MOBILITY, IMMOBILITY AND MOBILITY, IMMOBILITY AND CONTESTED SPACE:CONTESTED SPACE:

Power conflits over Kinshasa’s urban agricultural land

Oracle Makangu Diki & Inge Wagemakers

Conference on land and poverty Linking land tenure and use for shared prosperity

Annual World Bank conference on land and poverty Washington DC, March 23-27, 2015

GROWING CITY, GROWING MOBILITIES AND CONTESTED SPACE

- In all over the world, people are much more mobile and moving towards the city

- However, the high demographic growth and the rapid urban expansion generally goes hand in hand with the lack of urban planning in most cities in developing countries such as Kinshasa (DR Congo)

- Within the expanding city, extra living space is being created through building houses in parcels meant to count only one house, and building on land that was empty or meant for non-residential use (the green belt)

GROWING CITY, GROWING MOBIITIES AND CONTESTED SPACE (Cont’d)

As such, the way Kinshasa is expanding creates a paradoxical problem :

- on the one hand urban agriculture is an important and much executed urban activity for the growing urban population (need of food production and all of its economic and social functions), but;

-on the other hand the rapid population growth creates a lack of space which is a threat to urban agriculture (need of housing).

Because of mobility and movements of people, the character of urban space and people’s livelihoods tends to change. It turns out that the progressive changes of the character of land result in the permanent adaptation of people living and working on it.

METHODOLOGY

The ECRIS methodology stands for ‘Rapid Collective Inquiry for the Identification of Conflicts and Strategic Groups’ and which takes conflict, arenas of action, and strategic groups as conceptual departure points (Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan, 1997).

It combines both ‘regular’ individual and collective field research phases.

The ‘regular’ field research consists of open interviews and observations around different identified topics, and has been executed by the authors of this paper. During the research period a short collective research phase has been executed by a team of 22 researchers of different universities and research groups of the DRC, Belgium and Niger. The collective research phase was important to further explore some questions and issues we discovered during the preceding regular research phase, and to detect new issues and burning questions to further work on afterwards.

MAP OF VEGETABE GARDENING SITES IN KINSHASA

THE URBAN VEGETABLE GARDENING SITE MOKALI

- Official gardening site in Kimbanseke, with cooperative and president, used to be supported by Cecomaf

- Land bought from customary chief by the state collective ‘property’ of gardeners

- Public land for agricultural use only = fixed in a decree- No individual property titles, but fiches parcellaires (individual

exploitation rights) - Yet, loss of infrastructure during the plunders of the nineties

less gardeners, more open spaces

Nowadays struggle for land is harsh on the site (for both Nowadays struggle for land is harsh on the site (for both abandoned and occupied land)abandoned and occupied land)

LAND USE & LAND PROPERTY: PLURALITY OF RULES, ROOT OF SPACE DISPUTE

- Three periods have shaped the concept of land property and use

* before colonisation : community (traditional law)

* during colonisation : individual (modern law)

* after colonisation : reflection of the combination of the “traditional” and the “modern” law.

- Land law: all land belongs to the state- Yet, recognition of customary authority over land- Vague border between modern law and customary rules in terms of power- Different actors adapt and combine rules to their own needs

Plurality of rules helps different actors to act according to Plurality of rules helps different actors to act according to their own interests so that local practical norms are being their own interests so that local practical norms are being created, confirmed and/or adapted continuouslycreated, confirmed and/or adapted continuously

REINTERPRETATION OF CUSTOMARY LEADERSHIP

- Young family members of the customary leader do not only interpret state law but do also reinterpret customary rule

- No respect for matrilineal tradition - ‘ceded’ versus ‘sold’ land- New ‘so-called’ customary leaders emerge who try to grab the

agricultural land

COALITIONS OF POWER AND THE ROLE OF THE STATE

- So-called customary leaders create power networks around their actions in order to make their actions ‘legitimised’ (example of leader Q and his cemetery)

- State actors are involved and execute power, but in a very fragmented way

- State power changed over time: in the eighties the state could still take over land from the customary leader, now this is being severely contested (even in coalition with state actors)

Play and give power to manage (im)mobility Play and give power to manage (im)mobility and condemned gardeners to immobility and condemned gardeners to immobility and resident to mobilityand resident to mobility

THE POWER TO MANAGE (IM)MOBILITY

The so-called customary leaders live on the gardening site in order to giver themselves a rather ‘immobile’ reputation and to have more control over the land of the gardening site. Yet, they are mobile, as they can leave the site whenever things become too complicated for them. Also, when everything will be sold, they can easily leave.

The so-called customary leaders are more powerful than The so-called customary leaders are more powerful than gardeners because they can decide upon their own mobility gardeners because they can decide upon their own mobility or immobility, and moreover, they have the ability to or immobility, and moreover, they have the ability to manage and control the (im)mobility of othersmanage and control the (im)mobility of others.  

THE POWER TO MANAGE (IM)MOBILITY (cont’d)

Gardeners are linked to their gardens and are not that mobile. Because space is very scarce in the city they would not easily find another parcel of land to cultivate, and in order to secure the space they have to cultivate it as much as possible Gardeners condemned to immobility by the re-appropriating actions of customary leaders, and the mobility of people willing to become residents

Residents on the vegetable gardening site Mokali are rather mobile, as mostly they have been living (renting) on several places in the city before they ended up on the gardening site. Most residents coming to live on the gardening site are poor, as they are moving from other places in the city to the periphery in order to find an affordable place to live. Yet, within their new homes they are in a vulnerable position. Residents condemned to mobility by gardeners

THE POWER TO MANAGE (IM)MOBILITY (cont’d)

Physically all actors living or working on the site Mokali are very remote from the city centre and are dependent upon a complex and very time-consuming transportation system of taxi buses. Also residents who come and live there become quite ‘immobile’, as it becomes practically difficult to link up with the city centre.

The context of large distances and difficult transportation is a very determining reality for all actors on the site but seems quite interesting, as few people and policy makers working in the city centre know about the struggle for land on the gardening sites.

So, remoteness and distance are again mostly a problem for those who are rather immobile and less embedded in networks that cross the borders of the local ‘community’.

CONCLUSION

– The space people are living or working on, together with their capacity to manage their own mobility and to link up with certain networks, is determining their own possibilities.

– Accordingly, the character of a certain space is determined by human (im)mobility, and people’s (im)mobility and livelihoods are also determined by the changing character of the space they are living in.

– There is a continuous interaction between human mobility and immobility, urban growth, management of space and people’s livelihoods.

– A specific actor’s mobility and immobility, or rather the capacity to choose to be mobile or immobile, also determines hisher position of power.

MERCITHANK YOUOracle Makangu Diki & Inge WagemakersOracle Makangu Diki & Inge Wagemakers

Conference on land and poverty Linking land tenure and use for shared prosperity

Annual World Bank conference on land and poverty Washington DC, March 23-27, 2015