Urban Land Restitution and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in South Africa

Beyers, Christiaan

doi:10.1111/dech.12041

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The adoption of a national urban framework and resolving of contradictions in the post-apartheid planning system, as it applied to the approval of urban developments, was delayed in part by a political bias towards rural development. The same bias also shaped the national land-reform initiative (Beyers, 2013). However, in the drafting of the National Development Plan (NDP) leading up to its adoption in 2012, it was evident that a national "consensus [had] begun to emerge around an urban vision for South Africa" (NPC, 2012: 284).…”

Section: National Consensus On Urban Policy In South Africa As a Platmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Beyers (2013) notes, urban land restitution, though strategically important, has limited potential for restructuring the apartheid city, given that African households had never been fully integrated into South Africa's urban areas prior to their dispossession or removal. Redressing spatial segregation, therefore, requires a systematic national framework (Beyers, 2013). This section considers securing of urban land tenure and aspects of urban land redistribution that are not as yet fully addressed through the IUDF and SPLUMA.…”

Section: Refining and Fine-tuning Proposals For Urban Land Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban land reform in South Africa: Pointers for urban policy and planning

Huchzermeyer

Harrison

Charlton

et al. 2019

TRP

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Urban and reform is a relatively under-researched and-considered element of the broader land-reform debate. This article reviews some of the key positions that have been explicated in the current urban land-reform debate, and seeks to extend existing contributions, fine-tune them and push the debate further. It does so by distinguishing the features of urban land, and considers these and their implications for the meaning of land reform. It also reviews the recently achieved, national policy consensus on urban development and planning, and concludes with suggestions on how to proceed with urban land reform.

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Section: National Consensus On Urban Policy In South Africa As a Platmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Refining and Fine-tuning Proposals For Urban Land Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban land reform in South Africa: Pointers for urban policy and planning

Huchzermeyer

Harrison

Charlton

et al. 2019

TRP

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“…Attempts to introduce a new act that strengthens the government's ability to expropriate have failed (2008,2013). Land reform has long been debated in South Africa as a rural-agricultural rather than as an urban issue (Beyers 2013, Brown-Luthango 2010. It is housing policy that is expected to address the difficulties with land access for poor urban dwellers.…”

Section: Conceiving a City Of Threatening Encountersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cities of Entanglements

Heer¹

2019

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Finally, many thanks go to my family, my husband Martin and my friends who supported and accompanied me in many ways during these fascinating years of doing fieldwork and writing an ethnography.1 The fact that many texts about contemporary South Africa still use racial terminology often puzzles readers not familiar with the South African context. Yet South African society was and continues to be stratified along the troubling category of 'race'. Race is a social construct with meanings and assumptions that have changed over time and differ across context. In this book, when I write about race and use categories like 'black' or 'white', it is not because I believe in the biological relevance of these terms, but because, as social constructs and political categories, they shaped and continue to shape urban life in Johannesburg and to a lesser degree in Maputo as well. Whenever I refer in this book to the racial categories as introduced by the apartheid government or the Portuguese colonialists (as they were used in official discourses, official documents, laws or censuses), I capitalise them (White, Black, Native). When I use the terms uncapitalised (black, white), I refer to the racial and ethnic categories used in everyday life by the informants this book is based on. I use them as descriptive terms, just as the urban dwellers do. Because of capitalisation rules, 'Indian' is always capitalised. 10 'White', 'Coloured' and 'Native' were the initial categories used. 'Indian' (Asian) was added later (Seekings 2008: 2), 'Native' became replaced by 'Bantu' (1960) and 'Black' (1980). After 1970, the category 'Black' was again subdivided into ethno-linguistic groups such as Zulu and Xhosa (Christopher 2002, Seekings 2008: 2). In the post-apartheid phase, 'black' was replaced by 'African' in the census (Christopher 2002: 404-5). 'Black', as in the post-apartheid Black Economic Empowerment policies, refers to black, coloured and Indian today. Racial terminology was hence not consistent over time (ibid: 403).Strangely the everyday rhythms of domestic life have rarely counted as part of the 'urban', as though the city stopped at the doorstep of the home. But domestic life is now woven routinely into the urban public realm ... The rhythms of the home are as much part of city life as, say, the movements of traffic, office life, or interaction in the open spaces of the city. Its rhythms, too, need incorporating into the everyday sociology of the city (Amin and Thrift 2002: 18).workers, for example, have intimate knowledge about the everyday routines of the family they work for (familiarity), yet they do not share the same routine (normality). 20 African cities are marked by an increasing inequality and differentiation of lifestyles, but there is a lack of empirical and conceptual work on social differentiation which goes beyond uni-dimensional perspectives. Research often focused on socio-cultural differentiation with 'ethnicity' as a key concept or it focused on socioeconomic differentiation (key concepts 'poverty' and 'liveli...

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“…Surprisingly, the scope of research within an urban context remains relatively scant (see Battersby 2012;Cavanagh, 2013;Dhupelia-Mesthrie, 2006;Parnell, Beavon, 1996;Thompson, 1999;Beyers, 2007Beyers, , 2013Maqasho, Bank, 2001;Dewar, 2001;Carruthers, 2000). This is attributed to the fact that "urban land restitution has been criticised for contributing only marginally to social and economic development and transformation.…”

Section: Down South: the South African Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban land restitution in Cape Town: demanding the return of land rights in Constantia and Kensington/Ndabeni

Donaldson

Hyman

Chang

et al. 2014

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series

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One of the hallmark policies implemented post-apartheid, the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994, is a rights-based program aimed at addressing the loss of land resulting from past racially discriminatory laws or practices. The aim of this research was to identify what are the factors that determine the different outcomes of the restitution process when claimants are demanding the return of land rights and to highlight the challenges regarding the implementation of this land restitution policy. Focusing on two specific yet contrasting areas in Cape Town, Constantia and Kensington, it was determined that due to factors pertaining to the lands in question, the neighborhood surrounding the lands, the claimants, as well as the organization, function, and performance of different public entities, the policy has managed to fulfill restorative justice, but has yet to fulfill its ultimate goal of returning land rights to the claimants and undoing the injustices of the apartheid regime.

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Urban Land Restitution and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in South Africa

Cited by 10 publications

References 23 publications

Urban land reform in South Africa: Pointers for urban policy and planning

Urban land reform in South Africa: Pointers for urban policy and planning

Cities of Entanglements

Urban land restitution in Cape Town: demanding the return of land rights in Constantia and Kensington/Ndabeni

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