| dc.description.abstract | The Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) focuses on the land restitution and
redistribution programmes initiated by the post-apartheid democratic state; land tenure reform;
emerging regimes of natural resource management; rural livelihoods and farm-household
production systems; chronic poverty and rural development; and processes of institutional
restructuring and reorientation in support of land and agrarian reform in South Africa. The main
activities of PLAAS are research, support to national policy development, training, post-graduate
teaching, commissioned evaluation studies, and advisory and facilitation services.
The university’s mission statement commits it to ‘responding in critical and creative ways to the
needs of a society in transition’, and to ‘helping build an equitable and dynamic society’–
commitments taken very seriously by staff at PLAAS. The year 2000 saw our researchers
beginning to engage with policy on land and local government reform in a more public manner than
in the past (when they tended to do so in ‘backroom’ and advisory roles), and to adopt a more
adversarial stance towards government. | en_US |
