Browsing by Author "Du Toit, Andries"
Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Amendment submission: National policy for beneficiary selection and land allocation(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, 2020-03-02) Ramantsima, Katlego; Mtero, Farai; Gumede, Nkanyiso; Du Toit, Andries; Hall, RuthPLAAS has read and considered the implications of the National Policy for Beneficiary Selection and Land Allocation and submits the following comments and recommendations to the Director-General: Rural Development and Land Reform.Item The Land and Its People: the land question and the South African political order(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-03) Du Toit, AndriesThis 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 in the public realm is best understood as a displaced discourse indirectly addressing the terms of political belonging and the nature of the post-apartheid political order. Far from being a distraction, this is a challenge that urgently needs to be confronted in its own terms. Confronting the crisis of the post-apartheid political order requires a re-thinking of the terms in which national identity is conceived. The paper explores the possibilities of a politics of belonging centred on the Constitutional invocation of a political order ‘for all who live in it’ and what this might imply for a more constructive and productive engagement with land struggles in urban and rural South Africa.Item Policy Brief 55: Food in the time of coronavirus: Why we should be very, very afraid(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, 2020-04-01) Hall, Ruth; Du Toit, Andries; Ramantsima, Katlego; Mtero, Farai; Gumede, Nkanyiso; Hara, Mafaniso; Isaacs, Moenieba; Monjane, Boaventura; Yeni, SithandiweThe social legitimacy of the ‘COVID-19 lockdown’, government’s regulations imposed to contain the spread of the virus, is most likely to run aground unless an urgent plan can be made to ensure that everyone in the country has access to sufficient food. And it’s not looking good. Based on interviews, statements by various organisations and our own experience, here is our summary of the already-evident impacts of the lockdown on poor people’s access to food, and on the informal food economy – from small farmers to street vendors and spaza shops – that is so important in meeting people’s daily food needs.Item Sporting lives and "development" agendas : a critical analysis of sport and "development" nexus in the context of farm workers of the Western Cape(University of the Western Cape, 2016) Kaur, Tarminder; Lees, Marion Keim; Du Toit, AndriesThis thesis is about the sporting lives of people who work and/or live at the commercial grape and wine farms of the Western Cape. Collectively referred to as farm workers, they are identified by the Western Cape Provincial Government as a priority group in need of "development". Over the past 15 or so years, proclamations and practices of "sport for development and peace" (SDP) have emerged as globally recognised phenomena, where sport is promoted as a tool to achieve a broad range of "development" objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals. As a research topic, SDP scholars examine the practical and theoretical usefulness of sport as a tool for addressing a diverse set of social, health, political and economic issues through education, diplomacy, inclusion, and awareness programmes. Instead of attending to the questions of whether or how sport might serve "development" ends, this study offers a critical analysis of the nexus between sport and "development" (SDN) in the context of farm workers of the Western Cape. Informed by James Ferguson‘s analysis of "development" as an 'anti-politics machine' (1990), I adopt a deconstructionist approach that examines issues beyond the narrow confines of "development" problems and programmes. As he argues, "development" continues to serve as a-central organising concept‘ to discuss and assess desired change in social and economic realms, which is evident in the programmes of farm worker "development" and how these continue to retain a place in the policy and political discourses on agrarian transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. With an appreciation of the Western Cape‘s agrarian history and politics and how they shape present-day farm labour conditions, I have critically analysed the discourses and practices of farm worker "development" and SDP in the light of broader structural realities, everyday sporting lives and the "development" experiences of farm workers. The central organising question of this thesis is: how do "development" problems and the solutions sought for in SDP discourses and programmes correspond to the social, economic and political realities of their subjects? Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork conducted at farmlands in and around Rawsonville, a small rural town, from April 2012 to May 2013, I illustrate different and seemingly disconnected frames and positions from which theories of SDP and farm workers‘ experiences of sport and "development" were observed. The analysis is organised around three contrasting frames of observation, namely: 1) historical and contemporary discourses and politics of farm worker "development" and SDP programmes and practices, 2) structural arrangements of competitive and physical infrastructure for official sport, and 3) everyday (official and unofficial) sporting practices and experiences of the rural working class people. With a particular attention to continuities and contradictions in historical and contemporary farm worker "development" discourses and selected SDP case studies, I demonstrate that while SDP agendas directed at farm workers may serve divergent and at times conflicting interests, farm workers' own agency, initiative and aspirations do not feature in SDP programmes and broader "development" discourses. The contrasts and counter-narratives presented in discussing these case studies and stories complicate and contest simplified notions commonly projected in global SDP discourses and locally specific "development" agendas. Beyond the confines of sporadic and temporary SDP projects, there was a vibrant and active world of formal and informal sport among the farm workers of Rawsonville. By focusing on the everyday sporting lives of athletes, coaches, managers, organisers and soccer clubs, I paint a picture that reveals the diversity and inconsistency of experiences and meanings of farm worker as an identity, a class position and an occupation. Interrogating how farm workers were embedded within the broader rural sport structures, I describe the complex set of factors that shaped their experiences of, access to, and participation in, sport. I argue that while sport was passionately pursued irrespective of direct or corollary "development" benefits, it was unofficial and under-the-radar sport networks and practices that served as vital spaces of autonomy, initiative and self-realization, even for those who may not otherwise have had such opportunities. And while the politically disengaged and enthusiastically embraced qualities of sport may continue to be among the reasons for its traction in "development" and peace agendas, these very same qualities allow sport to be usefully employed as an ethnographic method. Among the formative turns I took in conducting and presenting my research observations was to implicate myself and invite the reader into the confusing and complex process of learning and knowledge production. By way of conclusion, I argue for refocusing the gaze of research on studying sport as part of the broader scope of subaltern sociality.Item What price cheap goods? Survivalists, informalists and competition in the township retail grocery trade(PLAAS, 2019-08-31) Petersen, Leif; Thorogood, Camilla; Charman, Andrew; Du Toit, AndriesAbout 54% of South Africa’s township microenterprises trade in food or drink. More than two-thirds of these are grocery retail businesses in the form of spaza shops and smaller ‘house shops’. These are the predominant businesses within the ‘township economy’ and play an important role in food security, self-employment and community cohesion. In the last decade, the business of spaza shops (dedicated, signposted businesses with a range of foodstuffs and open five days per week or more) has undergone extensive change towards a new class of entrepreneurial traders – mostly foreign nationals. This change has meant that the sector has become increasingly controversial and associated with chauvinistic and xenophobic discourses targeting immigrants. While the nature, causes and extent of change in informal grocery retail markets have been noted by various authors over the past decade, there is as yet no comprehensive account of the changing nature of business dynamics and competitiveness in the sector.Item Whose Land Question? Policy deliberation and populist reason in the South African land debate(PLAAS, 2019-11) Du Toit, AndriesOn 4 and 5 February 2019, the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), along with colleagues from the Universities of Fort Hare and of Rhodes, hosted a national conference entitled Resolving the Land Question: Land redistribution for equitable access to land in South Africa. This paper considers this conference as a case study of ‘policy sense-making’—an attempt to frame contentious issues in a way that renders them amenable to governmental resolution. It explores the contrasting conceptions of the political rationality of land reform put forward at the conference, and the different conceptions of the nature of democracy and government that informed competing policy visions. The paper also considers the disjuncture between the world of technical land reform policy deliberation on the one hand, the way the notion of land is used in contentious and popular politics in the public sphere on the other. In the end, the paper argues, much more is at stake in South African land debates than land itself. Beyond the question of who should own the land, how it should be used, and how it could be shared are deep and intractable questions about the nature of South African democracy and of the political community on which it depends.