Items related to Chiefs Know Their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power,...
Chiefs Know Their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power, and the Past in Asante, 1896-1996 / Sara S. Berry. (Social History of Africa) - Hardcover
Synopsis
Using a series of local episodes and case histories, the essays in this volume explore changes and continuities in the ways people have made and exercised claims on land in Asante, Ghana, during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Convinced that customary rules and rulers provided a stable foundation for colonial rule, British officials decided early on that ownership of the land was vested in Asante chiefs. As land values rose, due to urban expansion and the growth of commercial agriculture, mining, and timber, struggles intensified not only over land and land-based income, but also over the meaning of "custom" and its relevance to the colonial order. As claims on land multiplied, so too did debates over the scope of chiefly authority and jurisdiction, and the meaning of historical precedents for contemporary claims to land and office. Although postcolonial Ghanaian governments have legislated sweeping reductions in the scope of chiefly authority and customary law, most land in Asante remains subject to multiple, overlapping claims and continued debate.
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Review
A fascinating study of Africa's legal, political and economic modernity ... a rich enquiry into the ways in which the constant re-interpretation of history is crucial to a definition of what constitutes ownership of land. --International Affairs
Synopsis
Drawing upon her fieldwork in 1993 in Kumase, Ghana, Berry (history and anthropology, Johns Hopkins U.) examines the changes in the way people in the Asante region have made and exercised claims on land since the end of the 19th century. The text also explores broader issues of property in Africa, its relationship to authority, and its place in the
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- PublisherHeinemann Educational Books,U.S.
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0325070032
- ISBN 13 9780325070032
- BindingHardcover
- LanguageEnglish
- Number of pages226
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