Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
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The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) engages in research, training, policy development and advocacy in relation to land and agrarian reform, rural governance and natural resource management. It is committed to social change that empowers the poor, builds democracy and enhances sustainable livelihoods.
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The voices of women and smallholder farmers in Angola’s Lobito Corridor
(UWC PLAAS, 2023)The development of the Benguela railway in the Lobito Development Corridor links Angola’s interior with its coastal port of Luanda. This corridor has boosted the mobility of the poor, as well as professionals –teachers, ... -
Should subsistence agriculture be supported as a strategy to address rural food insecurity?
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2009)At first glance South Africa’s black farming sector appears to contribute rather minimally to overall agricultural output in South Africa. However, despite the complexity involved in this sector and the often marginal ... -
Lockdown, resilience and emergency statecraft in the Cape Town food system
(Cities, 2022)Well before the Covid-19 pandemic, rapidly growing cities of the global South were at the epicenter of multiple converging crises affecting food systems. Globally, government lockdown responses to the disease triggered ... -
Life on the land: New lives for agrarian questions
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023)The politics of food, climate, energy, and the yet unfinished work ofending colonialism run square through questions of land. Theclassical agrarian question has taken on new forms, and a newintensity. We look at four ... -
Intra-party cohesion in Zimbabwe’s ruling party after Robert Mugabe
(Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2023)Some mainstream political scientists apply the trilogy of exit, voice and loyalty in studying intra-party cohesion. This approach applies more neatly in liberal than in repressive contexts. I therefore make three modifications ... -
Smallholder views on Chinese agricultural investments in Mozambique and Tanzania in the context of VGGTS
(MDPI, 2023)Based on a case study in each country, this study documents the views of Mozambican and Tanzanian smallholders regarding Chinese agricultural investments and the extent to which investors abide by their legitimate land ... -
Resisting agrarian neoliberalism and authoritarianism: Struggles towards a progressive rural future in Mozambique
(Wiley, 2022)After nearly two and a half decades with a Land Law widely considered progressive, Mozambique is preparing to revise its legal framework for land. Land activists accuse the government of pursuing an authoritarian approach, ... -
Covid-19 Impacts: Household Food Production, Agroecology, Rural Livelihoods and Alternative Food Systems
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) -
Building leaders for the UN Ocean Science Decade: A guide to supporting early career women researchers within academic marine research institutions
(Oxford University Press, 2023)Diverse and inclusive marine science is now recognized as essential for addressing the complex and accelerating challenges facing marine social-ecological systems (Blythe and Cvitanovic, 2020; Lawless et al., 2021). The ... -
Changing customary land tenure regimes in Zambia, implications for women’s land rights
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-03)This paper argues that the formalisation of customary land through a rural certification programme in Nyimba District, Zambia, has triggered the establishment of a new tenure regime that transcends the dualism between ... -
Securing Tenure for Customary Land Rights Holders in Southern Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) -
The Land and Its People: the land question and the South African political order
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-03)This paper examines the disjuncture between the discourses of policy deliberation and contentious politics in debates about ‘the land question’ in South Africa. It argues that the South African land debate as it unfolds ... -
Gender, generation and the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, ca 1960–1976
(Wiley, 2013)This paper examines the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in rural townships in theCiskei Bantustan during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on the oraltestimonies of elderly residents ... -
South Africa’s Bantustans and the dynamics of “decolonisation”: Reflections on writing histories of the homelands
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2012)From the late 1950s, as independent African polities replaced formal colonialrule in Africa, South Africa’s white minority regime set about its own policy ofmimicry in the promotion of self-governing homelands, which ... -
Zambia’s Customary Landholding Certificate and Tenure Options for Women
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) -
Women’s Lived Realities Under Customary Tenure in Rural South Africa and Policy Implications
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) -
Securing Land Tenure for Women and Men Living on Customary Land in Zimbabwe
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02)This policy brief reports on findings from a study investigating the impact of the formalisation of customary land on tenure relations and livelihoods for women and men living in rural Zimbabwe. The research was conducted ... -
Securing Land Tenure for Women Under Mozambique’s Land Administration Programme (Terra Segura)
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-01)This policy brief reports findings from a study undertaken by researchers at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) investigating the formalisation of ... -
More than socially embedded: The distinctive character of ‘communal tenure’ regimes in South Africa and its implications for land policy
(Wiley, 2007)This article analyzes debates over tenure reform policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with a particular focus on the controversial Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. Land tenure systems in the ... -
The next great Trek? South African commercial farmers move north
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2012)This paper analyses the shifting role of South African farmers, agribusiness andcapital elsewhere in the Southern African region and the rest of the continent. Itexplores recent trends in this expansion, and investigates ...
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