A Price on the Past: Cash as Compensation in South African Land Restitution

Bohlin, Anna

doi:10.1080/00083968.2004.10751303

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…As researchers show (Bohlin 2004;Kepe 2009) in only very few cases has there been transfer of land to Blacks through land restitution. The most common form of redress has been cash.…”

Section: From Land Dispossession To Land Restitution: a Brief Reviewmentioning

confidence: 97%

Land and Justice in South Africa: Exploring the Ambiguous Role of the State in the Land Claims Process

Kepe

2012

Afr Asian Stud

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In addition to challenges facing South Africa's overall post-apartheid land reform, group rural land claims have particularly proven difffĳicult to resolve. This paper explores the role that the state plays in shaping the outcomes of rural group land claims. It analyzes policy statements, including from policy documents, guidelines and speeches made by politicians during ceremonies to hand over land rights to rural claimants; seeking to understand the possible motives, factual correctness, as well as impact, of these statements on the trajectory of the settled land claims. The paper concludes that land reform as practiced in South Africa is functionally and discursively disembedded from socio-political histories of dispossession, because land has come to be treated more as a commodity, rather than as something that represents multiple meanings for diffferent segments of society. Like many processes leading up to a resolution of a rural claim, subsequent statements by government concerning particular 'successful' land claims convey an assumption that local claimants have received just redress; that there was local consensus on what form of land claim redress people wanted, and that the state's lead role in suggesting commercial farming or tourism as land use options for the new land rights holders is welcome. The paper shows that previous in-depth research on rural land claims proves that the state's role in the success or failure of rural land claims is controversial at best.

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“…As researchers show (Bohlin 2004;Kepe 2009) in only very few cases has there been transfer of land to Blacks through land restitution. The most common form of redress has been cash.…”

Section: From Land Dispossession To Land Restitution: a Brief Reviewmentioning

confidence: 97%

Land and Justice in South Africa: Exploring the Ambiguous Role of the State in the Land Claims Process

Kepe

2012

Afr Asian Stud

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“…For many victims of forced removals a serious shortcoming of the Land Restitution Programme was its lack of opportunities for victims to meet those responsible for, or beneficiaries of, the apartheid policies of forced displacement, and to have their experiences acknowledged (Bohlin 2004;Shashikant Mesthrie 1998/99). Less attention has been paid to the fact that this may also be true for those who benefitted from such policies, who are aware of the broad historical facts of forced removals but wish to understand more about how it shaped the lives of those affected, particularly within their own neighbourhoods.…”

Section: Return As Reconnection With Heritagementioning

confidence: 99%

Idioms of Return: Homecoming and Heritage in the Rebuilding of Protea Village, Cape Town

Bohlin

2011

African Studies

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“…There are important social and political determinants as well, as will become clear below. Monetary compensation may give claimants a sense of symbolic recognition and in some cases enable them to increase durable assets (Atuahene, ; Bohlin, ). However, any land that is transferred not only accrues considerably more monetary value, but — as I shall argue below — stands to do more to expand beneficiaries’ access to the benefits of industrial and commercial development, various public services and amenities, and other parts of the central urban infrastructure.…”

Section: Urban Land Restitution In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Land Restitution and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in South Africa

Beyers¹

2013

Development and Change

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Reintegrating the city is a priority of social justice and development in many urban centres of the 'South' that bear the legacy of forced displacement. In South Africa, much of the land restitution programme has thus far focused on urban areas. In certain large cluster claims involving the transfer and development of significant tracts of well-placed land, restitution has presented the prospect of altering landed property regimes in the heart of the city. The predominantly rural and economic emphasis in scholarship and policy debate on land reform in South Africa -which reflects historical trends in development studies -has led to a narrowed vision of what is at stake in urban land restitution. Complex interventions aimed at redressing urban spatial segregation can potentially alter the relationship between citizens, institutions and urban space in ways that expand the possibilities for social and political agency in sites that are strategically important for influencing the direction of change more broadly. A key, as yet unrealized, challenge is how to articulate such struggles for a 'right to the city' with efforts at redressing the spatialization of poverty on the urban periphery.

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A Price on the Past: Cash as Compensation in South African Land Restitution

Cited by 11 publications

References 7 publications

Land and Justice in South Africa: Exploring the Ambiguous Role of the State in the Land Claims Process

Land and Justice in South Africa: Exploring the Ambiguous Role of the State in the Land Claims Process

Idioms of Return: Homecoming and Heritage in the Rebuilding of Protea Village, Cape Town

Urban Land Restitution and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in South Africa

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