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Accepted Paper:
Counter agrarian reform and the untruth of land reform in South Africa
Richard Levin
(Land Claims Court South Africa)
Mnqobi Ngubane
(University of Johannesburg)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines counter agrarian reform in South Africa, focusing on the snail-paced land reform programme. Emerging class alliances have led to neo-liberal approaches rather than transformative solutions enabled by the democratic constitution and legislation developed after apartheid.
Paper long abstract:
Land dispossession was central to the colonial and apartheid projects in South Africa. White capitalist agriculture evolved through labour tenancy characterised by a combination of forced labour, non-remunerated labour, payment in kind and wage labour, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. South Africa's constitution provides tools to transform society and deepen democracy through market and non-market rights based land reform mechanisms. Nevertheless, the central role of the market has seen the government at the centre of class alliances that have disempowered and excluded the poor and marginalised. Resultant neo-liberal approaches including a willing buyer willing seller approach to land redistribution, land restitution and land tenure reform have produced counter agrarian reform outcomes. Indeed a failure to develop the art of statecraft through creating institutional capacity and capability has led to land reform outcomes being defined and measured in hectares and numbers of people rather than transformation, empowerment and sustainability. Evolving class alliances have seen the government emerge as the willing buyer and white land owners as the willing sellers, often at prices which bear no relationship to market value. This paper problematises policy and practice, while drawing attention to constitutional and legislative strengths and limitations and evaluates the manner in which counter land and agrarian reform has been characterised by top-down implementation, the creation of imagined communities and reproduced poverty through post-colonial and neo-colonial untruth. The paper concludes by examining prospects and opportunities for alternatives and the political-economic conditions under which these may be achieved.
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Accepted Paper:
Paper short abstract:
Paper long abstract:
Land dispossession was central to the colonial and apartheid projects in South Africa. White capitalist agriculture evolved through labour tenancy characterised by a combination of forced labour, non-remunerated labour, payment in kind and wage labour, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. South Africa's constitution provides tools to transform society and deepen democracy through market and non-market rights based land reform mechanisms. Nevertheless, the central role of the market has seen the government at the centre of class alliances that have disempowered and excluded the poor and marginalised. Resultant neo-liberal approaches including a willing buyer willing seller approach to land redistribution, land restitution and land tenure reform have produced counter agrarian reform outcomes. Indeed a failure to develop the art of statecraft through creating institutional capacity and capability has led to land reform outcomes being defined and measured in hectares and numbers of people rather than transformation, empowerment and sustainability. Evolving class alliances have seen the government emerge as the willing buyer and white land owners as the willing sellers, often at prices which bear no relationship to market value. This paper problematises policy and practice, while drawing attention to constitutional and legislative strengths and limitations and evaluates the manner in which counter land and agrarian reform has been characterised by top-down implementation, the creation of imagined communities and reproduced poverty through post-colonial and neo-colonial untruth. The paper concludes by examining prospects and opportunities for alternatives and the political-economic conditions under which these may be achieved.
Counter agrarian reform in the Global South: dynamics of accumulation and change
Session 1 Thursday 7 July, 2022, -