Black Belonging, White Belonging: Primitive Accumulation in South Africa's Private Nature Reserves

Abstract

Evictions have been shown to be a mechanism of primitive accumulation in nature conservation. This paper adds an historical analysis to the discussion on primitive accumulation in conservation by exploring the seemingly innocuous mechanism of White belonging to land in South Africa's private nature reserves. Contemporary articulations of White belonging are replete with stories and images of White male “pioneers” from the colonial era who, upon arrival in “empty lands”, were able to create economies out of nothing. Such representations of history on private nature reserve websites and other promotional material invisibilise Black belonging and legitimise private conservation. By illuminating the inconsistencies in the empty lands narrative and the legacies of three championed conservation pioneers from the 19th century, this paper argues that White belonging is a mechanism of primitive accumulation, while Black belonging continues to be expressed in various ways in contemporary South Africa.

Advancing agriculture through Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in South African indigenous or black communities

“…This is an outstanding or missing gap that requires scholarly attention, and probably, non-scholarly attention. You would recall that it was mentioned in the introductory remarks of this article that it is important to outline how South African indigenous people practiced agriculture owing to the fact that they historically owned their native land to themselves before the arrival and settlement of colonialists (Thakholi and Koot, 2023). With that in mind, the next section, therefore, is concerned with the research methodology and conceptual framework that has been applied in the scholarly debates of this entry.…”

White superiority in Flannery O’connor’s The Barber and The Artificial Nigger

“…Additionally, other researchers tend to scrutinize white superiority issues through the black's point of view, the oppressed one. For example, Thakholi & Koot (2023) and Aiyetoro (2023) scrutinize in their articles how the black community received discrimination from the white community. Particularly, it shows how black people lose their land and jobs, which benefits the rich white people.…”

The racial hierarchisation of the isiXhosa language in South Africa

“…The isiXhosa 1 language, which is naturally based in South Africa with a population of 16% (Albertyn et al, 2022), has suffered a great deal of subjugation and exclusion since the arrival of colonial missionaries in 1799. This is in addition to the reality that many African languages and cultures have been colonialised (Thakholi and Koot, 2023). As a result of this subjugation and exclusion, the isiXhosa language and its literature have suffered significant pandemonium in terms of distortion and erosion (to be illustrated later).…”