A central problem for a national programme of land reform is the selective response of local communities. The plans are often grand, simple and homogeneous; the communities, small, complex and diverse. Moreover, locally a received reform may be re-interpreted—indeed, re-invented—in quite fundamental ways in the light of a locally understood history of introduced change and outside intervention. There may be a deliberately defensive response, due to the high value people put on their community's autonomy or due to the perceived bias of the reform in relation to longstanding oppositions within a community. Sometimes, also there may be an attempt to seize an opportunity, perhaps unintended by the reform's planners, for a further encroachment by some at the expense of others, within the community itself.