The Development of a Land Market? Insights from Côte d’Ivoire

This paper contributes to the debate on rural land sales in Africa. First, it shows that the emergence of sales in the forested area of Côte d’Ivoire corresponds to an "imperfect" land commoditization, due to the social embedding of land transfers in the autochthon-migrant relationship. Then, it analyzes land sales in a former no-man’s land, outside this relationship, where the transactions correspond to complete sales. However, a diachronic analysis reveals an "involution" in the market, related to the transformation of the pioneer’s individual private right into a family right, once the land is inherited, highlighting therefore another social dimension of land markets.