“Reproducing the social”: Contradictory interconnections between land, cattle production and household relations in the Besters Land Reform Project, South Africa
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Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Routledge
Abstract
Land redistribution policy in South Africa emphasises commercial farming as the legitimate
use of land. This production-oriented framework fails to take into account the intertwined but
unstable relationship between the production of market value and social reproduction, and how
this shapes social differentiation. Drawing on a case study of the Besters Land Reform Project in
the province of KwaZulu-Natal, the paper shows that land and cattle are not simply moments in
the production of beef but material and discursive resources in (re)making the social conditions
of the household. Cattle are used in drawn-out ceremonies that occur in specific spaces and
stitch together families and communities pulled apart by rising inequality, making land
constitutive of identity and belonging as well as of capitalist value production. Until land reform
policy recognises the multi-functionality of land and cattle, and the contradictory relationship
between functions, agricultural production will be a limited indicator of “success” or “failure.”
Description
Keywords
Cattle, Hybrid farming systems, Land reform, Poverty reduction, Social reproduction, South Africa
Citation
Hornby, D., & Cousins, B. (2019). “Reproducing the social”: Contradictory interconnections between land, cattle production and household relations in the Besters Land Reform Project, South Africa. Anthropology Southern Africa, 42(3), 202–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/23323256.2019.1653206