Land Reform Revisited engages with contemporary debates on land reform and agrarian transformation in South Africa. The volume offers insights into post-apartheid transformation dynamics through the lens of agency and state making. The chapters written by emerging scholars are based on extensive qualitative research and their analysis highlights the ways in which people negotiate and contest land reform realities and politics. By focusing on the diverse meanings of land and competing interpretations of what constitutes success and failure in land reform Brandt and Mkodzongi insist on looking beyond the productivity discourses guiding research and policy making in the field towards an informed view from below.
Contributors are: Kezia Batisai, Femke Brandt, Sarah Bruchhausen, Nerhene Davis, Elene Cloete, Tariro Kamuti, Tarminder Kaur, Grasian Mkodzongi, Camalita Naicker, Fani Ncapayi, Mnqobi Ngubane, and Chizuko Sato.
Femke Brandt (PhD 2013), University of Johannesburg is a GES Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies. She has published in
Anthropology Southern Africa and the
Journal of Southern African Studies.
Grasian Mkodzongi (PhD 2013), is Research Associate Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies. He has published articles and book chapters on land reform and rural livelihoods in
Zimbabwe in Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy and the
Review of African Political Economy.
'This volume is well written, in so far as individual chapters and the main argument are concerned and a must read for anyone interested on land reform.[...] all chapters manage to succeed in convincing the reader that we need to think about land beyond the big commercial agricultural productivity model because land is complex as there are different meanings of land to different people'.
Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba in
Transformations. Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa Vol. 100, pp. 228-233.
Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors
Part 1: Introduction
1
Revisiting South Africa’s Land and Agrarian Questions Grasian Mkodzongi and Femke Brandt
Part 2: Meanings of Democracy
2
Broadening Conceptions of Democracy and Citizenship: The Subaltern Histories of Rural Resistance in Mpondoland and Marikana Sarah Bruchhausen and Camalita Naicker 3
From Material to Cultural: Historiographic Approaches to the Eastern Cape’s Agrarian Past Elene Cloete 4
South Africa’s Dangerous Game: Re-configuring Power and Belonging on Karoo Trophy-hunting Farms Femke Brandt 5
Gendered Nationhood and the Land Question in South Africa 20 Years after Democracy Kezia Batisai
Part 3: State-Making
6
Farm Worker ‘Development’ Agendas: What Does Sports Have to Do with It? Tarminder Kaur 7
Intricacies of Game Farming and Outstanding Land Restitution Claims in the Gongolo Area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Tariro Kamuti 8
Inclusive Business Models in South African Land Restitution: Great Expectations and Ambiguous Outcomes Explored Nerhene Davis 9
‘We Won’t Have Zim-style Land Grabs’: What Can South Africa Learn from Zimbabwe’s Fast-track Land Reforms? Grasian Mkodzongi
Part 4: Agency, Identity, and Belonging
10
Khoisan Revivalism and Land Question in Post-Apartheid South Africa Chizuko Sato 11
The Land-reform Programme and Its Contribution to the Livelihoods of Poor People Fani Ncapayi 12
‘Disrupting Spatial Legacies’: Dismantled Game Farms as Success Stories of Land Reform? Mnqobi Ngubane
Part 5: Conclusion
13
Agency and State Planning in South Africa’s Land-reform Process Femke Brandt and Grasian Mkodzongi
Index
All interested in agrarian transformation, land reform and African studies, and anyone specifically concerned with the politics of land and belonging in South(ern) Africa.