Full Description
This edited collection illustrates contestations over land and political authority in South Africa's rural areas, focusing on threats to popular rights and how they are being supported.
Who controls the land and minerals in the former Bantustans of South Africa - chiefs, the state or landholders? Disputes are taking place around the ownership of resources, decisions about their exploitation and who should benefit. With respect to all of these issues, the courts have become increasingly important.
The contributors to Land, Law and Chiefs in Rural South Africa capture some of these intense contestations over land, law and political authority, focussing on threats to the rights of ordinary people. History and customary law feature strongly in most disputes and succession to chieftaincy is also frequently disputed. Judges have to make decisions in a context where rival claimants to property or office assert their own versions of history and custom. The South African constitution recognizes customary law and the courts are attempting to incorporate and develop this branch of jurisprudence as 'living customary law'. Lawyers, community leaders and academics are called on to assist in researching cases around restitution, land rights and customary law.
The chapters in this collection discuss legal cases and policy directions that have evolved since 1994. Some chapters analyze the increasing power of chiefs in the South African rural areas, while others suggest that the courts are giving support to popular rights over land and supporting local democratic processes. Contributors record significant pushback from groups that reject traditional authority. These political tensions are a central theme of the collection and thus serve as vital case studies in furthering our understanding of rights and restitution in South Africa.
Contents
Preface - William Beinart
Introduction Land, Law and Chiefs: Contested Histories and Current Struggles - William Beinart
Chapter 1 Constitutional Court Judgements, Customary Law and Democratisation in South Africa - Geoff Budlender
Chapter 2 Was 'Living Customary Law' There All Along? - Derick Fay
Chapter 3 When Custom Divides 'Community': Legal Battles over Platinum in North West Province - Sonwabile Mnwana
Chapter 4 Chiefs, Mines and the State in the Platinum Belt: The Bapo-ba-Mogale Traditional Community and Lonmin - Gavin Capps
Chapter 5 Grave Sites and Dispossession in Mpumalanga - Dineo Skosana
Chapter 6 The Abuse of Interdicts by Traditional Leaders in South Africa - Joanna Pickering and Ayesha Motala
Chapter 7 Resisting the Imposition of Ubukhosi: Contested Authority-Making in the Former Ciskei - Thiyane Duda and Janine Ubink
Chapter 8 Black Landlords, Their Tenants and the Natives Administration Act of 1927 - Khumisho Moguerane
Chapter 9 Customary Law and Land Ownership in the Eastern Cape - Rosalie Kingwill
Chapter 10 A History of Communal Property Associations in South Africa - Tara Weinberg
Chapter 11 'This is Business Land': The Hlolweni Land Claim, 1983-2016 - Raphael Chaskalson
Chapter 12 Restitution and Land Rights in the Eastern Cape: The Hlolweni, Mgungundlovu and Xolobeni Cases - William Beinart
