UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Kleinbooi, Karin"

Browsing by Author "Kleinbooi, Karin"

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Another countryside? Policy options for land and agrarian reform in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009) Aliber, Michael; Andrews, Mercia; Baiphethi, Mompati; Cliffe, Lionel; Hall, Ruth; Jacobs, Peter; Jara, Mazibuko; Kleinbooi, Karin; Lahiff, Edward; Zamchiya, Phillan
Land reform in South Africa is a political project that has foundered. For years, the process has been variously described as being ‘in crisis’, ‘at a crossroads’, ‘at an impasse’ or simply ’stuck’. This still seems as true as ever, as political pressure is mounting to find new solutions to old problems. In recent years, the issue of ‘delivery’, and how to speed it up, has taken centre stage and become a justificatory framework for arguments about how to reconfigure roles of the state and private sector in land reform. In the process, little attention has been given to the relationship between policy change and mobilisation from below. In the absence of sustained and organised pressure from rural people themselves, it appears that the shifts underway in land reform policy are not so much about ‘delivery’ as about reframing the entire project. Increasingly, the debates on land reform centre not so much on the mechanisms to be used, as on the vision that is to be pursued – something about which existing policy is remarkably silent. At stake is nothing less than what, and whom, land reform is for. South Africans are deeply divided on this question.
Comments on the Green Paper on land reform 2011
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011) du Toit, Andries; Cousins, Ben; Hall, Ruth; Kleinbooi, Karin; Paradza, Gayno; Ukpabi, Obiozo
As we have indicated in our earlier press release, the document released as a Green Paper by the Department Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform is a great disappointment. The Green Paper is the product of a drafting process taking two and a half years. This has been a secretive process in which the South African public has been kept largely in the dark. The Ministry and its Department have shown themselves to be unwilling to learn from their mistakes, and unwilling to consult with civil society, stakeholders and expert opinion. Instead of providing a Green Paper based on an honest assessment of the past fifteen years of policy implementation, it has refused to learn from experience, both from its own mistakes and successes, and from encouraging innovations that are taking place on the ground, often despite inadequate or misguided state policy. Instead it has produced a vague document that develops general recommendations on the basis of general principles. The result is a Green Paper that fails to answer the key policy questions facing land reform in South Africa.
Covie community land claim
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2007) Kleinbooi, Karin; Lahiff, Edward
The Covie community restitution claim refers to a claim by past and present residents of Covie village, situated within the Tsitsikamma National Park, between Plettenberg Bay and Port Elizabeth in the Western Cape province. The claim relates to the forcible dispossession of this largely coloured community of their residential plots, arable allotments and commonage in the 1960s and 1970s.
Current policy processes and legislative reforms
(2011) Kleinbooi, Karin
•Land reform policy and legislation suffered under negotiated terms in the run-up to SA’s democracy •Land & agricultural policies were initiated and continued to move in disparate directions •Particular weaknesses resulted in policy hand-wringing and at times policy schizophrenia in a policy area that is critical to post apartheid rural transformation •Current policy & legislation reinforce above negative trends i.e tenure security bill, CRDP, Green Paper & Recapitalisation •Now centre-stage in policy speak; beyond land rights –clear acknowledgement that ‘land reform’ has failed –but vague policy direction
Decentralised land governance: Case studies and local voices from Botswana, Madagascar and Mozambique
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011) Kleinbooi, Karin; de Satgé, Rick; Tanner, Christopher
Decentralisation has been on the Southern African development agenda for a long time. It is a concept which appears deceptively simple. The principle of subsidiarity holds that decision making about local development priorities needs to take place as close to the people locally involved as possible. Decision making about land access and resource allocation is a key component of a broader decentralisation agenda. However, on closer examination, discourses around decentralisation are complex. They combine preand post colonial histories, changing development trajectories, and understandings about tenure and governance systems. They are set against major shifts in global and local balances of power and fast changing socio-economic relations which further marginalise the poor and deepen inequality.
Decentralised land governance: Case studies and local voices from Botswana, Madagascar and Mozambique
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2011) Kleinbooi, Karin; de Satgé, Rick; Tanner, Christopher
Decentralisation has been on the Southern African development agenda for a long time. It is a concept which appears deceptively simple. The principle of subsidiarity holds that decision making about local development priorities needs to take place as close to the people locally involved as possible. Decision making about land access and resource allocation is a key component of a broader decentralisation agenda. However, on closer examination, discourses around decentralisation are complex. They combine pre and post-colonial histories, changing development trajectories, and understandings about tenure and governance systems. They are set against major shifts in global and local balances of power and fast changing socio-economic relations which further marginalise the poor and deepen inequality.
Gendered land rights in the rural areas of Namaqualand : a study of women's perceptions and understandings
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Kleinbooi, Karin; Cousins, Ben
This study focuses on women's perceptions of land rights in the communal areas of Namaqualand in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Here women farm land which they can access only through their relationships with male kin. Women's use rights are dependent on their relationships with fathers, husbands and sons; and it is virtually impossible for women to obtain land in their own names. Women's own views of rights, of access, of control and authority over land display a significant gender bias in favour of men. This study explores women's understandings and perceptions of land rights and agriculture and other forms of land use. The objectives of the study are to explore the links between patriarchal social systems and women's conservative attitudes towards holding land; and to show how current policy processes and legislation – aimed at strengthening the rights of existing landholders in communal areas – allow local customs to continue to entrench gender discriminatory practices. A small study was conducted through in-depth interviews with sixty-five women and two focus group discussions with women in Namaqualand. The scope of the study was limited to exploring the nature of women's land rights in five of the communal areas of Namaqualand; formal and informal "rules" around women's land rights; women's practices of asserting or realising land rights; challenges and opportunities that women experience in claiming their land rights; the views and understandings of women in relation to land use and its contribution to livelihoods; and how women understand the impact of current land reform policies on their access to land. For the purpose of this thesis, literature on land tenure, gender and land rights as well as on the history of the former Coloured rural reserves of Namaqualand was considered. The key findings of the study indicate that women are disadvantaged by historical norms, values and attitudes, which afford them only secondary rights to land. Yet, informal land practices – however limited – show that in some cases women are creating opportunities to gain access to land independently. For this to become the norm rather than an exception, these practices need recognition and support within the on-going land reform transformation process in Namaqualand.
Not enough state land to meet land reform targets
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2013) Kleinbooi, Karin; Dubb, Alex
Arguments that state land should be used to meet land redistribution targets are misleading. Very little state land is suitable for this purpose. Official data from 2002 show that only 2% of the total of 12.6 million ha of state-owned land is suitable for land reform.
Reshaping women’s land rights on communal rangeland
(National Inquiry Services Centre (NISC) (Pty) Ltd, 2013) Kleinbooi, Karin
This paper aims to contribute to the debates on communal rangelands and analyses the gendered dimension of land rights and land access in the rural areas of Namaqualand. The actual gender relations within rural communities and the emergence of strategies that are being pursued in communal land processes are obscured and often ignored in policies about communal rangelands, which over-emphasise ‘the ecological and economic impact’ and the balancing of these dimensions. As active, primary users, women play a central role in livelihoods supported by communal rangelands yet their access to land is mediated through their relationships with men, effectively circumventing women’s land autonomy. A wider debate is necessary to advance the largely superficial policy considerations of women’s position in relation to communal rangelands land and their social exclusion on the basis of traditional control of land, forms of access and claiming of use rights. The paper discusses the complexity of land rights under communal land tenure and argues that, despite traditional and policy barriers, women in traditional systems of male-dominated land rights have had some success in accessing communal rangelands. Greater policy impetus is necessary to leverage equitable and independent land access for women amid debates about management of communal rangelands.
Review of land reforms in Southern Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2010) Kleinbooi, Karin
Land, and access to land, is one of the most important assets for the poor in southern Africa, both rural and urban, and probably contributes more than any other factor to their economic survival and the quality of their lives. The countries of southern Africa share similar histories of colonialisation and dispossession, histories that continue to shape current patterns of land tenure and administration. Most of the countries in the region have been through a phase of liberalisation and market reforms, or market-related land redistribution programmes, and since the 1990s new land laws have been passed in several countries, which tend to have been relatively weakly implemented and enforced. While land issues in the region have been shaped by history, access to land in the subregion is currently characterised by: scarcity of arable land; increasing commercialisation of land; new land-use patterns; the expansion of agro-fuel plantations; gender inequalities; and land ownership being concentrated in the hands of an indigenous elite while labour tenants and farm workers are subject to evictions, displacement and deepening poverty.
Review of land reforms in Southern Africa, 2010
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2010) Kleinbooi, Karin
This book forms part of a learning programme on ‘Land Reform From Below: Decentralised Land Reform in Southern Africa’. Supported by the Austrian Development Agency, the programme was launched in 2007, and has since provided policymakers, development practitioners and those involved in local governance with a variety of regional platforms on which to share their experiences of decentralised land-reform processes and to derive lessons related to best practice that can inform and improve policy-making. This Review of Land Reform in Southern Africa 2010 reflects on countries’ experiences up to the first part of 2010, and highlights lessons for land policy and practice. It aims to follow on from the biennial Independent Review of Land Issues, in Eastern and Southern Africa produced by land-rights specialists, Robin Palmer and Martin Adams, in 2003, 2005 and 2007.
Schmidtsdrift community land claim
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2007) Kleinbooi, Karin
The historic land of the Schmidtsdrift community lies along the banks of the Vaal River in the Northern Cape province, along the R300 road to Griquastad, approximately 71 km west from Kimberley and 53 km north-east from Douglas. The area is now under the jurisdiction of the Siyancuma Local Municipality and the Pixley ka Seme District Municipality. The Schmidtsdrift Restitution Claim was first lodged with the Advisory Commission of Land Rights (ACLA) in 1992 by the Batlhaping community consisting of approximately 800 claimant households. The claim was subsequently taken over by the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights (CRLR), which also received competing claims on the same land from the Kleinfonteintjie community, the Griqua community and the !Xhu and Khwe! San community.
Workshop report: Farmworkers’ living and working conditions
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2013) Kleinbooi, Karin
The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) has, with the support of the Atlantic Philanthropies through its Rural Research and Information Networking Project, engaged in supporting identified information needs of civil society organisations (CSOs) towards progressive change. The project concentrates on creating dialogues between CSOs and researchers on relevant research agendas, support and promoting a spirit of co-operation. The ‘Farm Worker’s Living and Working Conditions’ Workshop was held on 19 September 2013 at the School of Government, University of Western Cape. It brought together over 30 participants from the farm worker and researcher fraternity to consider the critical questions that are framing the debates on farm workers.

Browsing by Author "Kleinbooi, Karin"

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