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Paper short abstract:

While the property is critical in space-making by organising human relations over land, its role in the making of apartheid geography is often understudied. This paper attempts to do so by investigating the role of property, packaged as trusts in producing space and the geography of inequality.

Paper long abstract:

There is a long history of conceptions of property and the critical role property plays in space-making by organising human relations over land. Less critically studied is how property, packaged through trusts, was instrumental in the making of apartheid geography in South Africa. This paper investigates the linkages between trusts and state-making in (post)apartheid South Africa. It uses legislation, parliamentary minutes, and court documents layered with interviews to trace the trusteeship model from its inception in 1844 to 2022. The paper pays particular attention to the 20th century when the South African Development Trust (SADT) was established as it held most land in communal areas (i.e., Bantustans). Through the SADT, historical owners of the land were transformed into beneficiaries with no decision-making powers, and this skewed the dynamics of space-making in favour of the state. This trusteeship model that was instrumental for land dispossession under apartheid re-emerged in the democratic era in the form of community development trusts (CDTs) in mining areas. The paper locates the phases of trusteeship within the broader political history of South Africa to argue that CDTs are not community-driven but are instead designed and created by the state to continue to serve as an avenue for state control over valuable resources. The paper concludes that trusts must be seen as a space-making practice that deploys property to produce space and to perpetuate the geography of difference, inequalities and injustice