Transformative spaces: peri-urban domains, legal pluralism and land in Botswana.

This paper explores how the classification of urban and rural space is enshrined in the formal legal system of Botswana involving multiple normative orders derived from the country's colonial past. In particular, it explores how these orders represent different types of land tenure. These depend on classification of land into state/urban and rural/customary domains, It traces the interactive dimensions at play in practice, highlighting complex relations to land through spaces embodying territorial, political, economic and social relations. These reflect varying spatial and temporal logics that may conflict with one another. Building on research carried out over a thirty year period, the paper focuses on two land disputes in Kweneng district, in a peri-urban area adjacent to the capital city Gaborone, under the jurisdiction of Kweneng land board. They illustrate the conflicts arising over what has become a market in land fuelled by a shift towards urbanisation, creating pressures for over it that have greatly intensified over the years, particularly in peri-urban areas where people flock to live and work. This raises questions about how parties' relationships to land and their rights to it are perceived as legitimate within a dynamic, plural universe involving both state and customary law. This is one in which local people have developed their own strategies for transferring land on an "informal" basis. Engaging with legal pluralism, through the lenses of space and time, the paper demonstrates the importance of acknowledging the plurality of spaces that may co-exist at the same time and their temporal dimensions that may overlap or conflict with one another. This creates a better understanding of what differing interpretations of relationships to land entail and their ensuing legal dimensions, as well as people's strategies for dealing with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]