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Publication: Turning Land into Money. Land, Inequality and Reforms in Namibia

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In their article, Luregn Lenggenhager, Lena Bloemert and Romie Nghitevelekwa show how past and present developments in Namibia created opportunities to make money out of land, leading to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few.

Abstract

This paper shows how land and wealth are linked in Namibia. His­tor­i­cal ex­am­ples of how white, com­mer­cial landown­ers used favourable eco­nomic, legal, and po­lit­i­cal con­di­tions to make profit from land show how this ac­cu­mu­la­tion of cap­i­tal has been, to this day, a hin­drance to a more equal so­ci­ety. Since Namibia’s in­de­pen­dence in 1990, new and di­verse ways of as­sign­ing value to land have also emerged on com­mu­nal land in cir­cum­stances of grow­ing mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion. In short, we will show how past and pre­sent de­vel­op­ments in Namibia cre­ated op­por­tu­ni­ties to make money out of land, lead­ing to the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of wealth in the hands of a few.

Luregn Lenggenhager, Lena Bloemertz, Romie Nghitevelekwa (2021), "Turning Land into Money Land, Inequality and Reforms in Namibia," Review of Agrarian Studies, vol. 11, no. 1.