Reflections on South Africa’s Agrarian Questions after 20 years of Democracy

Aug 14, 2014 | University of Cape Town
South Africa

The Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town will be hosting an international workshop which will reflect on South Africa’s land and agrarian questions 20 years after the advent of democracy in South Africa. The workshop will be held in the Centre for African Studies gallery on 14 and 15 August 2014.

We invite scholars working on agrarian change, land reform, farm workers, rural development, social movements, trade unions, nature conservation, or eco-tourism in South Africa to submit an abstract. We specifically encourage young and upcoming scholars  with fresh empirical and/or ethnographic material to participate in this event. This includes scholars who have recently completed their PhDs and Phd students in the final stages of their project. The main objective of the workshop is to discuss and share a broad range of themes and explore how new material contributes to and refreshes mainstraim debates in contemporary agrarian scholarship.

Why this workshop now?
After 20 years of democracy, and 20 years of market-led land reform in South Africa, land and agrarian questions remain unresolved. This in many ways is evidenced by the increasingly rising discontent among landless people and the poor; ongoing “service delivery protests”, the farm worker “uprisings” in the Western Cape, Marikana shootings, the housing struggles waged by Abahlali Basemjondolo and the emergence of former ANC Youth League President, Julius Malema and his Ecomic Freedom Fighters who are now articulating grassroots struggles demanding economic justice. These expressions of frustration and demands for social justice and transformation have been met by violent repression by the post-apartheid state and indicate the urgent need to address the process of transformation in South Africa.

In this context, South Africa’s land and agrarian questions are a relevant and timely matter. There is little doubt that post-apartheid governments have spectacularly failed to redress distorted land ownership patterns and agrarian relations that were inherited from colonialism and apartheid and continue under neo-liberal capitalism. This thus calls for reflections on ongoing debates on the meanings of land, agriculture, and land-based livelihoods in post-apartheid society. Some scholars have reduced the agrarian question to an agrarian question of labour, while others have envisaged repeasantisation as an important outcome of redistributive land reform which can address poverty. Our aim is to reflect, rethink, reconceptualise and reimagine land and agrarian questions.

NOTE: The deadline for submitting papers has already passed but interested individuals may still participate in the workshop.