Browsing Working Papers by Title
Now showing items 39-58 of 80
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Job creation in agriculture, forestry and fisheries in South Africa: An analysis of employment trends, opportunities and constraints in forestry and wood products industries
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2018-04)This report is one of five studies of opportunities and constraints related to employment creation in rural South Africa, with a view towards informing policy. South African forestry and wood products industries are well ... -
Labour regulation and the economy: The case of the food value chain
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2016)Contrary to a popular narrative which seeks to attribute the country’s economic ills to labour legislation, this paper argues that the role of law in relation to the economy is constitutive, and that labour can also not ... -
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 ... -
'Land belongs to the community’: Demystifying the ‘global land grab’ in Southern Sudan
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011)Sudan is among the global ‘hotspots’ for large-scale land acquisitions. Although most of this investment activity was thought to be focused in the Northern part of the country, recent research indicates that a surprising ... -
Local food geographies: The nature and extent of food insecurity in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016-08)Food insecurity is a challenge for most countries in the Global South. South Africa is no exception - a significant proportion of its population still remains in poverty and is therefore vulnerable to food insecurity. ... -
Lusaka’s local food geographies: A gendered reading of everyday food insecurity in Mtendere, Lusaka
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016-08)Little is known about how individual abilities and food security determinants - at the scale of everyday life - connect to formal and informal value chains, and broader urban structural systems in which daily processes ... -
Making sense of 'evidence': Notes on the discursive politics of research and pro-poor policy making
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2012-09)This paper explores some of the assumptions underlying ‘evidence based’ approaches to poverty reduction impact assessment. It argues that the discourse of Evidence-Based Policy (EBP) offers poor guidance to those who ... -
Mining, capital and dispossession in Limpopo, South Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2019)This Working Paper explains the processes by which land, water and other natural resources were seized, and their previous users dispossessed, for the purposes of capital accumulation by Ivanplats platinum mining company ... -
The mining-conservation nexus: Rio Tinto, development ‘gifts’ and contested compensation in Madagascar
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011)This paper traces a genealogy of land access and legitimisation strategies culminating in the recent convergence of multinational mining and conservation in southeast Madagascar. Drawing on empirical research carried out ... -
More to life than economics and livelihoods: The politics of social protection and social development in post-apartheid South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009-03)In the past fifteen years the South African government has consistently tried to address chronic and structural poverty, using a variety of policy and programmatic interventions with uneven success. But, as the latest ... -
Nasruddin's key: poverty measurement and the government of marginal populations
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape., 2011)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 ... -
Nasruddin’s key: Poverty measurement and the government of marginal populations
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011)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 ... -
The next great trek? South African commercial farmers move north
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011)This paper analyses the shifting role of South African farmers, agribusiness and capital elsewhere in southern Africa and the rest of the continent. It explores recent expansion trends, investigates the interests and agendas ... -
The occupational dimensions of poverty and disability
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009-03)This paper is based on ongoing research into the form, performance and meaning of all the things that particularly vulnerable people do every day i.e. their occupations. Occupations are the building blocks for livelihood. ... -
Oranges and labourers: The potential for job creation in the citrus sub-sector of South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2018-06)Rural employment is a key policy issue in South Africa, yet the National Development Plan (NDP) of 2012 suggests that one million jobs can be created in agricultural production, processing and related activities. The plan ... -
Principles and practice for successful farmland redistribution in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2019)The current debate on land reform in South Africa is unnecessarily polarised between those who believe that the market has failed to deliver, and those who believe that the bureaucracy has failed to deliver. Instead, we ... -
Rights without illusions: The potential and limits of rights-based approaches to securing land tenure in rural South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011-05)Summarising the trajectory of tenure policy and law making from 1994 through to the present, the paper shows how discourses of rights, citizenship and democracy shape policies and legislation. We assess the policies and ... -
The rise and decline of smallscale sugarcane production in South Africa: A historical perspective
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2013-12)South Africa’s sugar industry has long been distinguished by its large number of small-scale sugarcane growers (SSGs) farming on ‘communal’ land and its peculiar, privately administered regulatory structure. In recent ... -
The role of foreign investment in Ethiopia’s smallholder-focused agricultural development strategy
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011)Recent foreign agricultural investment in Africa has generated a great deal of interest and criticism, with western media warning of a neo-colonial ‘land grab’. This paper moves beyond this narrow assessment by examining ... -
Rural resource grabs or necessary inward investment? The politics of land and water in Africa
(International Institute for Environment and Development, 2015)What has happened since the furore broke over the corporate land rush in Africa? Field-based research has exposed new realities that challenge the linear suggestions of a ‘grab’. As the process unfolds and our understanding ...