About the Book
Notions of land and agrarian reform are now well entrenched in post-apartheid South Africa. But what this reform actually means for everyday life is not clearly understood, nor the way it will impact on the political economy. In the Shadow of Policy explores the interface between the policy of land and agrarian reform and its implementation; and between the decisions of policy 'experts' and actual livelihood experiences in the fields and homesteads of land reform projects.
Starting with an overview of the socio-historical context in which land and agrarian reform policy has evolved in South Africa, the volume presents empirical case studies of land reform projects in the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape provinces. These draw on multiple voices from various sectors and provide a rich source of material and critical reflections to inform future policy and research agendas.
In the Shadow of Policy will be a key reference tool for those working in the area of development studies and land policy, and for civil society groups and NGOs involved in land restitution.
Table of Contents:
Setting the scene: land and agrarian reform in post-apartheid South Africa: Post-apartheid land and agrarian reform policy and practices in South Africa: themes, processes and issues; Land and agrarian reform policies from a historical perspective; Land reform and agriculture uncoupled: the political economy of rural reform in post-apartheid South Africa. 'Mind the gap': discrepancies between policies and practices in South African land reform: Consultants, business plans and land reform practices; 'Seeing like a land reform agency': cultural politics and the contestation of community farming at Makhoba; Land reform and newly emerging social relations on Gallawater A farm; Property rights and land reform in the Western Cape; 'Rent a crowd' land reform at Survive and Dikgoho land reform projects; Locating policies in the daily practices of land reform beneficiaries: the Mighty and Wales land reform farms; Where are the youth in land reform? The Vuki case; Land compensation in the upper Kat River valley; In the shadows of the cadastre: family law and custom in Rabula and Fingo Village; Land reform, tradition and securing land for women in Namaqualand Karin Kleinbooi. Competing knowledge regimes in communal area agriculture: What constitutes 'the agrarian' in contemporary rural African settlements of the central Eastern Cape?; The Massive Food Production Programme: a case study of agricultural policy continuities and changes; The Massive Food Production Programme: does it work?; 'Still feeding ourselves': everyday practices of the Siyazondla Homestead Food Production Programme in Mbhashe; Cultivators in action, Siyazondla in action? Trends and potentials in homestead cultivation; Smallholder irrigation schemes as an agrarian development option for the Cape region; Cattle and rural development in the Eastern Cape: the Nguni project revisited.
About the Author :
Paul Hebinck is Associate Professor in Sociology of Rural Development at Wageningen University in the the Netherlands and Adjunct Professor at the University of Fort Hare, Alice, South Africa
Ben Cousins is Professor and DST/NRF Research Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. He founded PLAAS in 1995 and directed it from its inception until September 2009.
Paul Hebinck is Associate Professor in Sociology of Rural Development at Wageningen University in the the Netherlands and Adjunct Professor at the University of Fort Hare, Alice, South Africa
Ben Cousins is Professor and DST/NRF Research Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. He founded PLAAS in 1995 and directed it from its inception until September 2009.
Henning de Klerk is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
Jonathan Denison manages the agricultural water services of Umhlaba Consulting Group, East London, South Africa.
Ntombekhaya Faku is an animal scientist with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, East London, South Africa, and member of the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions.
Derick Fay is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside.
Klara Jacobson is a PhD student in Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Petunia Khutswane was with the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Administration, Mpumalanga province, South Africa.
Rosalie Kingwill is an independent academic, policy and action research consultant. She is a research associate at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape.
Karin Kleinbooi is currently employed in the agriculture development sector and focus on linking developing producers into sustainable horticulture supply and value chains.
Zamile Madyibi is a senior manager in the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, East London, South Africa.
Francois Marais is one of the leading architects in the South African market, coming from a family of architects, design runs strongly in his veins. Francois graduated from Wits University B.Arch (Wits).
Modise Moseki is a lecturer in the Department of Development Studies, University of South Africa, Pretoria.
Malebogo Phetlhu is an agriculturalist at the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, George, South Africa.
Robert Ross recently retired as Professor of African History at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is the author of numerous books on the history of southern Africa, notably the Cape Colony, including most recently The Borders of Race in Colonial South Africa: The Kat River Settlement, 1829–1856 (Cambridge, 2014). He was also one of the editors of both volumes of The Cambridge History of South Africa (Cambridge, 2010 and 2011).
Dik Roth has a MA Social Anthropology and development sociology from University of Amsterdam and a PhD Social Sciences from Wageningen University.
Limpho Taoana was an Agricultural Advisor (Dairy) for the Free State provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, South Africa
Harriët Tienstra is a social scientist and has a MSc in International Development Studies from Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
Wim van Averbeke is a Professor in the Department of Crop Science, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa.
Yves Van Leynseele holds a PhD in rural development sociology from Wageningen University (completed 2013) and currently works as a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
Review :
"The book is full of critical information on South African land reform and attempts to rejuvenate domestic agriculture. Local case studies shed light on the implementation and outcomes of land reform--sometimes failed, sometimes successful, often mixed, often surprising, and nearly always not greatly helped by the 'experts.'" --Ben White, professor of rural sociology, International Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, Netherlands
