This title comprises a collection of papers presented at a conference held at the University of Cape Town in 2010, which consider how development in Africa may best be achieved by concentrating on access to property from a pluralist perspective, with emphasis on land, the most important economic resource.

• Access to property in Africa: An introductory survey - Thomas Bennett and Hanri Mostert

• Absolute ownership and legal pluralism in Roman law: Two arguments - Helen Scott

• Legal pluralism in Africa: The implications of state recognition of customary laws illustrated from the field of land law - Gordon Woodman     

• Legal pluralism and access to land in Nigeria - Enyinna Nwauche 

• The changing dynamics of customary land tenure: Women’s access to and control over land in Botswana - Anne Griffiths    

• Taking the gap – ‘Living law land grabbing’ in the context of customary succession laws in Southern Africa - Chuma Himonga   

• Securing women’s property inheritance in the context of plurality: Negotiations of law and authority in Mbuzini customary courts and beyond - Sindiso Mnisi Weeks        

• Contested power and apartheid tribal boundaries: The implications of ‘living customary law’ for indigenous accountability mechanisms - Aninka Claassens    

• Lost in translation: Family title in Fingo Village, Grahamstown, Eastern Cape - Rosalie Kingwill

• Land information as a tool for effective land administration and development - Gerrit Pienaar

• Legal pluralism – The investor’s view - Johann Schiller     

• Promises of future performance and informal-sector transfers of personal property: The example of Anglophone Cameroon - Claire Moore Dickerson           

• Indigenous-law land rights: Constitutional imperatives and proprietary paradoxes - Anne Pope

• Academics, South African and foreign – especially those with an interest in comparative law, customary law and property law
• Law libraries, South African and foreign