History and Agrarian Change in South Africa

Abstract

The new south African government plans a large-scale and rapid redistribution of land to AMcan smallholder farmers. This programme draws on proposals put forward by the World Bank. Historians have been largely absent from processes of consultation sumundingthe programme. Yet recent South Aliican rural historiography has much to say about the limitations on the ability of the state to restructure agrarian relations. It also underlines the importance of understanding the diversity of needs and aspirations of rural Africans. b b b b bThe scale of the challenges facing South Afiicans after apartheid is epitomised by the problems surrounding the distribution of land and the livelihoods of those who live and work on it. Racially-based segregation of land ownership, which aimed to c o m e African land ownership to some 13% of the land area, was central to the supply and control of labour for white farms, the mines and the towns in the first half of the century. The 'native reserves' were elaborated into a kaleidoscope of 'homelands' after 1948. People surplus to the 0 Bad BlackmU Ltd 1995. F'ubllshcd by BlackwrU F'ubllshcrs. 108 Cowley Rmd. M o d OX4 IJF. UK and 238 Maln Street. Cambrldge. MA 02142. U S A