published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

This dissertation reconstructs the settlement of the Middle Jubba Valley of Somalia by ex-slaves, their descendents, and other Somalis from 1850 to the present. It is an historical study of the construction of a social identity of the Jubba Valley agriculturalist population, and of the evolution of land tenure and land use patterns in the mid-valley. In examining the effects on valley farmers of new land tenure laws requiring registration of land, it shows how power dynamics are integral to the working of land tenure systems.

<p>Communal land tenure reform in Zambia is the overarching subject of study in this thesis. It is an important issue across southern Africa, raising questions of governance, livelihood security and conservation. WIldlife is a 'fugitive' and 'mobile' resource that traverses the spatially fixed tenure of communal lands, national parks and public forest reserves. The management of wildlife therefore requires that spatially defined proprietorial rights accommodate wildlife's temporal forage use. Land may bebounded in tenure, but if bounded by fences its utility as wildlife habitat is undermined. If land is unfenced, but its landholder cannot use wildlife then it is more a liability than an asset. Africa's terrestrial wildlife has enormous biodiversity value but its mobility requires management collaboration throughout its range, and the resolution of conflicting ecological and economic management scales. The paper does not aim to describe and explain the internal communal system of tenure over land and natural resources but rather how the communal system interacts with the state and the private sector.</p>

This thesis probes the land (in)justice in Hong Kong by presenting an archival research which contributes to the inter-disciplinary scholarship of legal geography. It conceptualises the leasehold land system as the legal mechanism in the land (re)development regime and politicises the understanding of land (in)justice by explaining how it is produced and reproduced by the legal mechanism. Drawing on critical realism, Dikeç's spatial dialectics of injustice, Lefebvre's concrete abstraction and several concepts in legal geography, this thesis proposes "spatio-legal dialectics of land (in)justice" as the theoretical framework. Reconstructing the historical geography of this former British colony, through the lens of scalar politics, demonstrates that the legal system and land development have been inextricably intertwined in Hong Kong. Through the legal technicalities of land leases, the Colonial Government transformed the territory of Hong Kong into an exploitable land property, and thus secured the absolute control of land and the effective governance of the society. The expiry problem of the land lease placed the future of Hong Kong as a diplomatic question between China and Britain. The "Tin Shui Wai Myth", situated in the 1980s, reflected the frictions between the two countries. The "Myth" is not only related to the production of the spatiality of injustice as a new town but also associated with the production of the injustice of spatiality because of some legal changes. These legal changes, related to land lease and urban infrastructure, evolved after the Sino-British Negotiation and led the land (re)development regime to be more hegemonic. Understanding Hong Kong as a property jurisdiction, the current problematic of land injustice, under the new constitutional order of the Chinese sovereignty, is elaborated by the thesis of complete exploitation with the concept of urban land nexus. This thesis empirically interprets the mutual constitution of law and urban development, and conceptually engages in the academic debates about (in)justice, law and urban spatiality.

Thesis (M.M. (Public Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Governance, 2016. / The study focuses on the lived experiences of indigenous and traditional community of Phokeng in the process of urbanising. It is a community affected by unclarified policies and documents to secure their tenure. Phokeng community in Rustenburg is approximately 200 km to the west of Johannesburg. The research revealed that the rural and marginalised of Phokeng is now becoming urbanised and that there is inadequacy of legislation or policy to guarantee security of tenure in an area a under traditional authority. The community has historically depended on oral information and storytelling. A total of thirty informants were surveyed in the community. The study elicited information on informant’s understanding of security of tenure, the role they played to secure tenure to their land. It also probed, their awareness of developmental policies affecting their activities and expectations. The study revealed that people did not have title to the land they occupied but were very content that they were safe from evictions because the traditional leader and his traditional authority provided the guarantee. There is need for further research on why people in traditional authority areas that are in the process of urbanising would be content to live on land on which they do not have registered tenure rights.

郭錦洲. / "2008年8月". / "2008 nian 8 yue". / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-134). / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Guo Jinzhou. / 序言 --- p.1 / Chapter 第一章 --- 地方社會與王權一一元末明初鮑氏的發展 --- p.17 / Chapter 第一節 --- 「父子爭死」 --- p.17 / Chapter 第二節 --- 入《宋史》的背後 --- p.20 / Chapter 第三節 --- 兩種身份：地方精英與儒學 --- p.24 / Chapter 第四節 --- 《孝順事實》 --- p.27 / 小結 --- p.30 / Chapter 第二章 --- 墳庵、社壇與祠堂一一祭祀和控產的演變 --- p.32 / Chapter 第一節 --- 墳庵 --- p.32 / Chapter 第二節 --- 社壇 --- p.35 / Chapter 第三節 --- 祠堂 --- p.40 / 小結 --- p.45 / Chapter 第三章 --- 清代鮑氏宗族的重塑 --- p.48 / Chapter 第一節 --- 族譜的創立一一鮑琮與鮑志道 --- p.49 / Chapter 第二節 --- 族譜的歷史和創新 --- p.53 / Chapter 第三節 --- 重修宣忠堂 --- p.58 / 小結 --- p.65 / Chapter 第四章 --- 棠樾村內鮑氏宗族的整合 --- p.66 / Chapter 第一節 --- 龍山慈孝堂 --- p.66 / Chapter 第二節 --- 棠樾敦本堂 --- p.69 / Chapter 第三節 --- 世孝祠一整合不同派系的宗祠 --- p.78 / 小結 --- p.83 / Chapter 第五章 --- 義田的設立和管理 / Chapter 第一節 --- 宣忠戶與節儉戶 --- p.88 / Chapter 第二節 --- 私田到義田 --- p.94 / Chapter 第三節 --- 義田的登記和課稅 --- p.101 / Chapter 第四節 --- 信託財產 --- p.111 / 小結 --- p.116 / 結論：棠樾鮑氏宗族與義田 --- p.118 / 參考文獻 --- p.130 / 論文附錄 / 附錄1：慈孝里坊和御詩 --- p.i / 附錄2：貞白里坊 --- p.ii / 附錄3：鮑氏第四代至十六代世系圖 --- p.iii / 附錄4：鄭玉師承圖 --- p.iv / 附錄5：孝順事實 --- p.v / 附錄6：大和社柱腳 --- p.v / 附圖7：明末至清中葉棠樾村圖 --- p.vi / 附錄8：清朝棠樾村圖， --- p.vii / 附錄9：宣忠堂圖 --- p.viii / 附錄10：宣忠堂祭位圖 --- p.ix / 附錄11：始祖墓 --- p.x / 附錄12：鮑慶雲墓 --- p.x / 附錄13：敦本堂祭位圖 --- p.xi / 附圖14：敦本堂 --- p.xii / 附圖15：敦本堂內木主 --- p.xii / 附錄16：現時敦本堂門匾 --- p.xiii / 附錄17：1990年代敦本堂剛重修後的門匾 --- p.xiii / 附錄18：家廟圖 --- p.xiv / 附錄19：鮑氏宗族、宣忠支派、三大房、十四分支關係圖 --- p.xv / 附錄20：現時棠樾村地圖 --- p.xvi / 附錄21：棠樾村地理位置圖 --- p.xvii / 附錄22：宣忠支派第16至27代關係圖 --- p.xviii / 附錄23：1785至1820年棠樾村大事表 --- p.xxi

What is the relationship between environment and tribal sovereignty, and what is the value of tribally-controlled land in the twenty-first century? This dissertation turns to the Meskwaki Nation, the only resident Native American community in Iowa, to provide a long-term perspective on the benefits and pitfalls of tribal land reclamation. Rather than focusing on dispossession, it emphasizes how one tribe reacquired its land base following removal. In the process, it shows how environment and sovereignty are sources of political and economic leverage for Native communities. They are useful categories for organizing Native histories and understanding how environmental, political, and economic interactions have shaped and been shaped by Indigenous struggles for sovereignty and self-determination. This work examines how the unique status of the Meskwaki “settlement,” which is not a “reservation” because the tribe purchased it with tribal money in 1857, has expanded the tribe’s capacity for self-determination. The Meskwaki story confirms that increasing tribal land holdings—as well as tribal control over them—provides an anchor from which tribes can maintain their sovereignty, creates opportunities for self-determination, and offers tribes political and economic leverage. But land reclamation is not a silver bullet that can solve the many problems faced by Native Nations today. Rather, tribal land (and by extension, the environments on it) is a political tool that can be deployed in defense of tribal sovereignty. By recognizing the potential of tribally-controlled land to create leverage within the paradigms of state/tribal and federal/tribal politics, tribes can utilize their land bases as sovereign, political territory and pursue economic and political strategies that can empower their continuing recovery from the processes of colonization.

Raupatu (conquest of land) has been and still is a threat to the sovereignty and self-management of the Maori people. For the people of Waikato, raupatu has had such a significant impact that it has become a part of the people's identity. The New Zealand Land Wars of the 1860s signalled the beginning of the troubles for Waikato that would plague them for generations. Many Waikato people died for the land that had once nourished them, which was 'stolen' by the Crown and its colonial forces under the guise of 'confiscation' by way of the New Zealand Settlement Act 1863. This thesis examines raupatu in relation to the Waikato people, and the effects raupatu has had on them. This thesis also illustrates the connection between the Waikato people and whenua tupu (ancestral lands) through countless generations of people who committed their lives to the struggle to have their lands returned as proclaimed in the decree 'i haere whenua atu, me hoki whenua mai.' This decree is examined in relationship to the Deed of Settlement 1995 whereby the Crown addressed the grievances of the Waikato people and some hope was once again instilled within the people.

Achieving �justice� is the overriding aim of the Treaty settlement process. This process was established to resolve Maori historical grievances against the New Zealand Crown for alleged breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Because historical injustices involve the interactions of cultures over time, justice in the Treaty settlement process is shaped, and constrained, by two main factors: �culture� and �time�. The settlement of Ngai Tahu�s historical grievances, and in particular the return of pounamu as part of the settlement, achieved a large measure of this limited kind of justice. The Ngai Tahu settlement and the return of pounamu suggest that Treaty settlements are achieving, and may continue to achieve, a large measure of the justice available in the Treaty settlement process. Examination of the return of pounamu to Ngai Tahu reveals, however, that new injustices may have been created in the Ngai Tahu settlement. These new injustices are critically analysed, and recommendations for maximising justice in the Treaty settlement process are suggested. If Treaty settlements are to achieve the maximum justice available in the Treaty settlement process, the Treaty partners must heed the warning signs arising from the possible creation of new injustices in the Ngai Tahu settlement.

Rights to possess and/or use the foreshore of New Zealand are not clear, and are even cloudier in relation to Maori freehold land that is on the coast. This thesis investigates the law pertaining to rights in the foreshore, and the facts pertaining specifically to the use of the Otakou Maori Reserve foreshore. In particular, the research question is this: what does aboriginal title mean in 1996 for Otago Maori? Examining the legal issues, searching individual titles and gathering oral history are the methods used to answer this question. First, the law. In New Zealand the Crown is prima facie the absolute owner of the foreshore. This can be displaced by proof to the contrary. The doctrine of aboriginal title recognises the legal continuity of tribal property rights upon the Crown�s acquisition of sovereignty over their territory. Aboriginal title can be divided into two categories - territorial and non-territorial. Territorial title represents a tribal claim to full ownership, and non-territorial title to rights that are less than absolute ownership, such as the right to cross land, to fish and to collect flora and fauna. It is this doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the foreshore that can displace the Crown�s absolute ownership of the foreshore. Second, the facts. 99% of the coastal land parcels of Otakou Maori Reserve are described in written documentation as to the line of mean high water. This 99% is made up 17% Maori freehold land, 49% general land and 33% vested in the Crown or the Dunedin City Council. The remaining 1% is Maori freehold land that does not have its boundary at mean high water, but has a fixed upland boundary. Oral history facts from the takatawhenua identify that the foreshore continues to be used for access, travel, and the collection of kai moana and sea resources. The findings reveal that Kai Tahu ki Otakou have never extinguised their territorial and non-territorial aboriginal title to the foreshore of Otakou Maori Reserve. Suggested areas for future research include an investigation of other Maori reserves in Otago, and examining the doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the beds of watercourses.