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Abstract
The new-yet-old phenomenon of ‘land grabbing’ is often characterized in media and NGO reports as an unstoppable tidal wave hitting the African continent. Yet, as Anna Tsing reminds us, global power rarely operates without friction (2005). From the negotiation of deals that give investors access to land, to its transformation for use in large-scale agribusiness or mining operations, the process of ‘grabbing land’ is rarely unilinear and always historically situated. While some land investments materialize, others run into crisis. In April of 2013, a deal was struck between government elites and a Saudi businessman over customary land in Um Doum – a peri-urban community in central Sudan – that had been utilized by local families for generations. Community members immediately mobilized against the deal using civil disobedience tactics and media advocacy, forcing government officials to reverse the land deal and to initiate negotiations aimed at locally redistributing the land through registration and titling. Despite the apparent success of this resistance to a large-scale land deal, this article argues that the subsequent programme of land titling nevertheless represented the extension of state control over land tenure and generated profound change in gendered and ethnic social relations and land values. As such, the Um Doum negotiations served to restructure, rather than reverse, the process of land dispossession. It concludes that even when large-scale land deals are renegotiated in favour of those dispossessed, it is important to consider the ways in which ‘negotiability’ in land rights (Peters, 2004) can benefit elites and exacerbate existing social divisions by intensifying forms of inequality in land access.
Le nouveau-et-pourtant-ancien phénomène d’ ‘expropriation des terres’ est souvent caractérisé dans les medias et dans les rapports d’ONG comme une vague de courant inéluctable qui touche le continent africain. Et pourtant, Anna Tsing nous le rappelle, le pouvoir mondial opère rarement sans friction (2005). De négociations d’accords qui donnent accès aux terres à des investisseurs, à la transformation de celles-ci pour des entreprises agricoles à grande échelle ou des opérations minières, le processus d’ ‘expropriation des terres’ est rarement unilinéaire et toujours historiquement situé. Tandis que certains investissements fonciers se matérialisent, d’autres sont confrontés à des crises. En avril 2013, un accord a eu lieu entre des élites gouvernementales et un homme d’affaire saoudien concernant des droits fonciers coutumiers à Um Doum – communauté péri-urbaine du centre du Soudan – terres qui avaient été utilisées par des familles locales depuis des générations. Des membres de la communauté se sont immédiatement mobilisés contre l’accord en utilisant des tactique de désobéissance civile et des campagnes médiatiques, en forçant des responsables gouvernementaux à revenir en arrière sur l’accord foncier et initier des négociations visant à redistribuer les terres localement à travers des enregistrements et des titularisations. Malgré le succès apparent de cette résistance à l’accord foncier de grande échelle, cet article soutient que le programme foncier ultérieur de titularisation des terres a néanmoins constitué une extension du pouvoir étatique sur les droits fonciers et a généré un changement profond des relations sexospécifiques et ethniques sociales et des valeurs foncières. Ainsi, les négociations d’Um Doum ont servi à la restructuration, plutôt qu’à un retour en arrière, du processus de dépossession des terres. Il conclut que même lorsque des accords fonciers de grande échelle sont renégociés en faveur de ceux qui font l’objet d’expropriations, il est important d’examiner les façons dont la ‘négociabilité’ des droits fonciers (Peters 2004) peuvent profiter aux élites et exacerber les divisions sociales existantes en intensifiant les formes d’inégalité de l’accès aux terres.
Acknowledgements
I thank Dr Cherry Leonardi and Adrian Browne for organizing the 2017 workshop entitled Valuing Land in Eastern Africa at Durham University and am grateful for the invaluable feedback I received from them and from the other participants in the workshop. In particular, I would like to thank Dr Catherine Boone and Dr Ambreena Manji for their comments and guidance. I also thank Dr James Ferguson and Dr Noah Salomon for their feedback and support. I am profoundly grateful and indebted to everyone, particularly those in Sudan who made this research possible.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The term ‘Awlad Um Doum’ meaning sons of Um Doum was often used in casual conversations interchangeably with the term ‘Nas Um Doum’, meaning people of Um Doum and ‘Ashab al Ard’ meaning owners of the land by long-term residents of Um Doum to denote and claim first-comer status in relation to newcomers like the Ahamda, but also in relation to outsiders such as investors and real estate agents. (See Munzoul Assal’s use of the term ‘Ashab al Ard’ in Assal [Citation2015].)
2 Interviews conducted with government officials from the Ministry of Investment in July and August of 2013.
3 A towb is a ‘woman’s garment, a six yard piece of cloth covering head to ankle’ (Bernal Citation1991, 206) and the national dress.
4 I use the term Arab here and throughout the article with caution to acknowledge how the Ahamda self-identify, rather than to denote a homogenous group identity with fixed boundaries. I also use quotation marks around the term to point to an ongoing, century-old process of Arabization or Tar’ib (Sharkey Citation2009, 21) within an ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous context. In Sudan’s post-colonial period Tar’ib turned into a ‘political project imposed from above’ (Khalid Citation2009) marking and constructing ‘Arab’ identity as political rather than cultural. For a nuanced discussion and problematizing of the term Arab (and tribe) within the context of Western and Southern Sudan see (Hassan and Ray Citation2009) as well as (Ruay Citation1994).
5 To distinguish between the Ahamda neighbourhood and the rest of Um Doum, I will call the latter Um Doum West.
6 Excerpt from interview conducted on 18 August 2013.
7 Several residents took me on informal walking tours as they narrated some of the historical, ecological and social changes that had occurred in the area. It is through these tours, that I was able to get a better sense of existing social divisions in the community and of people’s changing and varied uses of land.
8 I use legal in the sense that the decision was sanctioned by Sheikh al Tayib, who in addition to being a Sufi Sheikh, is also a judge. Because the land in question is customary and therefore, not officially recognized as registered, Um Doum residents were not able to take their case to an official court. As such, this victory is particularly significant because people’s right to this land was officially acknowledged by the state.
9 This category of migrant workers is often referred to as muhteribeen which Victoria Bernal argues is a gendered ‘social status and occupational category in its own right-the actual work that the person does abroad [being] secondary’ (Citation1997, 135).
10 According to the 2015 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, Foreign Direct Investment increased in anticipation of South Sudan’s secession in 2011, rising from 1.3% of the nation’s GDP in 1995 to 31.1% in 2011.
11 See Al Nilin (Citation2015).
12 Investment Conference at Rotana Hotel, Khartoum in July of 2014.
13 Text of the Investment Encouragement Act provisions.
14 The term communal or customary land does not appear in the text of the Act. Instead all land is described as national land.
15 In 2015, several Pan-Arab investment summits took place, during which Sudanese government officials discussed investment projects worth $16 billion with UAE investors and confirmed that Saudi investments in Sudan had reached $13 billion since South Sudan’s secession (Hussein Citation2016).
16 Sheikh Abdullah is the spiritual leader of one of Sudan’s opposition parties and wields considerable power within the country’s political sphere, both within but also beyond central Sudan. On occasion, he hosts gatherings of opposition leaders. For a news account of such a gathering see (The Sudan Tribune Citation2014).
17 A version of this declaration or manifesto, centred around the government’s mismanagement of the Gezira scheme and the dispossession of small farmers and land users was later printed and distributed in English and Arabic and excerpts of it were quoted in the local news and on social media. The author obtained a copy of it in August of 2014.
18 See Assal for a description of a land distribution process in Al-Salha, Khartoum that similarly required eligible land owners to ‘prove that they belonged to the Jamuiya [ethnic group] through the male line’ (Citation2015, 26).
19 Several Um Doum men who could not prove ancestral ties to Um Doum married Um Doum women who could. Some of these marriages were later annulled after those in charge of the land registration process discovered that the women were underage.
20 All interviews in this section were conducted between 27 August and 9 September 2014.
21 Excerpt from interview conducted 2 September 2014.
22 Excerpt from an interview conducted on 23 July 2013.
23 Discussion initiated by author on 5 September 2014.
24 These tents were traditionally built and owned by women out of hides and other materials found in the desert environment (Casciarri Citation2002, 40).
25 People joke that the export of oil in the 1990s filled store shelves with new and exciting goods that nobody could afford to buy.
26 Hajja literally refers to a woman who has return from pilgrimage to Mecca, but is also used as a term of respect when addressing elders.
27 Excerpt from interview conducted 28 August 2014.
28 The expression ‘Arab sai’ literally means ‘just Arabs’ but it implies backwardness and a lack of sophistication.
29 Fellata is a term used to refer to Hausa and Fulani people who are originally from Nigeria but settled in central Sudan in the 1920s and earlier to work on the Gezira agricultural scheme during colonialism, often on their way to or upon their return from Mecca. Magharba refers to a community that settled in Sudan, Libya and southern Egypt centuries ago but is said to trace their ancestry to the Nejd desert in modern day Saudi Arabia.
30 Excerpt from interview conducted 11 September 2014.
31 Excerpt from interview conducted 17 December 2016.
32 Excerpt from interview conducted 19 December 2016.
33 Excerpts from discussion initiated 17 December 2016.
34 Excerpt from interview conducted 17 December 2016.
35 Based on interview conducted on 7 September 2016 in Khartoum.
36 Based on interview conducted 15 December 2016.
37 Based on interview conducted 19 December 2016.