scholarly journals Contested paradigms of 'viability' in redistributive land reform: perspectives from southern Africa

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Cousins ◽  
Ian Scoones
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Land Reform

scholarly journals An ecology of difference: fence-line contrast photographs as scientific models in ecology

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirin Hongslo
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Scientific Models ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Textual Theory ◽  
African Context ◽  
Land Use Policies ◽  
Fence Line

Political ecologists have long acknowledged the links between knowledge and power. Recently there has also been a growing interest in detailed studies about knowledge production within critical political ecology. This article is a study of the use of photographs in scientific articles on dryland ecology, and investigates the functions of photographs. Contrary to the straightforward manner in which they are presented, photographs are not value-free documentary proofs of 'how things are.' Rather, photographs constitute arguments in their own right. Using photographic and textual theory, this study analyzes two articles that include photographs of fence-line contrasts between two different management regimes. Contrasting areas divided by a fence-line is a methodology that demonstrates how management differences lead to differences in vegetation. In a Southern African context, however, differences across a fence tend to encompass deep racial and economic divides, and the fence-line photos risk encompassing these differences. This article argues that the fence-line contrast photographs in this study function as models that order the causal links between vegetation dynamics, land tenure and land management. These models correspond closely to equilibrium models in range ecology, and the fence-line photographs thus contribute to a degradation narrative that has been influential for land reform policies in Southern Africa, and that feeds into land use policies that favor private land ownership in communal areas.Keywords: Critical political ecology, fence-line photography, scientific models, rangeland ecology, Southern Africa

scholarly journals Land Tenure Reform in Three Former Settler Colonies in Southern Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-110
Author(s):  
Chizuko Sato
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Traditional Leaders ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
Traditional Leadership ◽  
Communal Areas ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Customary Land

AbstractThis study explores the challenges of land tenure reform for three former settler colonies in southern Africa–Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. While land redistribution programmes have been the primary focus of land reform for these countries since independence, land tenure reform for the inhabitants of communal areas is an equally important and complex policy challenge. Before independence, the administration of these areas was more or less in the hands of traditional leaders, whose roles were sanctioned by the colonial and apartheid authorities. Therefore, one of the primary concerns with respect to reforming land tenure systems in communal areas is related to the power and authority of traditional leaders in the post-independence period. This study highlights striking similarities in the nations’ land tenure reform policies. All of them gave statutory recognition to traditional leaders and strengthened their roles in rural land administration. In understanding this ‘resurgence’ or tenacity of traditional leadership, the symbiotic relationship between the ruling parties and traditional leaders cannot be ignored and should be problematised. Nonetheless, this chapter also argues that this obsession with traditional leadership may result in the neglect of other important issues related to land tenure reform in communal areas, such as the role of customary land tenureas social security.

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