Effects of urbanisation and changes in technology on traditional settlements in Botswana: the case of Kanye village

This essay attempts to explore, understand and document the effects of urbanisation on traditional settlements in Botswana. It notes that since the 1970s a number of villages have been transformed into urban centres mainly due to their close proximity to Gaborone; location on major transport routes or resource rich areas; technological improvements in transport and communication infrastructure; and government's rural development policies. The transformation has affected villages' morphology; sources of livelihoods; and infrastructure needs. For example, the traditional horseshoe plot layout has been replaced by linear, grid or amorphous patterns while grass thatched mud houses are disappearing in favour of tin roofed and cement block walled structures. Focusing on Kanye, the essay notes that although the process may have reduced rural-urban migration, it has been accompanied by widespread unemployment, poverty, crime and environmental degradation – all of which require immediate attention.Keywords: Kanye, urbanisation, technological changes, traditional settlementsBotswana Journal of Technology Vol 14(1) 2005: 11-2

Peri-urbanisation and the evolution of land rights in Greater Gaborone: the case of Tlokweng

This paper attempts to account for Tlokweng’s resilience against informal land transactions prevalent on city fringes in many developing countries. It notes that, despite being one of the first Botswana villages to urbanise, Tlokweng, unlike most peri-urban settlements around Gaborone, has (until the late 1990s) been able to strictly observe customary land- tenure practices. In addition, and contrary to evolutionary theory of land rights predictions, customary land-tenure practices have neither become unstable nor led to mismanagement of land resources in the village. The village has been devoid of the illegal and chaotic land transactions and developments that have characterised other peri-urban villages. This paper highlights the various strategies adopted by Tlokweng communities to resist informal land transactions as well as the factors that encourage quasi-legal land transfers. It ends with some recommendations on the way forward.Key words: Tlokweng; urbanisation; customary land right

African Women\u27s Movements and Struggles over Land

Access to land and other property is crucial to the livelihoods of women across the African continent. Women need land for residence, to grow crops and raise livestock, and to operate businesses and to secure access to and control over property which can provide them with a degree of stability in otherwise precarious and uncertain times. This chapter reviews contemporary women’s struggles for land and property rights in Africa. Drawing from country-focused, regional, and continental analyses, it addresses collective efforts by women’s and land rights movements to increase women’s access to and control over property through policy advocacy, litigation, and education; discusses the barriers to gender-equitable land and property rights reforms; and suggests that women property claimants may be propelling a shift toward more gender equitable property norms and practices in many places. The chapter concludes that supportive public policies and social institutional changes are both necessary to ensure that women have access to and control over the property necessary to their livelihoods. It further highlights the need for more research on the property struggles of differently situated African women such as those without children, those living in informal settlements, and those who are queer or trans, as well as on the counter-mobilization against women’s property rights movements