South Africa

Backgrounders and Monitoring papers on land reform in South Africa

South Africa Backgrounder in PDF (23 pages)

South Africa Monitoring Paper in PDF(49 pages)

Broadening the Discourse of “Negotiated Land Reform”: A Comparison Between Land Reform Projects in South Africa and Brazil
Isabella Kenfield, ICARRD
February 13, 2006 - Mainstream agrarian reform policymakers construct discourse of “negotiated land reform” to describe market-led agrarian reform (MLAR). This discourse constrains the terms of negotiation over land reform to a purely market-oriented lexicon. MLAR proponents believe the purpose of land reform is to boost agricultural efficiency in order to promote economic equity. Through MLAR’s adherence to the willing-seller, willing-buyer principle, the terms of negotiation over the mechanism for land reform are limited to private land transactions. MLAR’s reference point of the market for its definition of “negotiation” relegates the tactics practiced by rural social movements such as the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (MST), in particular the occupation of unproductive land, as non-negotiated land reform. This paper will critique MLAR’s discourse of “negotiation” to highlight its limitations, and argues that the MST is creating and participating in a genuine negotiated agrarian reform. Through a comparison of research and experiences from agrarian reform projects in South Africa and Brazil, this paper will describe the negative impacts of MLAR’s limited scope of negotiation, and will highlight how the MST’s broadening of the terms of negotiation of agrarian reform, in relation to both purpose and mechanism, is resulting in successful land reform. This paper calls for an expanded margin of discourse of land reform negotiation in order to create successful agrarian reform policies, and social and economic justice for the rural poor.

Why Do The Landless Remain Landless?
Susan Tilley, Surplus People Project (SPP)
November 10, 2005 - This is an examination of land acquisition and the extent to which the land market and land redistribution mechanisms serve the needs of land-seeking people in South Africa.

Dragging SA’s Land Debate from the Neoliberal Quicksand
Patrick Bond, ZNet
September 05, 2005 - There are a great many surface-level political processes now unfolding in South Africa, reflecting underlying contradictions that are irreconcilable.

LPM 4 TO TESTIFY IN TRIAL OF ACCUSED TORTURE COP - 23 August, 2005
The Landless People's Movement Gauteng
August 23, 2005 - The trial of the SA Police Crime Intelligence Unit head accused of spearheading the midnight interrogation, assault, torture and attempted abduction of four LPM Gauteng activists detained on election day last year is expected to begin in earnest tomorrow in the Protea Magistrate's Court, Soweto.

Monitoring Paper Part I: Land Occupation in South Africa
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, National Land Committee (NLC)
November 20, 2003 - This paper discusses the state of land occupation, its social origins, composition and dynamics in South Africa. The focus is on the social, political and geographical issues that have influenced land occupation during the 2Oth Century while paying special attention to patterns of gender, political alliance and NGO linkage. Finally, the authors consider the varying impact of economic class and the material conditions that landless South Africans continue to face in the continuing struggle for land.

Monitoring Paper Part II- Land Occupation in South Africa
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, National Land Committee (NLC)
November 20, 2003 - Part II of this paper concludes with a final evaluation of South African social, political and challenges of geography that have influenced land occupation over the decades. In closing, the author identifies key issues and lessons for the future.

Backgrounder-Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa
Wellington D. Thwala, National Land Committee
January 21, 2003 - In South Africa, land is presently not only one of the most defining political and development issues, but also perhaps the most intractable. The continuing racial maldistribution of land will either be resolved through a fundamental restructuring of the government's land reform programme, or it will be resolved by a fundamental restructuring of property relations by the people themselves. Which direction the country follows depends to a large degree on the urgent and immediate responsiveness of the government to the needs and demands of the country's 19-million mostly poor, black and landless rural people.