Property rights for social inclusion: Migrant strategies for securing land and livelihoods in Papua New Guinea

Property rights for social inclusion:Migrant strategies for securing land and livelihoods

in Papua New Guinea

Gina Koczberski,* George N. Curry* and Ben Imbun†*Department of Social Sciences, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia.

Email: [email protected] (G. Koczberski); [email protected] (G.N. Curry)†School of Management, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia.

Email: [email protected]

Abstract: This paper examines the broad range of informal land transactions and arrangementsmigrants are entering into with customary landowners to gain access to customary land for exportcash cropping in the oil palm belt of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Whilst these arrange-ments can provide migrants with relatively secure access to land, there are instances of migrantslosing their land rights. Typically, the land tenure arrangements of migrants with more secure accessto land are within a framework of property rights for social inclusion whereby customary landowners’inalienable rights to land are preserved and the ‘outsider’ becomes an ‘insider’ with ongoing userights to the land. Through socially embedding land transactions in place-based practices of non-market exchange, identities of difference are eroded as migrants assume identities as part of their hostgroups. This adaptability of customary land tenure and its capacity to accommodate large migrationin-flows and expanding commodity production undermines the argument common amongst propo-nents of land reform that customary tenure is static and inflexible. Before such claims are heeded,there must be more detailed empirical investigations of the diverse range of land tenure regimesoperating in areas of the country experiencing high rates of immigration.

Keywords: customary land tenure, gift exchange, informal land markets, migration, property law,social embeddedness

Introduction

This paper is concerned with the migration andsettlement of large numbers of migrants seekingaccess to customary land1 for oil palm produc-tion and other livelihood activities in the oilpalm belt of West New Britain Province (WNB),Papua New Guinea (PNG). The paper addressestwo questions that are under-explored in theresearch on rural migration in the region. First,how do migrants as ‘outsiders’ without custom-ary land-use rights obtain access to land toestablish new livelihoods in their adoptedhomes? Second, how are customary land tenurearrangements being modified in response to thegrowing demand for land by ‘outsiders’ for agri-cultural development?

These questions are relevant to other ruralareas of the developing world experiencinglarge in-flows of migrants seeking land. Acrossthe developing world, people are leading moremobile lives as they migrate further afield and inlarger numbers to seek new livelihood opportu-nities and experiences (Rigg, 2007). Whilemuch of this migration is rural-to-urban, asizable proportion is rural-to-rural, particularlyto agricultural and resource frontier zones. Toprovide this broader context and comparativematerial for the PNG case study, the paperbegins with a brief overview of informal landmarkets in rural Southeast Asia and sub-SaharanAfrica where large numbers of migrants areacquiring land for cash crop production, creat-ing burgeoning informal land markets. This

Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 50, No. 1, April 2009ISSN 1360-7456, pp29–42

© 2009 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2009 Victoria University of Wellington

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2009.01379.x

mailto:[email protected]



overview is followed by the PNG case study,beginning with an analysis of the main types ofshort and long-term land-use agreements nego-tiated between land-poor migrants and custom-ary landowners in WNB. While these tenurearrangements can provide migrants with con-tinuing and relatively secure access to custom-ary land, there are many instances of migrantslosing access rights to the land.

To understand why some migrants can suc-cessfully gain ongoing use rights to land whileothers continue to have insecure use rights, thepaper draws on and extends Robert Cooter’s(1991a) conceptual framework of land owner-ship in PNG which contrasts two types of own-ership: ‘property law for stranger relations’ and‘property law for kin relations’. Customarylandowners, while superficially engaging in aprocess of commodifying land through ‘sales’2

and ‘rentals’ to migrants, are striving to sociallyembed land transactions by expecting migrantsto maintain certain social and economic rela-tionships with them as host lineages. For theirvalidity, these relationships draw on place-based frameworks of land tenure in whichsocial relations grounded in non-marketexchange practices play a pivotal role in legiti-mising access rights. This process we term‘property rights for social inclusion’ for it opensup opportunities for migrants to become a sub-group of the landowning group (to becomeinsiders) which serves to erode identities ofdifference and bestow on migrants temporaryor long-term access rights to land. Towards theend of the paper, we examine the extent towhich these seemingly new types of landtenure arrangements emerging in rural WNB,sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, wherethere is high demand for land by outsiders, aremodelled on old practices, customs and powerrelations. The paper closes with a brief discus-sion of the implications of the findings forrecently mooted policies of land tenure reformin PNG.

Migrants and informal rural land markets inthe Global South

Several scholars working in Indonesia havedocumented the sale of land to spontaneousmigrants seeking land for cash crop production(e.g. Ruf and Yoddang, 1999; Elmhirst, 2001; Li,

2002; Potter and Badcock, 2004). In CentralSulawesi, Li (2002) charted the impact of thecocoa boom in the Lauje area in the early1990s. Land was effectively privatised as a con-sequence of the cocoa boom because per-manent tree crops broke the swidden cycleunderpinning communal inheritance. This pro-vided the basis for land to be treated as a com-modity that could then be sold to migrantsmoving into the area.

In another case study from the Lindu area ofCentral Sulawesi where large concentrations ofBugis migrants have settled recently, Li reportedthat the indigenous population sold much ofthe land ‘before they recognised its greatlyenhanced value’ (2002: 426). Why customarylandowners would sell so much of their land totheir own disadvantage is explained by Li as anindirect result of the uncertain legal status ofcustomary land which enabled village headmenwith authority in land matters to effectivelydispossess customary landowners. Villageheadmen:

apply various ‘rules’ which purportedly limitthe validity of customary claims. They tell vil-lagers that their customary rights lapse if theland has not been used for five years, or if thearea exceeds 2 hectares, or if no tree-cropshave been planted, or if the land has not beenregistered with the headman, or taxed, orissued with a certificate (Li, 2002: 428).

To receive some financial benefit before theland was sold off by the village headmen, vil-lagers themselves began selling customary landto outsiders.

In a similar case from Sulawesi, Potter andBadcock (2004) described the loss of formercustomary swidden lands in the Rokan HuluDistrict, Riau Province, where, since the mid-1980s, migrants had been purchasing landfrom customary landowners. Despite land salesbeing contrary to adat, most sales werelegitimised through land ownership letters/certificates with the agreement of village offi-cials and adat leaders. Approximately one-thirdof village land was purchased by outsiders,leaving villagers with insufficient land to prac-tice ‘traditional’ farming. Much of the land soldto migrants was planted with oil palm and, to alesser extent, with rice and rubber. Concern

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over the sale of agricultural land to migrants wasalso raised by Elmhirst (2001) working in theNorth Lampung transmigration resettlementareas of Sulawesi. The transmigration schemeintroduced new farming systems and created anactive land market as spontaneous migrantsmoved into the area and bought land eitherfrom transmigrants or local landowners. Withthe pressure on land for agricultural develop-ment, land values rose dramatically and specu-lative land dealings were on the increase.

Several themes are common to each of theSulawesi case studies regarding the sale of landto migrants. These include the undermining andmanipulation of the principles governing cus-tomary land tenure, emerging land shortages,the semi-formalisation of land transfers and thegrowing commodification of land. A compa-rable situation, though not to the same level ofdispossession as reported in some of the Indo-nesian case-studies, has been documented insub-Saharan Africa where the sale of agricul-tural land to migrants is occurring in many ruralareas despite traditional prohibitions on the saleof customary land (e.g. Amanor and Dideru-tuah, 2001; Sjaastad, 2003; Daley, 2005; Chim-howu and Woodhouse, 2006; Hagberg, 2006;Peters, 2007; Yeboah, 2008).3

As in Indonesia, many rural land sales tomigrants in sub-Saharan Africa are for the estab-lishment of export cash crops and occur in theabsence of formal land markets. Because suchland transactions are not strictly in accordancewith ‘traditional’ customary land laws, newrules and procedures have evolved to legitimisethem and give them local validity, and evidencesuggests that many remain embedded in thesocial relations and obligations underpinning‘traditional’ land rights (Mathieu et al., 2002;Chauveau, 2006; Chimhowu and Woodhouse,2006).4 Many land transactions often combinelocal cultural circumstances and mimic morelegal processes operating in formal landmarkets. For example, Mathieu and colleagues(2002) noted informal land sales in Burkina Fasowhere the transfer of land was recorded on awritten document signed by a local official, butwithout the words ‘sell’ or ‘buy’ mentionedbecause the sale of customary land is illegal instate law. In another example, Daley (2005)observed in her Tanzanian study that paymentsby the seller and purchaser to a village land

committee to ‘register’ land transactions were,while technically illegal, tolerated because oftheir ‘reference to the long-standing tradition inUhehe that political leaders and land-allocatingauthorities were paid with “gifts” for theirduties’ (2005: 553). Similarly, Chimhowu andWoodhouse (2006) presented examples fromWest Africa of individuals strengthening thelegitimacy of their purchases through investingin land improvements (e.g. tree planting, irriga-tion, continual use of land) – ‘traditional’practices consistent with securing rights tocustomary land.

The sub-Saharan African material reveals theadaptability and malleability of customary landtenure in areas receiving large numbers ofmigrants. Furthermore, it indicates that theprocess of commodification does not necessar-ily involve a radical break with principles ofcustomary land tenure, but rather a more evo-lutionary process of change in which bothindigenous (informal) and introduced (formal)principles of land tenure are drawn upon todevelop new land tenure arrangements and pro-cedures to accommodate outsiders seeking landfor agricultural development. However, as someof the Southeast Asian and African case studiesreveal, there are inherent risks for customarylandowners when village and political elites areable to manipulate principles of customarytenure to the disadvantage of ordinary villagers.

West New Britain: From cocoa and copra tooil palm

The oil palm belt on the northern coastal plainof WNB extends from Willaumez Peninsula toOpen Bay near the East New Britain provincialborder (Fig. 1). Most residents of the belt areheavily reliant on local resources for their every-day survival, especially land for gardening andcommercial agriculture and, to a lesser extent,marine resources. Subsistence activities remainthe cornerstone of village life where peoplerely on agriculture to meet most of their dailyfood requirements. Increasingly, terrestrial andmarine resources are being used to generatecash incomes as people’s material aspirationsrise and cash becomes ever more important formeeting everyday needs.

Villagers have diverse livelihoods with manyholding a range of export cash crops, including

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oil palm, cocoa and copra (Koczberski andCurry, 2003; Koczberski and Curry, 2005; Kocz-berski et al., 2006). Cocoa and copra were thefirst export cash crops to be planted by villagersand, until recently, they provided an importantincome source for rural households. Over thepast decade, however, smallholder productionof these crops has declined considerablybecause of declining market access which hascompelled many villagers to diversify incomesources. Many villagers turned to oil palm. Pres-ently, the oil palm industry dominates the ruraleconomy and is by far the most importantcommodity crop for smallholders and a majoremployer in the province. On several socio-economic indicators, the oil palm growingareas in WNB rank highly relative to other ruralareas of PNG (Hanson et al., 2001).

Over 77 000 hectares of land are plantedwith oil palm in the two oil palm growing areasof Hoskins and Bialla (Table 1). Commercialplantings in the province began at Hoskins inthe late 1960s following a World Bank recom-

mendation that oil palm on a nucleus estate-smallholder model be introduced to WNB todiversify the agricultural economy and increasethe export income of PNG. The recommenda-tion accorded at the time with the Australianadministration’s land settlement policies of the1950s and 1960s to open up ‘un-used’ or‘under-exploited’ land for the voluntary resettle-ment of rural people for the primary purpose ofcash crop production. As part of these policies,large tracts of customary land along the northcoast were alienated by the State and later usedto develop the nucleus estate-smallholderprojects at Hoskins and Bialla.

The nucleus estate-smallholder modelallowed for the establishment of smallholderland settlement schemes (LSSs), initially atHoskins in 1968 and at Bialla in 1972. Settlerswere recruited for the LSSs from other provincesof PNG and acquired individual 99-year stateagricultural leases over blocks ranging from 4 to6.5 hectares. Agricultural leases were publiclyadvertised with priority given to applicants from

Figure 1. Location map of West New Britain Province



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land-short areas of the country (Hulme, 1984;Curry and Koczberski, 1998). As the industryexpanded, villagers living on customary landsurrounding the nucleus estates were encour-aged to plant two-hectare plots of oil palm aspart of the Village Oil Palm (VOP) scheme.Planting by customary landowners was negli-gible in the early years, but has increased sig-nificantly over the last 20 years.

The pull of prosperity

The relative prosperity of the oil palm economyis the basis for the high population growth ratein the region. Between 1980 and 2000, WNB’sannual population growth of 3.7% was amongthe highest in the country (National StatisticalOffice, 2001) due to both in-migration and atotal fertility rate of over six. At the 2000 census,30.5% of the WNB population were migrants(National Statistics Office, 2001).

The large migrant population is concentratedin the Hoskins and Bialla oil palm LSSs and inthe urban centres of Kimbe and Bialla. The LSSshave experienced considerable populationgrowth since the late 1960s/early 1970s. Popu-lation density on the Hoskins LSS has risen from5.9 persons per block in the early 1970s (Ploeg,1972) to 13.3 persons per block (222 persons/km2) in 2000, and in 2002 the Bialla LSS aver-aged 11.1 persons per block (185 persons/km2).The oil palm belt also attracts many migrantsfrom less well-off areas of the province andother regions of PNG who take up residence ininformal urban settlements, on plantation com-pounds or with relatives on the LSSs. Excludingthe highly densely populated islands of BaliWitu and Arawe, the oil palm belt from theWillaumez Peninsula to Navo has the highestpopulation densities in the province, at up to130 persons/km2 (Hanson et al., 2001). Talasea

Census District, which covers most of the oilpalm belt, has a migrant population of 38% ofthe total population, the large majority of whom(79%) have migrated from other provinces(National Statistical Office, 2001). Thus, asizable proportion of the rural population inthe oil palm belt do not have birth rights toland.5

Changing land tenure arrangements

Economic and demographic changes have beenaccompanied by marked alterations in landtenure. Aside from the alienated land understate agricultural leases described above, awide range of overlapping tenure regimes/arrangements has emerged – informal, legal andillegal. While most village lands designated foroil palm cultivation are allocated by clanleaders and subject to the regulations of cus-tomary land tenure principles, the long-termcultivation of perennial cash crops can inducede facto changes in land tenure regimes. Usu-fruct rights are increasingly being vested in thesame family or individuals for extended periods(smallholder oil palm is replanted at between20 and 25 years of age), leading some villagersto claim exclusive rights of access to, and inher-itance of, these resources.6 In effect, land rightsare being ‘individualised’ as land is excisedfrom the communal pool of clan land that isgoverned by communal tenure and matrilinealprinciples of inheritance.

As customary land tenure is modified, peo-ple’s views and attitudes to land are changingsuch that land is increasingly being viewed bysome clan members as a commodity that can beleased to oil palm milling companies,7 or infor-mally ‘sold’8 or ‘rented’ to people outside theland-holding group. A discussion of these infor-mal land ‘sales’ and ‘rentals’ is next.

Table 1. Oil Palm Statistics for 2004–2005 for Hoskins and Bialla

Oil Palm Statistics Hoskins Bialla Totals

Smallholder production (FFB tonnes) 286 145 134 700 420 845Smallholder area (Ha)† 24 064 12 026 36 090Plantation production (FFB tonnes) 616 135‡ 144 948§ 761 083Plantation area (Ha)‡ 30 447‡ 10 929§ 41 376

†2005/06 Figures supplied by OPIC. ‡Mini-estates included in plantation statistics. §Community Oil Palm Estate Development(COPED) included in plantation statistics.



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Settlers seeking land

There is a large demand for land by migrantsdesiring to secure a future for their families inthe WNB oil palm belt. There are few opportu-nities to purchase freehold land in the Biallaand Hoskins regions. While there has been along history of customary landowners in thearea gifting land to non-clan members, theinformal ‘sale’ or ‘renting’ of land to migrantsfrom other provinces in PNG is more recent.The ‘sale’ of customary land to migrants, inparticular for the planting of oil palm, firstemerged in the 1980s at Hoskins and in theearly 1990s at Bialla.

Most migrants ‘purchasing’ customary landwish to plant oil palm. They are usually thechildren or relatives of the original oil palm LSSleaseholders who migrated to WNB in the late1960s and early 1970s, or are those in long-term employment (especially as oil palm plan-tation and mill labourers). On highly populatedLSS blocks, many of the married sons of theoriginal settlers are seeking land of their own toplant oil palm and raise their families. However,most second and third generation settlers arebeing squeezed out of the market for LSS blocksby rising prices and limited opportunities toaccumulate savings on highly populated LSSblocks. Increasingly, those purchasing LSSblocks are urban-based professionals, success-ful businessmen, senior managers employed bythe plantation companies, and occasionally,political elites. The current price of an LSS blockat Bialla and Hoskins ranges from K5000 toK10 000 per hectare (K30 000 to K60 000 fora six-hectare block) compared with K500 toK3000 per hectare for customary land(K2.5 = Aus$1.00, The Australian 21–22 July,2007). Further, because opportunities for return-ing ‘home’ to settle are becoming more con-strained through time, second generationsettlers’ attempts to secure additional land inWNB are becoming more urgent. Opportunitiesto re-establish themselves at ‘home’ are becom-ing remote because of their long absences,together with the fact that many of their childrenwere raised in WNB and learned MelanesianPidgin rather than their parents’ home lan-guages (Curry and Koczberski, 1999). Theirhome areas are also likely to be experiencingpopulation and land pressures because settlers

were initially recruited from land-short areas.Similarly, company employees who have spentmuch of their working lives in WNB and whoidentify more closely with WNB than ‘home’(their children were raised in WNB), aspire tosecuring a livelihood in ‘retirement’ by purchas-ing land. Thus, for the majority of secondgeneration settlers and migrant workers, thepurchase of customary land in WNB is theironly real option, apart from illegally occupyingrural State land or moving into an informalsettlement in town.

Within the oil palm schemes of Bialla andHoskins, approximately 200 hectares and 2721hectares of customary land respectively havebeen ‘sold’ to ‘outsiders’ for oil palm develop-ment, typically as two- or four-hectare blocks.The planting of oil palm by migrants on ‘pur-chased’ customary land has expanded markedlyover the past 10 years, with approximately 23%of the total area of oil palm established on cus-tomary land in the Hoskins area now ‘owned’by outsiders. While there are formal proceduresfor the sale or transfer of customary land, inalmost all cases, land transactions are organisedinformally.9 Hence, there is great variation inthe types of informal land sale agreementswhich is partly explained by the different typesof relationships between ‘vendors’ and ‘pur-chasers’ (see below). Most ‘sales’ are verbalagreements without documentary evidence ofthe clan’s approval of the land transaction norany written record of the agreed sale price, sizeand boundary of the parcel of land sold ordeposit paid: most transactions involve an initialdeposit followed by payment instalments thatmay be spread over several years while the ‘pur-chaser’ resides on the land. Many migrants viewthe ‘purchase’ of land as conferring ownershipin perpetuity which will allow their children toinherit the land. This is not the case in law as theland remains customary land with the potentialfor the block to be reclaimed by the customarylandowners on the death of the ‘purchaser’(Curry et al., 2007).

Indeed, there have been numerous cases ofmigrants being evicted or harassed by membersof the landowning group, especially by youngerclan members, and instances where the land‘purchased’ by migrants has been reclaimed bythe customary landowners (Koczberski andCurry, 2004; Curry and Koczberski, 2009). In



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May 2006, the District Court in Kimbe ruled infavour of a landowning group for the return ofland illegally ‘sold’ to migrants by an individualfrom a neighbouring landowner group (J.Warku, pers. comm., 2000). Over 100 migrantfamilies face eviction from the land they had‘purchased’ and planted to oil palm. That somemigrants are willing to pursue the risky strategyof acquiring customary land is indicative of thesocial and economic pressures on second gen-eration leasehold migrants and plantation/milllabourers, and the limited economic futuresthey would face if they were to return to theirhome provinces.10

The least financially risky option for land-poor migrants is to informally ‘rent’ land fromcustomary landowners. Typically, migrants‘rent’ a small plot of land for a house site in asmall community of migrants to whom they areusually related, and an additional nearby smallplot of land for garden food production. Thesesettlements are on customary land or stateland,11 and are usually less than two to threehectares. Many of these migrants informally‘renting’ land from the customary landownershave previously worked as oil palm labourersand many of them have relatives living on theLSSs, company residential compounds or on‘purchased’ land. The numbers of residents anderected houses in the settlement, and the sizeand locations of food gardens are monitoredand controlled by the customary landowners.

The term ‘rent’ is used here to define a set ofhighly variable informal arrangements betweenlandowners and migrants that provide migrantswith temporary and tightly defined access rightsto the customary land of their hosts. Both partiesare clearly aware that the ‘rental’ agreement is atemporary arrangement (though some havebeen in place for over 20 years), and that theunderlying ownership of the host lineage isnot undermined through occupancy and use.These ‘rental’ agreements are typically based onindigenous exchange relationships, wherebymigrants gain occupancy rights and the right toerect semi-permanent houses, cultivate foodgardens and, occasionally, in special circum-stances, to plant permanent cash crops in returnfor a ‘rental’ payment in the form of cash,labour, garden foods and/or participation incommunal events. The size and frequency ofpayments of cash, labour and food items vary

greatly between settlements, between house-holds within settlements and through time, andare often dictated by the needs of the host lin-eages at particular points in time, and the land-owner’s relationship with the head of thesettlement. For example, it is not unusual forlandowners to visit settlements to raise moneyfor large customary events such as mortuary orbrideprice payments.

Different sets of rules apply to ‘rented’ landused for commercial purposes. As mentionedabove, the planting of permanent cash crops israrely permitted and occurs only when there isa strong and long-term friendship betweenmigrant and host, or the migrant is related to thehost (e.g. as an in-law). Generally, migrants‘renting’ land are precluded from building up apermanent claim of ownership to the land bybeing denied rights to plant perennial cashcrops and coconut palms. Other income gener-ating activities such as commercial peanutproduction (a cash crop sold at local markets),vanilla cultivation, or the establishment of smallbusinesses such as tradestores or poultry pro-duction and sales are generally prohibited. Ifthese income-generating activities are permit-ted, it is expected that the income from thesebusinesses will be shared with the landownersor that other obligations to the hosts are ful-filled. In one informal settlement on state landnear Bialla town, occupied by migrants fromSouthern Highlands Province, the original cus-tomary landowners of the land were illegallycollecting monthly ‘rents’ on two poultry busi-nesses and one tradestore in the settlement.According to the tradestore proprietor, the heftyrental fees on the tradestore significantly erodedhis profits on the business, and after 12 monthsof operation the store closed. In a nearby infor-mal settlement on ‘rented’ customary land, oneof the customary landowners had recentlyapproached the East Sepik migrants leasing theland with an offer of two hectares of land whichthey could use to cultivate peanut gardens fortwo years. The landowner asked the residents todo the laborious tasks of clearing the secondaryforest on the land and planting his oil palmseedlings. In return, they could interplant the oilpalm seedlings with peanuts for sale at localmarkets. In this case, the landowner benefitedfrom the access to in-kind labour to clear andplant the site to oil palm, as well as two years of



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additional labour to weed the site during theestablishment phase of the oil palm. For themigrants, there were potentially high incomesto be earned from cultivating and marketing thepeanuts.

Thus, the basic and typical land-use rightsextended to migrants through informal ‘rental’agreements permit the temporary occupation ofland, the erection of houses and the cultivationof food gardens, with wealth generating activi-ties on the land more strictly controlled. In somesituations, these small settlements on ‘rented’land can become closely aligned with a particu-lar segment of the host community such as thelineage or subclan of the clan leader who pro-vided initial access to the land. The settlementcommunity can therefore become an importantsupport base for village leaders or aspiringleaders. These small settlements allow theseleaders in the host community to advance theirsocial and political position by providing themwith political support and a source of labour,cash and wealth items to be deployed throughindigenous exchange networks to enhance theirstatus and position. In the longer-term, theyprovide a possibility for the ‘privatisation’ or‘individualisation’ of communal resources.

Insiders/outsiders and property rights forsocial inclusion

Customary land purchases sometimes end indispute after a few years. Ownership disputesarise from two conflicting interpretations of landtransactions: an introduced view of land as acommodity with exclusive and alienable rightsover a defined area of land; and an indigenous

view of land as an inalienable resource held bythe kinship group, and where a range of userights to separate resources may be held simul-taneously by different people and groups. Manysettlers and other outsiders seeking to acquirecustomary land approach the transaction as if itwere largely a market transaction involving thepurchase of exclusive and alienable rights to theland. Accordingly, the transaction is interpretedby the migrant as conferring on him individualownership similar to freehold title.

The second perspective – the indigenousview of land as an inalienable resource held bythe kinship group – is common among membersof the customary landowning group. In thisview, exclusive and permanent property rightsare not guaranteed by full payment of theagreed ‘purchase’ price. Instead of land rightsbeing permanent and exclusive, a less exclusiveset of rights pertain that are conditional for theirongoing validity on continued participation incustomary exchange activities and fulfillingother obligations to their hosts. Accordingly,they are expected to share a portion of theirwealth with the landowning group by contrib-uting to bride wealth, mortuary payments and toother forms of indigenous exchange in whichtheir host lineages are involved. Involvement incommunity events is also expected. Whenparticipation in exchange activities with hostlineages ceases, the validity of settlers’ tenurerights begins to erode with a gradual reversal ofrights back to the host lineage.

Robert Cooter’s (1991a) conceptualisation ofthe differences between freehold and customarytenure in PNG (Fig. 2) can be usefully applied tothe two different interpretations of land transac-

Relationship between people is commercial, where obligations and commitments are thin. Short-term relationship between people.Concept of absolute unitary ownership.

Property law for stranger relations.

FREEHOLDPRINCIPLES

Relationships between relatives where kin networks bind people together in a web of mutual obligations and commitments. Long-term relationships between relatives. Concept of relational property and land as an inalienable resource

Property law for kin relations

CUSTOMARY PRINCIPLES

Figure 2. Cooter’s concept of property law in PNG



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tions described above. Cooter described free-hold transactions as those that occur largelybetween strangers whose only relationship witheach other is commercial and the obligationsand commitments to each other are minimal.While buyers and sellers have some obligationsto each other, based on moral norms of societalbehaviour, the transaction choices they makeare not constrained by social obligations to eachother. Both parties can act to their own bestadvantage and the relationship between themis short-term and concludes with completion ofthe sale. Freehold tenure is thus conceived as‘property law for stranger relations’ (Cooter,1991a: 41). In contrast, customary land tenuretransactions occur between relatives and arebased on long-term relationships of reciprocalobligations, cooperation and commitment tomembers of the kinship group (Fig. 2). Suchobligations and commitments affect customaryrights to land and constrain a person’s freedomto act to their own best advantage in land trans-actions. Cooter (1991a: 41) describes custom-ary land law as ‘property law for kin relations’.Under customary land law, the concept ofproperty is relational and ownership rights aredispersed among the kinship group. This is incontrast to freehold title where ownership isunitary and absolute, and land transactions aregrounded in market relationships.

Many settlers purchasing land are attemptingto discursively construct the land transaction asbeing in the realm of commodity exchangethereby associating the transaction with prin-ciples of freehold title (stranger relations). Theyattempt to limit their relationships with land-owners, and are also more likely to experiencechallenges to their tenure and harassment bylocal youth. For the outsider acquiring landthere are several advantages if the transaction isunderstood by the customary landowners as amarket transaction in which the land parcel, asa commodity, has been alienated from custom-ary ownership. From this perspective, the land isheld in perpetuity by the purchaser and is there-fore able to be inherited by his children on hisdeath. He has absolute control over the landincluding land use (any income activity doesnot lead to claims by the customary landownersfor a share of that wealth), disposal of land (theland can be sold or leased to someone else),and there are no obligations on him to maintain

a social relationship with his ‘hosts’ throughgifts of labour and wealth. All obligations ceasewith the final payment instalment for the land. Itis possible that clan leaders eager to sell landencouraged this perception among migrantspurchasing land. Likewise, it is possible that thisview is derived from migrants’ experiences ofliving on government leasehold LSSs where theyhave had no social or financial obligations tothe former customary landowners. It is this idealthat some migrants are trying to recreate oncustomary land, and in so doing often resist orreject demands placed on them by local land-owners for occasional gifts of cash or contribu-tions of labour or food to community events.

The demands placed on ‘purchasers’ bycustomary landowners accord more with thecommon and widespread view of land owner-ship in PNG which is based on customary law(property law for kin relations) and the set ofmutual obligations that are required to maintainaccess rights to the land. Furthermore, theserights may be graduated such that a person orgroup has more authority than another in deter-mining land use, or one group may hold rightsto hunt or plant temporary food gardens, butmay not have rights to plant permanent cashcrops. As in most parts of PNG, customary own-ership of land is not based purely on descent,but also on co-residence and participation inindigenous exchange (see Cooter, 1991a;Larmour, 1991; Curry, 1997). Settlers ‘purchas-ing’ land are thus expected to act like membersof the landowning group and follow indigenousrules of kinship and clanship. However, it isimportant to note that this performance of hostclan membership is not on an equal footingwith the host clan or lineage, but is from asubservient position in which the wealth andlabour power of migrant guest lineages issiphoned to host lineages.

Becoming an insider

The demands on purchasers by customary land-owners could be interpreted as attempts bylandowners to ‘indigenise’ these land transac-tions by transforming commodity transactions(property law for stranger relations) into indig-enous exchange transactions (property law forkin relations). In other words, some customarylandowners are attempting to socially embed



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these transactions by reinserting the socialdimension of indigenous exchange into whatare considered, at least by some migrants, to bemarket transactions with strangers. By doing so,customary landowners are developing long-term relationships with purchasers (outsiders)through incorporating them into networks ofobligations and exchange with their host com-munity. In the process, they become a sub-group attached to the host group which conferson them certain rights and privileges includingongoing access to land. This process we havetermed ‘property rights for social inclusion’(Fig. 3).

Those settlers accepting land transactions tobe grounded in social relationships (sociallyembedded) and acting in accordance with tra-ditional rules and expectations generally haverelatively stable relationships with their hostcommunities and ongoing access to land. Theexchange relationships, in which migrantsengage, strengthen their social networks withthe landowning group and socially integratethem in their host communities. Furthermore,the individuals and lineages within thelandowning group with whom they haveexchange relationships become obligated tostrengthen these settlers’ identities and positionswithin the broader host group.

Within this framework of property rightsfor social inclusion, customary landowners’inalienable rights to land are preserved and theoutsider becomes an insider with ongoing userights to the land. Thus, what were initiallymarket transactions in land and partly disem-bedded from their social context are now madesocial and re-embedded through place-based

practices of non-market exchange which serveto erase identities of difference. This type of land‘purchase’ based on social exchange and inclu-sion is what underlies land that is gifted orinformally ‘rented’ to outsiders. Few migrantsacquiring land in this way question such obli-gations and the commitments to their hosts.

While these relationships can be enduring,they can sometimes be re-assessed at the deathof either the clan leader or the migrant involvedin the initial land transaction, or at the replant-ing stage when palms are about 20–25 yearsold. These events are potential rupture points inthe web of social and generational relationshipsunderpinning resource access because estab-lished patterns of social and exchange relation-ships partially dissolve to reform as new webs ofsocial relationships. It is at these junctures thatthe status and value of relationships between‘outsiders’ and their ‘host’ lineages arere-assessed and the land rights of outsiders maybe renegotiated or even cancelled (see Curryand Koczberski, 2009). While the degree ofexploitation of the relationships underpinningland access through property rights for socialinclusion have yet to be determined, it does notappear that economic exploitation of migrantsby their hosts has become too onerous.12 Manymigrants reported that the social embedding ofthese relationships provided them with a senseof belonging in the broader host community,even though there was a dependency associatedwith the relationship and host groups retain ulti-mate authority over the land.

Novel but not new

At one level, the ‘sale’ and ‘renting’ of land inWNB can be viewed as a process of commodi-fication, but as argued above such land transac-tions remain, at least from the perspective ofmost customary landowners, anchored in prin-ciples of indigenous land tenure and long-standing concepts of clan identity, socialinclusion and entitlements.

Contemporary land-use agreements betweencustomary landowners and outsiders in WNBappear comparable with traditional mecha-nisms of transferring land rights to individualsand lineages without birth rights to the landreported operating in other parts of the country(Meggitt, 1965, 1971; Reay, 1971; Mandeville,

Property Rights for Social Inclusion

Relationship between people based on obligations and exchange. Long-term relationships between people. Concept of permanent or temporary use rights to land based on mutual cooperation. Landowners’ rights to land not totally extinguished. Outsiders become insiders

Figure 3. Property rights for social inclusion



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1979; Mosko, 2005). Anthropologists as early asthe 1950s observed that while an ideology ofdescent (primacy of birth rights) was present inmany PNG societies, social organisation wasoften sufficiently flexible to accommodate ahigh proportion of outsiders/immigrants (e.g.Barnes, 1967: 40; also Barnes, 1962; Forge,1972). Often, immigrants utilised indigenousexchange relationships with host lineages forongoing resource access (Reay, 1959a,b;Glasse, 1968; Forge, 1972; Healey, 1979;Mandeville, 1979; Sillitoe, 1979; McDowell,1980; Curry, 1997). Through participation andcooperation in such exchange relationships,outsiders’ membership in land-holding groupswas facilitated. Thus, while the ‘sale’ of land tomigrants for the cultivation of introduced cashcrops such as oil palm and the informal ‘renting’of land involve new types of land tenurearrangements, they are symbolically and mate-rially modelled on old practices and customsthat historically may have been widespread inPNG.

The evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, pre-sented earlier, paints a similar picture to thePNG situation where new forms of land tenure,based on the ‘rental’ or ‘sale’ of land to outsid-ers are typically modelled on old practices. Forexample, it was traditionally the case in ruralareas of West Africa that ‘strangers’ could obtaintemporary access to farming land through theprovisions of customary land tenure thatallowed the granting of land to those in need(Mathieu et al., 2002: 111). Such access rightswere conditional on the maintenance of par-ticular relationships and forms of respect andgratitude, expressed as ‘gifts’ that validated landrights. As Mathieu and colleagues (2002)explain, access to land by ‘strangers’:

. . . was possible through a personalised,‘dependent inclusion’ within a space gov-erned by the authorities (village chief, landchief) of an indigenous group [Gruenais,1986]. This acknowledgement of the fact thatthe indigenous group had control of the spaceimplied respect of the indigenous authoritiesand an acceptance of the dependent relation-ship as well as gratitude towards lodgersand sponsors (‘tuteur’ in Côte d’Ivoire,‘logeur’ in Burkina Faso) who took in themigrant and gave him land to cultivate.(2002: 111)

Even in the cocoa growing areas of WestAfrica where sharecropping agreements haveoperated since the colonial period to allowmigrants access to land for cocoa farming, thereis a growing market in land rentals and sales,which Chimhowu and Woodhouse (2006: 354)view as a ‘logical progression’ flowing fromsharecropping agreements. Thus, many of thepresent day land transactions involving the saleand rental of land to migrants in West Africaappear to reflect more ‘traditional’ and colonial-influenced mechanisms for allocating custom-ary land to outsiders (see also Chauveau, 2006;Hagberg, 2006). Furthermore, as noted above,while these shifts in land tenure seem to in-volve evolutionary change towards increasingcommodification, the process remains to alarge extent embedded in social relationships(Mathieu et al., 2002: 126; Chimhowu andWoodhouse, 2006) and could be viewed as aform of property rights for social inclusion thatserve to erase identities of difference betweencustomary landowners and ‘outsiders’.

While the land transfers in the SoutheastAsian case studies do not appear to representold practices and customs to the same extentas they do in PNG and sub-Saharan Africa,they do reveal the ways in which principles ofcustomary land tenure can be manipulated byvillage elite to allow the sale of land. This isalso operating in some situations in WNB andWest Africa where clan or village leaders arelargely responsible for land transactions withmigrants.

Conclusion

This paper has examined the processes bywhich migrants in the oil palm belt of WNB gainaccess to customary land for export cash crop-ping and how customary land tenure is beingmodified to accommodate this rising demandfor land. Superficially, these land transactionsappear to involve the commodification of cus-tomary land. On closer scrutiny, it is revealedthat they are often mediated by place-basedframeworks of land tenure in which social rela-tionships and non-market values play a criticalrole. These land transactions, which are within aframework of property rights for social inclu-sion, enable migrants to forge a social identityas part of the host group that moves them from



39

the position of outsiders to insiders and in theprocess strengthens their access rights to land.Thus, how migrants manage their relationshipswith customary landowners is important fordetermining their identity, status and position inrelation to the host group.

There are important implications for policiesof land tenure reform arising from the mallea-bility of customary land tenure in the context ofhigh rates of immigration, rapid social changeand expanding commodity production. In thePNG and sub-Saharan African cases, emergingforms of land tenure did not require a radicalbreak with traditional regimes of customarytenure to accommodate migrants pursuing newtypes of livelihoods based on cash cropping.Traditional tenure regimes are not static andinflexible as often portrayed by proponents ofland reform who claim land registration andtitling will boost agricultural productivity. Inboth PNG and Africa where there is pressure tointroduce customary land reform policies, thedynamic nature of customary land tenure andits capacity to accommodate change is eitherignored or downplayed (see edited collectionby Fingleton (2005b) for a review of thesedebates in PNG, and Peters (2007) for sub-Saharan Africa).

For proponents on both sides of the debate,there must be a better understanding of what isto be gained and lost through policies of landtenure reform. This will require detailed empiri-cal analyses of the nature and content of thediverse range of new land tenure regimes thatare emerging in rural (and urban) areas experi-encing high rates of immigration and/or agricul-tural development. These should be describedand evaluated carefully before embarking on aconsideration of the need for land reform poli-cies. Such a process would entail, among otherthings, investigating what a ‘sale’ or land ‘rental’means for the parties making the transactionincluding the broader community of customarylandowners; what it is that is being ‘sold’ or‘rented’; and, the extent to which land is beingalienated from customary ownership. Forexample, do ‘sales’ mean complete alienationof land as described by Li (2002) and Potter andBadcock (2004) in Sulawesi? Or, does the termmean something less than full alienation as inthe WNB case study and in some of the Africanstudies described above?

The paper also raises several other researchquestions regarding land transactions betweenmigrants and customary landowners. Forexample, how will land rights, built up bymigrants over many years through both marketand indigenous exchange transactions, bemanaged or regulated by the State, migrants andcustomary landowner groups, especially giventhe lack of legal status of many land dealingsand the emergence of land shortages in someareas? How will inheritance, the replanting ofsenile stands of oil palm and the ‘sub-letting’ of‘purchased’ blocks in WNB be managed by cus-tomary landowners, the oil palm industry andprovincial land administrators? And, finally,how can emerging land tenure regimes be keptwithin a framework of property rights for socialinclusion that provides some level of tenuresecurity for migrants acquiring land while rec-ognising and preserving the underlying rights ofcustomary landowners?

Acknowledgements

The paper benefited from feedback from partici-pants at two conferences: the Curtin RUSSIC-Miri conference, Borneo, in February 2007, andthe ASAO conference, Canberra, in January2008. We thank guest editor, Associate Prof.Fadzilah Majid Cooke, for bringing this specialsection of the journal to fruition.The Departmentof Geography, University of Copenhagen, pro-vided a congenial home for the final revisions ofthe paper to incorporate the insightful commentsof referees. Finally, we thank the many small-holder families and customary landowners whoshared with us their knowledge and experiencesof land dealings in WNB. The research wasfunded by an ARC Discovery Project grant withsupplementary data collected during a separatesmallholder study with the PNG Oil PalmResearch Association funded by the AustralianCentre for International Agricultural Research.

Notes

1 Almost 97% of land in PNG is held communally undercustomary tenure with access rights based on a mixtureof descent, co-residence and participation in commu-nal activities. State intervention is limited on customaryland. Fingleton’s (2004) description of customary landtenure in PNG applies to WNB: ‘a balance betweengroup and individual rights and obligations, with land



40

ownership being held at a group level and land usebeing exercised at the individual or household level’(Fingleton, 2004: 112 quoted in Fingleton 2005a).

2 We use inverted commas to refer to land ‘sales’,‘purchases’ and ‘rentals’ where their usage in the textdoes not correspond with their exact meaning inEnglish.

3 While land sales to migrants are common, the long-term rental of land and accessing land through share-cropping is much more widespread among migrantsin Sub-Saharan Africa. In some parts of Africa thesemechanisms for accessing land have been operating formore than a century (Chimhowu and Woodhouse,2006).

4 This should not be interpreted to mean that customarytenure principles are free of manipulation by powerfulvillage chiefs or local political leaders in land dealingswith migrants.

5 The census data for migrants in the Talasea CensusDistrict do not include second or third generationmigrants born within the District. Thus, the proportionof the rural population without birth rights to land ismuch higher.

6 Typically, under traditional principles of land tenure,when a food garden is abandoned to fallow afterseveral years of cultivation, land tenure reverts to thegroup.

7 Lease arrangements in oil palm developments enablecustomary landowners to enter into long-term jointagricultural ventures with private investors through thelease, lease-back provisions of the 1996 Land Act (seeKoczberski et al., 2001).

8 Section 81 of the Land Act prohibits the sale of cus-tomary land except to citizens of PNG in accordancewith customary law. According to Cooter (1991b),most magistrates in PNG do not believe that customarylaw allows sales of land to people outside the kinshipgroup.

9 People buying customary land to establish oil palm inthe Hoskins scheme are encouraged to follow a set ofland sale procedures introduced recently by the exten-sion organisation, the Oil Palm Industry Corporation(OPIC) (see Curry et al., 2007 for details).

10 In many rural areas of PNG, health and educationservices and road infrastructure have deteriorated, andthere are few employment opportunities.

11 The state land is ‘rented’ to migrants by the originalcustomary landowners.

12 For a description of a PNG case study in which theserelationships have become highly exploitative, seeCurry (1997).

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