Land Reform in South Africa: An Uneven Transformation

by Brent McCusker, William G. Moseley, Maano Ramutsindela

Overview

This thoughtful book explores the history and ongoing dilemmas of land use and land reform in South Africa. Including both theoretical and applied examples of the evolution of South Africa’s current geography of land use, the authors provide a succinct overview of land reform and evaluate the range of policies conceived over time to redress the country’s stark racial land imbalance. Drawing on compelling case studies from across South Africa, they illustrate not only the progress of land reform, but also how reforms fit within the larger historical context of racialized land use. This is the first book of its kind to fully apply geographical theory to the case of South African land reform. Rather than rely on one-dimensional technicist explanations to discuss the shortcomings of the country’s land reform program, this rich study places it in the context of bitter battles between groups seeking to exploit land policies for their own benefit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442207189
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/05/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Brent McCusker is associate professor of geography at West Virginia University. William G. Moseley is professor of geography at Macalester College. Maano Ramutsindela is professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
1. The Multiple Meanings of Land and Agrarian Change
Part I: Theorizing Land Reform and Agrarian Change
2. Theoretical Insights for Land Reform
3. The Making of Land Policy before 1948
4. Post-1948 Land Questions and Territorial Dominance
5. Space, Race, and the Fall and Rise of Hegemonic Blocs
Part II: The Ideals versus the Realities of Land Reform
6. Continuity and Change in the Former Bantustans
7. Land Reform, Farmworkers, and Commercial Farming Areas
8. Tenure Reform and Small-Scale Agriculture in the “Colored Reserves”
9. The Land Question in National Parks
10. The Urban Built Environment and Land Claims
11. Conclusion: Land Reform for What? Reengaging Epistemological and Pragmatic Questions
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

An important and timely contribution. McCusker, Moseley, and Ramutsindela effectively stitch together diverse insights from across the country, illuminating the key challenges shaping South Africa’s land reform program. Incorporating historical information and current case studies, this invaluable book will benefit anyone with an interest in the geographical transformation of South Africa.

Alistair Fraser

Land Reform in South Africa is a very important book. McCusker, Moseley, and Ramutsindela provide a rich historical context for understanding the contradictory land reform and land use terrain in contemporary South Africa. And, they provide an essential reminder that apartheid was a geographic project with racialized land access at its core.

Daniel Weiner

Illuminating on the subject of land reform projects and processes since 1994. Through their collaboration the authors were able to draw together and reflect upon an unusually wide range of case material, based on their own as well as others’ primary research. Their discussion encompasses redistribution projects in Limpopo, share equity schemes, and a former mission station in the Western Cape, as well as restitution claims on national parks and in urban areas. Individually and collectively, these cases illustrate the dynamic interplay between space and time, structure and agency, policy and politics in particular contexts.

African Studies Review

The first classic of twenty-first-century geography, this book displays the best in people-place research that lies at the heart of environmental management. Focused on land reform in South Africa, not just farms but game parks and urban areas, the authors capture empirical case material in a historical-geographical materialist perspective. They answer the key question of why so little land reform has taken place from a mature perspective and interpretation of the consent and coercion processes that underlie the adoption of neoliberal agendas in a democratic South Africa. There is a sense of widespread, and intense, political discussion and a celebration of the joy of fieldwork. I wish I had been on that team. This text will become the standard against which work in the global south will be judged.

Phil O'Keefe

The first classic of twenty-first-century geography, this book displays the best in people-place research that lies at the heart of environmental management. Focused on land reform in South Africa, not just farms but game parks and urban areas, the authors capture empirical case material in a historical-geographical materialist perspective. They answer the key question of why so little land reform has taken place from a mature perspective and interpretation of the consent and coercion processes that underlie the adoption of neoliberal agendas in a democratic South Africa. There is a sense of widespread, and intense, political discussion and a celebration of the joy of fieldwork. I wish I had been on that team. This text will become the standard against which work in the global south will be judged.

Phil O'Keefe