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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Struggles with activism: NGO engagements with land tenure reform in post-apartheid South Africa
Author:Fortin, ElizabethISNI
Year:2010
Periodical:Journal of Modern African Studies (ISSN 0022-278X)
Volume:48
Issue:3
Pages:383-411
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:land reform
NGO
land law
political action
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/40864762
Abstract:In 2004, a long-awaited piece of postapartheid legislation, the Communal Land Rights Act - to reform the land tenure of those living in the former 'homelands' of South Africa - was passed into law unanimously by parliament. This unanimity, however, conceals the extent to which the process towards this moment was deeply contested. Exploring the efforts by land sector NGOs to secure legitimacy in their engagements with this process reveals the extent to which wider power relations and contestations have determined their positioning. Those within the non-governmental land sector who opposed the legislation pitted themselves against ANC politicians and high-profile traditional leaders. However, the adoption of a Mamdani-inspired discourse to contest such politics and oppose the proposed legislation contributed to reinscribing narrow readings of knowledge considered to be legitimate. Their engagements were also shaped by changes in the NGO sector. Reduced funding for land sector NGOs and an increasingly ambivalent relationship between them and government contributed to contestations between NGOs and among people working within them. Their strategic engagements in such wider and internal politics influenced both the frames within which such policy change could be debated and the ways in which individuals working for NGOs consequently positioned themselves in relation to their constituents. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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