Browsing Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) by Title
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Now showing items 13-28 of 28
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Cousins, Ben (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This report describes the ‘living law’ of land in one part of Msinga, a deep rural area of KwaZulu-Natal. It presents research findings from the Mchunu and Mthembu tribal areas, where a three-year action-research project was carried out by staff of the Mdukutshani Rural Development Programme. Launched in 2007, at a time when implementation of the Communal Land Rights Act of 2004 (CLRA) appeared imminent, the project aimed to gain a detailed understanding of land tenure in Msinga, facilitate local-level discussion of potential solutions to emerging problems around land rights, provide information on the CLRA to residents and authority structures, and help generate ideas on how local people could engage with the new law. Meetings, interviews and focus groups convened by the project between 2007 and 2009 generated lively discussions and debates on a range of issues and problems related to land tenure in Msinga. Policy-makers need to consider how to convene conversations of this kind, on a large scale, before they launch a new round of tenure reform policy formulation and law making. Our experience suggests that well designed processes are critically important to ensure informed discussion, but also that ordinary rural people, not just their leaders, are more than ready to engage in debates about policies that could have major impacts on their lives. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/390 Files in this item: 1
CousinsLandMsinga2011.pdf (3.011Mb) -
Hall, Ruth (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: This report investigates emerging trends evident in the limited literature available on the impact of land restitution on livelihoods, and suggests ways of thinking about, and planning for, livelihoods. The report has a two-fold emphasis: its primary focus is on rural restitution claims where land has been restored, but it also addresses rural land reform more generally. Where land ownership has been transferred to land reform beneficiaries, similar patterns and challenges may arise, regardless of whether the land was acquired through the redistribution or the restitution route. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/90 Files in this item: 1
Hall_Impact2007.pdf (1.418Mb) -
Tilley, Susan (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper provides some insights into international experience and attempts to distil the key areas of strategic value for consideration in developing a national strategy for support provision to land reform beneficiaries in South Africa. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/74 Files in this item: 1
Tilley_International2007.pdf (1.269Mb) -
Tapela, Barbara (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2005)[more][less]
Abstract: This report is based on research carried out between June 2003 and April 2005 in the Greater Sekhukhune Cross-Border District Municipality, which straddles the boundaries of the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces. This research took place in two case-study sites, namely the Hereford and the Phetwane Irrigation Schemes. However, this report focuses on findings from Hereford only. The research was primarily concerned with the impact of BEE, articulated through joint ventures, on the ‘livelihoods’ of people living in emerging small-scale irrigation schemes in some of the least affluent rural areas within the municipality. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/71 Files in this item: 1
Tapela_Joint2005.pdf (816.7Kb) -
Turner, Stephen (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape & Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere Inc. (CARE), 2005)[more][less]
Abstract: The study compares the livelihoods and inter-household sharing mechanisms in a Lesotho village across a 28 year period. The report examines the complex socio-economic structures and systems that are in place in the rural village. Despite external signs of improved housing standards, the study finds ominous signs of growing vulnerability as much of the community's economic backbone has been lost. Options for assistance by external agencies and by social protection systems are explored. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/70 Files in this item: 1
Turner_Livelihoods2005.pdf (882.4Kb) -
Hall, Ruth; Cousins, Ben (NISC (Pty) Ltd and Taylor & Francis, 2013)[more][less]
Abstract: Land and agrarian reform has the potential to expand South Africa’s rangeland commons and enhance their contribution to the livelihoods of the rural poor, yet to a large extent this has been an opportunity missed. Shifting policy agendas have prioritised private land rights and commercial land uses, seeking to dismantle the racial divide between the white commercial farming areas and the ex-Bantustans by allocating former white farms to black farmers. These agendas and planning models reflect class and gender bias and a poor understanding of common property. If reform policies are to contribute to the reduction of high levels of rural poverty and inequality, then greater recognition of the potential role of livestock production on the commons must inform policy and planning. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/645 Files in this item: 1
HallLivestock2013.pdf (31.54Kb) -
Isaacs, Moenieba; Hara, Mafaniso (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: This research investigated the drivers and the impact of HIV and Aids in fishing communities in South Africa, in order to assist the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism: Marine and Coastal Management (DEAT:MCM) with mainstreaming of HIV and Aids into policy on fisheries. The research was based on in-depth analysis of four fishing communities in the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/67 Files in this item: 1
Isaacs_Mainstreaming2008.pdf (319.2Kb) -
du Toit, Andries (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape., 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper considers the role of ‘measurement’ and other forms of poverty knowledge in a context where the nature and direction of global economic growth is creating ‘surplus populations’ suffering various forms of marginalisation in the global economy. It links the development of different forms of poverty knowledge with the ways in which states and non-state agents seek to ‘govern’ poverty and poor populations, and with the ‘biopolitics’ whereby calculations are made about the differential allocation of resources towards different sectors of the global population. The paper argues that addressing the root causes of poverty requires social actors to go beyond the narrow limits of institutionally sanctioned and bureaucratically invested ‘poverty knowledge’ that currently dominate policy thinking. Rather than seeking to understand poverty by measuring the characteristics of members of populations, they should try to understand poverty as an aspect of social relations, and try to come to grips with differential insertion of populations in the fields of force of modern globalised capitalism. Analysis should abandon simple notions of ‘marginalisation, and come to grips with the agency of poor people and the complex relationships between informality, marginality, exclusion and incorporation. Ultimately, however, a more nuanced understanding of the role of poverty knowledge in present day biopolitics does not bring with it any easy answers: rather, it challenges applied social scientists to be more aware of the responsibilities they bear as producers of 'useful' knowledge in a time of increased global instability. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/580 Files in this item: 1
WP20.pdf (622.6Kb) -
Cliffe, Lionel (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: Since the 2005 Land Summit, new approaches to land reform have been on the agenda, yet there remains little clarity on the way forward. The main focus has been on means of accelerating the redistribution of land through new modes of acquiring land. Acquisition is an important matter but if treated in isolation risks mis-specifying the core problems evident in land reform in South Africa. A new phase of land reform located within a wider agrarian reform is needed and will require new institutional arrangements. Any alternative strategy will have to revise the institutional mechanisms that have been handling land reform thus far. Are the procedures and the institutions that are in place to design and implement land reform adequate and appropriate to the kind of new tasks envisaged? What new farming units and activities are intended, and what post-transfer support will be required to make this agricultural system productive? This paper explores mechanisms appropriate to one kind of agricultural alternative: a vision of a productive, small-scale essentially household farm sector. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/66 Files in this item: 1
Cliffe_Policy2007.pdf (365.8Kb) -
Manenzhe, Tshililo; Lahiff, Edward (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
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Dubb, Alex (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper argues that the rise and decline of small-scale sugarcane grower (SSG) production in KwaZulu-Natal must be historically located within a changing structural relationship with miller-processors, in turn conditioned by shifts in regulatory frameworks. Critically, the emergence of SSG production in the late-1970s–1980s can be traced to industry-subsidised initiatives disguised as micro-credit which brought commercially inalienable Bantustan land into cane production with strong miller oversight. From the late 1980–1990s, however, the elimination of these subsidies encouraged millers to withdraw from direct oversight and to subcontract support to farmers, while simultaneously instigating an increase in SSG numbers by removing restrictions on grower registration. Enduring drought must certainly be understood as a central proximal factor in the rapid decline of SSGs, but their rapid increase in the first place was structurally fragile. This paper further strives to provide insight into the shifting class dynamics of SSGs under constrained conditions of production, utilising survey data from seventy SSG homesteads and life-history interviews in two rural wards of the Umfolozi region. Although proceeds from sugarcane have represented an important source of cash-income for homesteads, deteriorating terms of exchange and barriers to expansion in land and capital have placed a greater emphasis on sparse off-farm income opportunities for stabilising consumption and enabling limited re-investment in production. The centrality of income-diversification for simple reproduction and limited accumulation has rendered the dynamics of social differentiation both unstable and reversible. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for agrarian reform policy. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/571 Files in this item: 1
DubbSugarcaneFarming2013.pdf (913.9Kb) -
Aliber, Michael; Baiphethi, Mompati; de Satge, Rick; Denison, Jonathan; Hart, Tim; Jacobs, Peter; van Averbeke, Wim (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Within the ambit of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa, government is leading a process to define a Second Economy Strategy, and has identified the agricultural sector as a site of opportunity, potentially fostering a larger number of smallholder agriculturalists. In an effort to identify an implementable program to support the smallholder sector, this study closely analyses what makes particular South African smallholdings in various settings successful and what factors contributed to their success. A broad definition of agricultural smallholding is employed including independent operators, group farmers, subsistence farmers and commercial farmers. ‘Supporting the smallholder sector’ is conceptualised as consisting of four distinct strands, namely the prospects and measures for: improving the performance of subsistence-oriented smallholders; encouraging/enabling currently subsistence-oriented smallholders to benefit from a more commercial orientation; improving the performance of commercially oriented smallholders; and increasing participation in smallholder agriculture among those (especially rural dwellers) who do not practise agriculture. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/391 Files in this item: 1
AliberSmallholders2009.pdf (1.825Mb) -
Aliber, Michael (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This second volume of Strategies to support South African smallholders as a contribution to government’s second economy strategy contains sixteen case studies that comprise the main data for the analysis detailed in Volume 1. This collection of case studies provides a useful resource on its own, providing a rich and diverse repository of narratives depicting various types of smallholders in diverse circumstances and environments. As researchers were given the latitude to deviate from a standardised approach, this volume reveals the authors’ different styles, different emphases, and indeed different disciplinary strengths. The ‘unit of analysis’ also differs across case studies: some are studies of single individuals, others focus on particular schemes or projects, and still others involve a comparative analysis of individuals or projects. Due to the complexity of categorising the case studies they have been simply grouped by province, and are ordered, roughly, from southwest to northeast. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/392 Files in this item: 1
AliberSmallholders2011.pdf (4.092Mb) -
Whande, Webster (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: The end of apartheid rule in South Africa, together with the termination of the civil war in Mozambique and the occupation of Namibia by South Africa in the early 1990s, seemed to herald profound changes in international relations within the southern African region. These changes saw not only the end of frontline states’ hostility towards the apartheid regime but also new approaches to co-operation, witnessed by increased focus on regional development issues through regional bodies such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Conservation emerged as one area that could foster co-operation between countries of the region. By the mid-1990s, trans-boundary natural resources management, trans-frontier conservation, trans-boundary protected areas and ‘peace parks’ had taken root as vehicles for regional economic integration, peaceful resolution of conflict and conservation of biodiversity. This report examines the impacts of local historical experiences with conservation and current livelihood complexities on efforts to implement the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park (GLTP) and the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA). It stresses the contested nature of land and natural resource rights by exploring local conflicts over land use, authority and territorial boundaries, as well as the peripheral attention accorded to these issues in planning and implementing trans-boundary approaches to conservation. Using the example of the GLTFCA, specifically the experience of some of the villages along the Madimbo corridor in South Africa, the report highlights the complexities involved in attempting trans-frontier conservation in an area with a history of dispossession and where livelihoods are perceived to be threatened by outside interventions. The report concludes by proposing a human and environmental security approach towards implementing TFCAs. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/73 Files in this item: 1
Whande_Transboundary2007.pdf (2.963Mb) -
White, Richard (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Decentralising the administration of communally-owned land to a local system in Botswana was a sound objective and could be pursued elsewhere in the region. Yet, despite Botswana having grappled relatively successfully with many of the land challenges, evidence suggests that tribal land administration is not free of problems. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/88 Files in this item: 1
White_Tribal2009.pdf (283.5Kb) -
du Toit, Andries (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper considers the state of poverty discourse in South Africa since 1994: the ideological frameworks, narratives and assumptions that have shaped the construction of poverty as an object of academic knowledge, policy management and political concern. One of the distinctive characteristics of Post-apartheid South African politics is the existence of a broad consensus both on the importance of the need to reduce poverty and the means by which to do it. This consensus has a paradoxical and ambiguous character. On the one hand, ‘poverty talk’ plays a central role in posing and framing fundamental questions of social justice in South Africa: indeed, it is one of the main ways in which the issue of the moral and political legitimacy of the post-Apartheid social order is framed and debated.This has facilitated significant and broad social legitimacy for ‘pro--poor’ policies and the distribution of resources. But at the same time, the discursive frameworks that have underpinned this consensus also contain important limitations. Poverty is understood in ways that disconnect it from an understanding of inequality and social process, and which deny consequence or relevance to the causal relationship between the persistence of poverty and the formation and nature of South African capitalism. In this way ‘poverty talk' trivialises poverty as a social issue and neutralises its political charge. The paper ends with an evaluation of the strengths and limits of South Africa’s anti-poverty consensus and considers different responses to the impasses confronting poverty management. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/642 Files in this item: 1
PLAAS_WorkingPaper22dutoit.pdf (463.5Kb)
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Now showing items 13-28 of 28