Alienating customary land : people of the land and people of property in Vanuatu

Abstract

The extensive land alienation on some islands in Vanuatu appears to contravene both the national constitution and desires of local people. The constitution states that all land is held in customary tenure; the Ni-Vanuatu indigenous majority (about 95% of the population) find alienation severely encroaches on their land entitlements. Given this strong opposition, the thesis asks how alienation occurs. It concludes that alienation results from the operation of key state-level forces of the recent period, inherently in tension. The interplay of indigenous self-determination and national development imperatives, mediated by elites, construes land as property and a marketable commodity. First, indigenous self-determination, for ni-Vanuatu, requires state recognition of customary forms of relations to land. Recognition, though, entails acceptance of state control over relations to land, effected through institutional arrangements that define land as property. This process of propertisation is a precondition for alienation. It allows legal ownership of land to be vested in customary groups, but also creates property rights that may be sold. Second, propertisation is central to national development and relates closely to colonisation and its aftermath. Shortly after independence in 1980 legal property rights were offered to former colonial occupiers. These rights still obtain and effectively allow foreign investors to own land. Third, the thesis focuses on the situation and role of elites around Port Vila, the national capital. These people embody the conflict between customary and property forms of relations to land, mediating ni-Vanuatu and foreign interests in ways that further propertisation and land alienation. Show more