Social meaning and material constraints of land scarcity in Northern Namibia (ILMI Working Paper No. 13)

Abstract

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.