After restitution: Community, litigation and governance in South African land reform

Abstract

This article considers the fracturing of "community" and the turn to litigation in the wake of nominally settled land restitution claims in South Africa. We describe emergent incongruence between groups of claimants, the projects of restitution, and the new legal entities that represent the claimants. As a result, discontented South African land claimants are challenging the new legal entities created in the restitution process, rather than the state and private sector actors upon which development-oriented Settlement Agreements depend. We focus on two of the earliest and largest land claims involving urban land and protected areas, District Six and Dwesa-Cwebe, but our argument extends beyond these cases. We then consider the implications of increased claimant litigation for the governance of relations between claimants and the state, and the management of dissent in the context of neoliberalization. In conclusion, we argue that struggles among claimants undermine the potential for more concerted action to address the shortcomings of restitution.

The integrative value of conflict and dispute: Implications for defining community in the native title context

“…Such conflict and dispute performances are common in many native title jurisdictions (e.g. Brockwell et al , 2005; Beyers and Fay, 2015); and both my examples and my explication of them should resonate in similar contexts elsewhere.…”

“…Conflict within and between Aboriginal communities is a frequent counterpart to the native title claim process in Australia as in other jurisdictions (Brockwell et al , 2005; Beyers and Fay, 2015). Whether or not the native title claim process itself is a causal factor, it nonetheless provides an arena (and resources) for disputation within and between Indigenous communities.…”

Land Sector Reforms in Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam: A Comparative Analysis of Their Effectiveness

“…In recent years, there has been growing interest in land reform programs in developing economies and the recent paper by Beyers et al [1] in African Affairs confirms this. The focus and aim of this paper is presenting the institutional and sociopolitical dynamics of the ways reforms in the land sector enhance or constrain access to land, security of land tenure, and agricultural investments, in Ghana, Kenya, and Vietnam.…”

Resettled but not redressed: Land restitution and post‐settlement dynamics in South Africa

“…A coalition of NGOs which challenged the RLRA argued that it does not make sense for government to re-open the submission of new claims when many old claims are still outstanding. 4 It was also been argued that the delay in resolving outstanding land claims from Phase I is a matter of justice delayed, which in many cases, amounts to justice denied (Beyers & Fay, 2015). The real concern though is on the apparent stalling of the process of resolving the outstanding land claims from Phase I.…”