Now that we have the land: analysing the experiences of land reform beneficiaries in the Makana Municipal District of the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Msuthu, Simela Thuleka

Title: Now that we have the land: analysing the experiences of land reform beneficiaries in the Makana Municipal District of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
Creator: Msuthu, Simela Thuleka
Subject: Land reform
Subject: Sustainable development
Subject: Land reform -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Land tenure -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Land settlement -- Government policy -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Restitution -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Local government -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Municipal government -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Date Issued: 2020
Date: 2020
Type: text
Type: Thesis
Type: Masters
Type: MA
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/167551
Identifier: vital:41491
Description: The “land question” in South Africa goes back more than a century to the 1913 Natives Land Act which facilitated the dispossession of African people from fertile land to arid homelands and congested townships. This mass dispossession of Africans from their land was accompanied by an array of legislation aimed at restricting their upward mobility, thus laying the foundations of structural inequality in South Africa. The advent of democracy in 1994 brought about a number of legislative reforms aimed at addressing the injustices that were imposed by the colonial and apartheid governments on the African people. At the forefront of these legislative efforts was the restoration of land to the original inhabitants of the country. Research indicates that, since 1994, the South African government has issued out land to different individuals and communities around the country in an attempt to address structural unemployment and poverty that plague the country. Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Theoretical framework, this study sought to examine the experiences of land reform beneficiaries in the Makana Municipal district of the Eastern Cape, in order to determine the extent to which the transfer of land to landless people has met the governments’ agenda to alleviate poverty and unemployment in the rural regions of South Africa. The findings in this study show that, successful land reform in South Africa is hindered mostly by two factors. Firstly, the inability of land beneficiaries to access quality education, skills training, finances and formal agricultural value chains. Secondly, land beneficiaries are further placed at a disadvantage by the poor quality of public services in their local municipalities and inconsistent post-settlement support from the state. The conclusion made in this study, is that the government has to be cognizant of the aforementioned structural barriers, when designing and rolling out land reform projects throughout the country. Failure to address these glaring structural barriers, will result in the creation of a peasant class of people living on underutilized land.
Format: 111 pages
Format: pdf
Publisher: Rhodes University
Publisher: Faculty of Humanities, Sociology
Language: English
Rights: Msuthu, Simela Thuleka

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