The Land and Its People: the land question and the South African political order
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Date
2023-03
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
Abstract
This 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.
Description
Keywords
Land reform, Constitutionalism, Government, Emancipation, Citizenship
Citation
Du Toit, A. 2023, March. The Land and its People: The South African ‘Land Question’ and the Post-Apartheid Political Order. Working Paper 64. PLAAS UWC