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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Swazi Traditional Land Tenure Systems and Their Obstacles to Economic Development |
Author: | Sikhondze, Bonginkosi A.B. |
Year: | 1994 |
Periodical: | Transafrican Journal of History (ISSN 0251-0391) |
Volume: | 23 |
Pages: | 69-80 |
Language: | English |
Notes: | biblio. refs., ills. |
Geographic terms: | Swaziland - Eswatini Southern Africa |
Subjects: | traditional rulers customary law land law Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Development and Technology Economics and Trade Economics, Commerce land tenure economic development Tradition history |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/24520270 |
Abstract: | Swazi traditional institutions have had an adverse effect on the economic development of Swaziland. Customary land tenure systems in particular have frustrated projects that could have boosted the economic development of the country. Swazi chiefs have been noted for their efforts to preserve the status quo in land allocation. Chiefs and their councils frustrated prosperous cultivators by reducing the amount of land allocated to them, and by preventing the privatization of landholdings. They sanctioned the enclosure of land and opposed the construction of passable roads. These policies were carried out under the pretext that progress would lead to the contamination of Swazi culture. This article deals with the period from 1894, when the ox-drawn plough was introduced in Swaziland, which led to the expansion of land cultivated by each family, up to World War II, when it became apparent that chiefs would lose the fight with enterprising cultivators. Ref., sum. |