LAND, CULTURE, CULTURE LOSS AND COMMUNITY: Rural Insights from Sub-Saharan Africa

Land is the most valuable asset for people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) because a majority of them depend on it for income generation, food security and poverty alleviation. The culture of the people, which is interwoven with land tenure practices, forms a critical part of their everyday life. Their culture encapsulates their common experiences, values, heritage, gender structure, class systems and worldview (Chigbu 2015a). Together, land and culture are two of the most important threads that bind SSA societies together. That is why land and cultural issues are important aspects of community development in SSA. Community development-being a way of injecting change in societies-requires a critical understanding of the dynamics of land and culture in SSA. The purpose of this chapter is to present the importance of land and culture in community development in SSA. It discusses historical and contemporary issues concerning community development in SSA. Much has been written about loss of community and its implications in societies (Putnam 2000). However, little has been written about loss of culture and how it affects community development. This chapter also identifies culture loss as a key challenge to community development in SSA and suggests the Land and Culture-based Community Development (LCCD) approach as a means of improvement. LCCD is a community development approach that focuses on the enhancement of cultural heritage and development-oriented land tenure practices as a way of improving the living conditions of communities.