The Transmutation of Land Ownership Paradigms and Associated Conflicts in Santa Sub-Division, 1930 - 2020: Cash Crop Economy, Commodification and Institutional Fragmentation

This article provides a comprehensive historical exegesis of the transmutation of land ownership paradigms and the concomitant proliferation of agrarian conflicts between 1930 and 2020 in Santa Sub-Division, Mezam Division, North West Region of Cameroon. It advances the central thesis that the inexorable incursion of the cash crop economy, epitomized first by Coffea arabica and subsequently by intensive market gardening, precipitated a profound ontological metamorphosis of land from a communally sacralized patrimony governed by elastic customary jurisprudence to a highly monetized, fiercely contested and assiduously litigated commodity. Anchored in a robust qualitative methodology encompassing semi-structured interviews, and archival hermeneutics, the study propounds a pentagonal typology of conflicts. These include intra-familial and inheritance-related, boundary and demarcation, farmer-grazier, inter-village territorial, and commodification-driven disputations. It critically deconstructs intervention mechanisms encompassing traditional authorities, civil society organizations, administrative apparatus, and the Land Consultative Board, demonstrating that entrenched legal pluralism and pervasive elite capture engendered fragmentary, contradictory and ultimately inefficacious outcomes. It further elucidates the contradictory socio-economic ramifications of commercialization, revealing simultaneous processes of accumulation and dispossession, social mobility and structural marginalization. The article concludes by advocating for comprehensive institutional restructuring that harmonizes statutory and customary epistemologies while restoring legitimacy, equity and accessibility as foundational principles of sustainable land governance.