Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap

This paper reports the findings of an in-depth case study of a highly densely populated area in northwest Rwanda which has been conducted during the period 1988-1993. It demonstrates that acute competition for land in a context characterized by too slow expansion of non-agricultural income opportunities has resulted in increasingly unequal land distribution and rapid processes of land dispossession through both operation of the (illegal) land market and evolution of indigenous tenure arrangements. It is also shown that pervasive incidence of land disputes and the threat of landlessness have led to rising tensions in social relations and even within the core of family life, thus paving the way for evermore overt expressions of disharmony and violence. A connection between these ominous conditions and the civil war that broke out in 1994 is established. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.