Land, livelihoods and belonging on redistributed land of former labour tenants in South Africa
Loading...
Date
2024
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universty of the Western Cape
Abstract
This thesis explores what happens to the lives of the ‘relative surplus population’ when they repossess land in the context of neoliberal capitalism characterised by the crisis of social reproduction. It explains how land repossession has shaped tenure arrangements, livelihoods, and notions of belonging among the former labour tenants and their descendants. It draws on Marxist and feminist political economy theories and applies the concepts of racial capitalism and belonging. The combination of these theories and concepts, such as primitive accumulation, relative surplus population, social reproduction, gendered labour, belonging and racism, helps to explain the history of land dispossession and its outcomes and the position of working-class women in the process. I use these theoretical tools and concepts to analyse contemporary processes of agrarian change under neoliberal capitalism. The research was conducted in Mhlopheni in KwaZulu-Natal province, using qualitative and quantitative research methods. This was done through a survey of 32 out of 41 households, 25 life histories, nine focus groups, and 56 in-depth interviews, mainly between 2021 and 2022. Additional telephonic interviews were conducted between 2023 and 2024. Respondents included people living in Mhlopheni, predominantly former labour tenants and their descendants, government officials, land activists and people who currently and previously worked at the land rights nongovernment organisation that supports former labour tenants in this region. This data was supplemented with the literature.
Description
Keywords
Former labour tenants, social reproduction, gendered labour, socially embedded tenure, living customary law