Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae Doctoral Thesis No. 2020:64 This thesis focuses on the introduction, development and implementation of Doctoral Thesis No. 2020:67 clear-cutting in central and northern Sweden during the 1800s and early 1900s. Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences A combination of different historical records, methods, and approaches revealed that clear-cutting has been used for a longer time than previously believed, which may be of importance for forestry and nature conservation today. Analysis of At the limits of state governance forest historical records from both contemporaneous and present perspectives may provide a deeper understanding of forest and forestry history than would Territory, property and state making in Lenje Chiefdom, otherwise be obtained. rural Zambia Hanna Lundmark received her graduate education at the Department of Forest Ecology and Management, SLU, Umeå. She has a Degree of Master of Linus Rosén Science in Forestry with a major in Biology from SLU, Umeå. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae presents doctoral theses from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). SLU generates knowledge for the sustainable use of biological natural resources. Research, education, extension, as well as environmental monitoring and assessment are used to achieve this goal. Online publication of thesis summary: http://pub.epsilon.slu.se/ ISSN 1652-6880 ISBN (print version) 978-91-7760-646-8 ISBN (electronic version) 978-91-7760-647-5 At the limits of state governance Territory, property and state making in Lenje Chiefdom, rural Zambia Linus Rosén Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences Department of Urban and Rural Development Uppsala DOCTORAL THESIS Uppsala 2020 Acta Universitatis agriculturae Sueciae 2020:67 Cover: An aerial view of Mooya village, Lenje Chiefdom, on the border between State Land (left) and chiefly territory (right). (Google Maps: Bilder ©2020 CNES / Airbus, Maxar Technologies, Kartdata ©2020) ISSN 1652-6880 ISBN (print version) 978-91-7760-652-9 ISBN (electronic version) 978-91-7760-653-6 © 2020 Linus Rosén, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala Print: SLU Service/Repro, Uppsala 2020 At the limits of state governance. Territory, property and state making in Lenje Chiefdom, rural Zambia Abstract African state property regimes – embedded in a racialized structure of land ownership that stretches back centuries – are at the center of contemporary land struggles. At present, the Zambian government is appropriating ‘traditional land’, controlled by chiefs and headmen molded through colonial rule, in an effort to bring it into the fold of ‘modernity’. On paper this process appears as a powerful state-building project. Yet on the ground it is riddled with legal contingency, with land survey beacons appearing unexpectedly on people’s doorsteps, and chiefs finding themselves torn between asserting their sovereignty and maintaining recognition by the state. This thesis examines the material and conceptual remaking of chiefly lands as constitutive of new forms of exclusion and political authority. Yet, instead of focusing on the ‘achievements’ of state power, analytical attention is placed on the creative ways state governance is subverted by chiefly obstruction, insubordinate peoples and unruly nature. Drawing on long-term fieldwork and archival research, the thesis argues that the process of ‘state making’ and its effects are inseparable from the myriad material practices that thwart state power. A conceptualization of ‘boundaries’ is developed to capture how relations of stately and chiefly power operate on an unstable political landscape. The analysis knits together insights from legal pluralism, political ecology, critical geography, anthropology and postcolonial theory in a grounded reading of everyday forms of state formation that captures how colonial histories and spatialities intertwine with present-day politics. Building on this analytical foundation, the thesis links up four case studies of ‘state making’: (I) the colonial racialization and sedentarization of African bodies, and their refusals to conform to colonial territoriality, (II) the government enclosure of a forest repeatedly reoccupied by chiefly authority (III) the emplacement of survey beacons on village land, and their demolition by local inhabitants, and (IV) the promotion of state- sanctioned title deeds on customary land, and their reinvention as implements of chiefly control. Each case makes visible the fissures of state power and how creative people exploit indeterminacies to resist eviction and reassert their claims to home and land. Through a recognition of ‘ordinary people’ as political protagonists, fully capable of contestation and critique, the thesis shows how marginalized people continuously test the limits of state governance, and how such practices are not ‘irregularities’ to otherwise effective performances of governance, but crucial political enactments that constitute new forms of property, territory and an uneven and variable state. Keywords: state making, boundaries, land struggles, resistance, property, territory, chieftainship, Zambia Author’s address: Linus Rosén, SLU, Dept. of Urban and Rural Development, P.O. Box 7012, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. At the limits of state governance. Territory, property and state making in Lenje Chiefdom, rural Zambia Abstract Den statliga styrningen av markägande i södra Afrika – vars system är präglat av sekelgamla rasstrukturer – står i centrum för dagens politiska strider över mark och rättmätigt ledarskap. Den zambiska regeringen exproprierar s.k. ’traditionell’ mark, förvaltad av lokala kungar och byäldstar, i syfte att inlemma marken i ’moderniteten’. På papperet är det ett effektivt verktyg fr statsbildning. Men i praktiken genomsyras processen av rättslig ambivalens, med nya gränsmarkörer som dyker upp utanfr byinvånares drrar, och med kungar som balanserar mellan att hävda sin förvaltningsrätt och bli erkända av staten som legitima politiska aktrer. Den här avhandlingen undersöker den materiella och konceptuella omdaningen av mark kontrollerad av kungadmet Lenje i centrala Zambia, och hur den skapar nya former av exkludering och politiska auktoriteter. Men snarare än att fokusera på vad statlig maktutvning ’uppnår’ läggs analytiskt fokus på hur det statliga styret ständigt utmanas av kungadömet, lokala småbrukare och oregerlig natur. Med utgångspunkt i arkivforskning och deltagande observation argumenterar avhandlingen fr att processen ’statsbildning’ är oskiljbar från den myriad av kreativa praktiker som utmanar statlig maktutvning. Analysen bygger på en konceptualisering av ’gränser’ fr att frstå hur statligt och kungligt maktutvande yttrar sig på ett politiskt instabilt landskap. Underskningen väver samman insikter från politisk ekologi, rättspluralism, kritisk geografi, antropologi och postkolonial teori, vilket lägger grund fr en analys av vardagliga former av statsbildning som också fångar hur koloniala historier och geografier sammanflätas med samtida politik. Avhandlingen kopplar samman fyra fallstudier av statsbildning: (I) den koloniala rasifieringen och sedentariseringen av afrikanska kroppar, och deras vägran att fogas in i den koloniala geografin, (II) den statliga exproprieringen av ett skogsområde som upprepade gånger återockuperas av kungadmet, (III) statens utmätning och utplacering av gränsmarkrer på bybors mark, och hur lokala invånare demolerar dem, och (IV) statligt främjande av nationella lagfartsbevis på mark som regleras av lokala normsystem, och hur lagfarter omtolkas av lokala byäldstar till politiska verktyg för sin egen maktutvning. Varje fallstudie synliggr sprickorna i den statliga styrningen, och hur kreativa människor utnyttjar politiska ovissheter för att motsätta sig vräkningar och återartikulera sina rättigheter. Avhandlingen visar hur marginaliserade människor kontinuerligt testar gränserna fr statligt styre, och hur sådana praktiker är betydelsefulla politiska handlingar som konstituerar en ombytlig och fränderlig stat. Nyckelord: statsbildning, marktvister, motstånd, egendom, territorium, kolonialism, kungadmen, Zambia Författarens adress: Linus Rosén, SLU, Inst. fr stad och land, Box 7012, 750 07 Uppsala, Sverige. Acknowledgements This thesis is a product of the enthusiasm and encouragement of a number of extraordinary people. Over the past few years, I have acquired many debts, and these pages are not enough to express the gratitude I feel. What follows below are just some of the enabling conditions under which I wrote this thesis. I thank, first, all the residents of Mulonga village and Munyama Forest. Although I cannot name them, I want to register their tremendous hospitality and generosity in having an inquisitive PhD student in their midst for almost a year. I learned more from them about state governance than one can learn from any report or study. A special thanks to headman Chiwala for welcoming me into Munyama Forest. A warm thank you also goes Newman Nkandu for assisting me in the field. As a friend, culture broker and critical reader, your help has been indispensable. I also thank the staff at the Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA) for generously sharing their detailed knowledge about Zambian land politics, and the librarians at the National Archives of Zambia who patiently helped me to navigate the ledgers. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors: Andrea Nightingale, Emil Sandström