Land in South Africa

Land in South Africa: Contested Meanings and Nation Formation, examines
how land and agrarian reform impacts nation building, citizenship, and
identity formation. The publication draws attention to the limitations
of reducing land to a commodity, and how this approach perpetuates
social conflict and inequality in land reform policy implementation.

The
book posits an alternative policy paradigm, which discusses contested
meanings of land and their relation to nation formation. It brings to
the fore citizen stakeholder perspectives from former labour tenants,
citizens residing in communally owned land, women subsistence farmers,
peasant movements and land reform civil society groups.

The
chapters investigate the diverse and contested meanings of land to
elevate how South Africans perceive land justice and reform, while also
including several international case studies. The publication argues
that land power relations and policy debates are constitutive components
of nation building. And, importantly, that land shapes essential
pillars in nation formation such as citizenship, political identity,
heritage, a sense of belonging and social disparities.