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In more developed societies the concept of land tenure security is implicit and backed by long standing institutions. In contrast, the concept is less recognised and carries divergent meanings in developing countries. In these contexts past conceptualisation efforts have favoured reductionist approaches: the concept is narrowed to one aspect or another, but, no shared agreement on a definition prevails. The absence of this basic theoretical knowledge impedes discourse on land policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. This paper contributes to this issue by revisiting and refining the concept of tenure security in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa's rural poor. Using a systematic review, scientific evidence on the conceptualization issue is provided. A typology of different schools of thought is developed: land tenure security is shown to be understood through (1) economic, (2) legal or (3) adaptation lenses …