Sandra Joireman, Ph.D.
sjoirema@richmond.edu
Full Professor
University of Richmond
Year of PhD: 1995
Address: University of Richmond, Department of Political Science
City: Richmond, Virginia - 23173
Country: United States
About Me:
Sandra F. Joireman is the Associate Provost for Faculty, Weinstein Chair of International Studies, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. She specializes in comparative political economy with an emphasis on Africa and the Western Balkans. Her work covers topics related to property rights, legal development, and post-conflict migration. Joireman has been a Fulbright scholar at the American University of Kosovo and the University of Addis Ababa with the Institute for Development Research. She has been a visiting researcher at Makerere University in Uganda with the Makerere Institute for Social Research and with Queen Elizabeth House International Development Centre at Oxford University. Joireman is the author of Where There is No Government: Enforcing property rights in common law Africa (2011), Church, State and Citizen (2009), Nationalism and Political Identity (2003), Property Rights & Political Development in Ethiopia & Eritrea (2000), and Institutional Change in the Horn of Africa: The Allocation of Property Rights and Implications for Development. She has written numerous articles on property rights, migration, and legal development most recently appearing in Oxford Development Studies, International Migration, Development & Change, The Journal of Political Geography, and The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. Joireman has conducted field research in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Kosovo, Liberia, Rwanda, Serbia and Uganda.
Research Interests
African Politics
Development
Gender and Politics
International Law & Organization
Post-Communist Politics
Return Migration
Property Ownership
International Law
Gender & Institutions
Migration And Displacement
Countries of Interest
Kosovo
Uganda
Serbia
Ethiopia
Liberia
My Research:
Sandra F. Joireman is the Weinstein Chair of International Studies, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. Her work covers topics related to property rights, post-conflict migration, and customary law. Joireman has been a Research Fellow at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, a Fulbright scholar at the American University of Kosovo and the University of Addis Ababa, and a visiting researcher at Makerere University in Uganda with the Makerere Institute for Social Research and with Queen Elizabeth House International Development Centre at Oxford University. Joireman is the author of the forthcoming, Peace, Preference and Property: Return Migration after Violent Conflict (2022), Where There is No Government: Enforcing property rights in common law Africa (2011), Church, State and Citizen (2009), Nationalism and Political Identity (2003), and Property Rights & Political Development in Ethiopia & Eritrea (2000). She has written numerous articles on property rights, migration, and legal development most recently appearing in Political Geography, International Affairs, Oxford Development Studies, International Migration, Development & Change, and The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. Joireman has conducted field research in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Kosovo, Liberia, Oman, Rwanda, Serbia, and Uganda. Joireman has had several significant leadership roles including Associate Provost for Faculty at the University of Richmond (2018-2021) and chair of the Board of Directors at Bread for the World/Bread for the World Institute (2013-2017).
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Smallholder settlement schemes have played a prominent role in Kenya's contested history of state-building, land politics, and electoral mobilization. This paper presents the first georeferenced dataset documenting scheme location, boundaries, and attributes of Kenya's 533 official settlement schemes, as well as the first systematic data on scheme creation since 1980. The data show that almost half of all government schemes were created after 1980, as official rural development rationales for state-sponsored settlement gave way to more explicitly welfarist and electoralist objectives. Even so, logics of state territorialization to fix ethnicized, partisan constituencies to state-defined territorial units pervade the history of scheme creation over the entire 1962–2016 period, as theorized in classic political geography works on state territorialization. While these “geopolitics” of regime construction are fueled by patronage politics, they also sustain practices of land allocation that affirm the moral and political legitimacy of grievance-backed claims for land. This fuels on-going contestation around political representation and acute, if socially-fragmented, demands for state-recognition of land rights. Our findings are consistent with recent political geography and interdisciplinary work on rural peoples' demands for state recognition of land rights and access to natural resources. Kenya's history of settlement scheme creation shows that even in the country's core agricultural districts, where the reach of formal state authority is undisputed, the territorial politics of power-consolidation and resource allocation continues to be shaped by social demands and pressures from below.
After eight years of civil war, parts of Syria are now free from conflict. In recognition of the return to peace, the government officially welcomes back all who fled the country to escape violence. Yet, a pattern of property expropriation supported by the government during the war limits the ability of some to return and reclaim their homes and businesses. We argue here that intentional changes to law and policy regarding property rights during the war has led to asset losses for members of groups opposed to the government and created a barrier to property restitution and the return of these groups. We examine legal documents and secondary sources identifying government actions and their impact, noting the proliferation of laws that systematically erode the property rights of people who lack proximity, legal status, and regime allies. As the results of these laws manifest after the war, a disproportionate number of Syrians who opposed the government will find themselves without the houses, land, and property they held before the war began.
Land restitution carries implicit recognition of some previous claim to ownership, but when are first claims recognized? The concepts of first possession and original acquisition have long been used as entry points to Western concepts of property. For Austronesia, the concept of precedence is used in customary systems to justify and describe land claims and Indigenous authority. Conflict and political change in Timor-Leste have highlighted the co-existence of multiple understandings of land claims and their legitimacy. Considering customary principles of precedence brings into relief important elements of first possession important in land restitution processes. This paper juxtaposes the concept of original acquisition in property theory to two different examples of original claims from Timor-Leste: a two-part customary origin narrative from Oecusse and the development of a national land law for the new state. In these three narratives, we identify three different establishment events from which land authority develops. The article then uses this idea of the establishment event to explore five points of customary-statutory intersection evident from the land restitution process: (1) legitimate sources of land authority; (2) arbitrary establishment dates; (3) privileging of social order; (4) recognition of spiritual ties to land; and (5) the possibility for reversal
Northern Uganda is in transition after the conflict that ended in 2006. While its cities are thriving and economic opportunities abound, the social institutions governing land access are contested, the land administration system is changing, and the mechanisms available to address conflicts over resources have themselves become a venue for authority claims. This article examines the intergenerational nature of land conflicts in northern Uganda, focusing on the interplay of customary law, return migration and the development of a market in land. There are three contributions to existing literature: (1) a discussion of children’s property rights under customary and statute law in Uganda; (2) the identification of the dual nature of children during complex emergencies as both victims and agents; and (3) an addition to knowledge on post-conflict return and community reconstruction. Evidence comes from several sources, the most important of which are a set of interviews conducted in Gulu and Kampala in May and June 2015. Secondary sources augment the field research, particularly survey research conducted in northern Uganda after the conflict.
The property rights of children is an understudied area that straddles the development/humanitarian divide. Access to assets is important to the livelihood choices and economic well-being of adults. Yet, adults’ ability to claim property can be significantly impaired by humanitarian emergencies that occurred in their youth. We typically do not think of children as economic actors because of their age; their property rights are future rights not yet realized. This paper addresses the future rights to property held by children and examines how fragile environments, characterized by conflict, displacement and disease, can undermine their ability to claim those rights when they become adults, thus depriving them of assets. We identify two types of responses that can begin to address this problem: (1) legal changes to protect children’s assets when guardianship is lost; and (2) actions that can be taken by humanitarian organizations to identify children’s assets and protect them through conflict and displacement. This is a particularly salient topic at the current time when the numbers of displaced people are higher than any time previously recorded, and half of the displaced are children.
Forced migration has become commonplace in the international political landscape. In 2015, 60 million people were displaced by violence, more than ever before recorded (UNHCR, 2015). While we know that violence leads to displacement, we know little about return migration after conflict – who comes back and where they settle. This article seeks to engage and supplement the literature on return migration after conflict, advocating for a broader understanding of the security choices made by displaced people. Emphasized here is the importance of a local understanding of safety and the role played by enclave communities in providing a secure context in which people can enjoy the society of their co-ethnics.
Mass displacement of people due to violence poses a unique set of challenges for property restitution when people return to their homes after a long absence. This is particularly evident in rural areas where the dominant form of land holding is customary tenure. Violence-induced displacement, unlike voluntary migration, challenges both customary and public legal-administrative structures. The lack of written documentation of customary holdings and the importance of the support of community leaders means that incorporating returnees back into a community can be easier for those who choose to return, while reclaiming property without physical return is nearly impossible. This article seeks to make three contributions: 1) to note the diversity of return processes after long displacements in terms of timing and demographics; 2) to demonstrate that the nature of the claims people can make on customary tenure systems is at odds with international legal norms on property restitution after displacement; and 3) to introduce a set of observations and questions on how conflict can change customary law. The article is based on fieldwork conducted in Uganda, Liberia and Timor-Leste, all countries with extended displacement where most of the rural land is held via customary claims.
Books Written:
Growing numbers of people are displaced by war and violent conflict. In Ukraine, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria, and elsewhere violence pushes civilian populations from their homes and sometimes from their countries, making them refugees. In previous decades, millions of refugees and displaced people returned to their place of origin after conflict or were resettled in countries in the Global North. Now displacements last longer, the number of people returning home is lower, and opportunities for resettlement are shrinking. More and more people spend decades in refugee camps or displaced within their own countries, raising their children away from their home communities and cultures. In this context, international policies encourage return to place of origin. Using case studies, spatial analysis and first-person accounts from interviews and fieldwork in post-conflict settings such as Uganda, Liberia, and Kosovo, Sandra F. Joireman highlights the divergence between international policies and the preferences of conflict-displaced people. Rather than looking from the top down, at the rights that people have in international and domestic law, the perspective of this text is from the ground up—examining individual and household choices after conflict. Some refugees want to go home, some do not want to return, some want to return to their countries of origin but live in a different place, and others are repatriated against their will when they have no other options. Peace, Preference, and Property suggests alternative policies that would provide greater choice for displaced people in terms of property restitution and solutions to displacement.
Media Appearances:
Radio Appearances:
Appearance on Let’s Go There with Shira & Ryan, April 7
Newspaper Quotes:
Quoted my work in The Conversation
Summarizes research that appeared in Emily Stubblefield and Sandra F. Joireman, “Law, Violence and Property Expropriation in Syria: Impediments to Restitution and Return, Land, 2019, 8(11).
Blog Posts:
Overview of social science research on return migration after violent conflict