northern Namibia in order to show the multiple meanings that land has for the population. It is based on two years of fieldwork, and brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on why people argue that land is scare. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the meaning of land in a rapidly changing setting, in which demands for land are changing and diversified. Furthermore, new land uses have come into play, and subsistence agriculture is no longer the mainstay of livelihoods, but one of the many sources. We argue for a more nuanced concept of scarcity of land, in order to acknowledge the different meanings of access to land to different people and to improve land policies.