Kinship and land in an inter-ethnic rural community

A focus on institutional norms and rules gives an incomplete picture of rural land tenure; building an account of local practice from specific cases reveals nuances and variations that are otherwise elusive. Following the latter approach, the paper describes so-called "communal" tenure in Hobeni, a community in Xhora District, in the Transkei region of South Africa. A practice-based approach reveals significant variations in tenure practices, related to the kinship composition of local neighbourhoods. In areas where a few families are numerically predominant, agnatic kinship is the primary means for access to land. In areas that are diverse in their kin composition, other ties (for example, friendship, church membership, common employment, etc.) are used as a basis for access to land. The demographic variation underlying these practices appears to be widespread in communities in the Eastern Cape and beyond, suggesting considerable diversity within the workings of "com...

This paper has three major concerns. Firstly, it demonstrates the participation of the African peasantry in the agricultural economy of the district. Secondly, it establishes the historical continuity of a class of "progressive" African producers in the district, and their relationship to the growth of territorial segregation/apartheid in the district through incorporation into the Bophuthatswana 'Homeland'. Finally, it draws some early understandings as to the impact of this complex heritage for the political economy of that Homeland that was built upon the edifice of the South African Native Trust Scheduled Areas such as Ditsobotla .

Antipode, 1991

2010

Applied Geography, 2009

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2015

Even as they cultivate less land, residents of Hobeni, in the former Transkei homeland, describe increasing concerns over land shortage, explaining that disused land has its owners who 'are keeping that land for their children'. This paper examines the social practices that shape rural land tenure, in a setting where traditional authorities bear little relevance to customary tenure. Land in this context holds value not only for agricultural and residential use; it is a resource for rural residents to persuade migrants to maintain their rural ties, in a political-economic context in which migration has become more unstable and insecure. Attention to the attractive value of land as a resource situated in relations between migrants and rural kin also highlights the limits of a narrowly economic perspective on apparently 'underutilised' land: land may be materially 'unproductive' but socially valuable.

Africa Spectrum, 2010

Changes in kinship relations are part of the broad social change in all African societies. This article highlights trends and characteristics of changing kinship relations in West Africa. Its analysis focuses on the twentieth century, which was shaped by the colonial conquest and profound societal transformations like the political independence of the African colonies. In analysing three important kinship relations – parent–child relations, marriage, and care for the elderly – this article depicts the trends and conditions of historical change of these relationships. It also shows whether and how these changes are accompanied by conflict, and how people refer to the different ways of dealing with those conflicts. The article is based on empirical data from three thematically intertwined research projects. Der vorliegende Artikel thematisiert Tendenzen und Merkmale des Wandels verwandtschaftlicher Beziehungen im Norden von Benin und Togo und deren Wechselspiel mit Tendenzen des allge...

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2016

In the pre-colonial period, and in most parts of Southern Africa throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, marriage, the family and the homestead were embedded in economic, political and religious institutions. The household was the hub of social life, and its layout symbolically expressed the relationships between men, women, cattle and the ancestors. Economically, bridewealth paid in cattle linked the pastoral economy of men and the garden economy of women. Politically, marriages established, sustained and restructured allegiances. The paper concludes with some reflections on the transformations that this traditional structure has undergone in the course of the twentieth century.

International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, 2020

: This article uses historical evidence to track the invention of traditions in particular spheres of South African society since the late 1600s. Presently the ilobolo wedding ritual practice aligns with a colonially defined social transaction based on a monetary value system. This challenges the promise to “heal the divisions” brought about the colonial injustices of the past. The data were collected employing a case study, which enabled the researcher to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Theoretical thematic analysis was used to interpret the findings. The participants’ narrative revealed that prevailing socioeconomic conditions limit prospects for the development of an authentic family structure in the post-apartheid era in South Africa. In particular, it focuses on challenges such as the status of vulnerable men, a lack of access to natural capital (land) and a shift from the traditional establishment of receptive social relationships. It recommends that relevant stakeholders, such as traditional leaders, community members, and government agencies, should formulate strategies and policies to facilitate the restoration of the indigenous cultural values behind the principle of ilobolo and to remove the limits imposed by the consumerist tendencies that hover over the black African family structure.

Land Use Policy, 2013

The South African government has endeavoured to strengthen property rights in communal areas and develop civil society institutions for community-led development and natural resource management. However, the effectiveness of this remains unclear as the emergence and operation of civil society institutions in these areas is potentially constrained by the persistence of traditional authorities. Focusing on the former Transkei region of Eastern Cape Province, three case study communities are used examine the extent to which local institutions overlap in issues of land access and control.

2008

Focusing on a specific impoverished region of rural Eastern Cape, this paper examines the dynamics of household formation and composition within postapartheid migratory networks. While the fluidity, contingency and spatially extended nature of African households is generally understood, the paper focuses on the social relationships that both buttress and flow from these qualities. In conceptualising the notion of the household, the paper also suggests the rubric of the 'household'can be a powerful, cultural narrative for ...

Nigerian Journal of Economic History,, 2015

Pre-colonial Idanre was built on household farming, and reciprocal economic system among family members, age group and joint communal mode of production. Economic system in pre-colonial Idanre was therefore, conducted with an eye on widening social affinity, inclusive development and tightening cultural bond rather than accumulating wealth and economic surplus for individual aggrandizement. With this, social stratification, class conflict, expropriation and monopolization of the means of production, and uneven development were virtually non-existent, until the colonial epoch when agrarian capitalism adopted by the British government to maximize the extraction of raw materials-cocoa in the case of Idanre-based on the vent-for surplus theory gained formidable momentum. This paper thus examines the pre-colonial social and economic structure of Idanre social formation.

2019

4 INTRODUCTION 4 A CLASS ANALYTIC APPROACH 5 WHO OWNS THE LAND AND WHO MAKES DECISIONS? 6 THE EVIDENCE 7 ‘DEACTIVATED’ JOBS 8 ACTIVATED CROPPING FIELDS AND INCOMES 8 ACTIVATED GRAZING LANDS 8 OCEAN HARVESTING 9 NATURAL RESOURCES HARVESTING 9 FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY 10 ASSET ACCUMULATION 11 CLASS DIFFERENTIATION 11 SUBSISTENCE-ORIENTATED HOMESTEADS 12 MARKET-ORIENTED HOMESTEADS 13 WAGEAND SALE-RELIANT HOMESTEADS 13 WAGE-RELIANT HOMESTEADS 13 WHAT IS THE FUTURE? PURSUING ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF DEVELOPMENT 14 IMPLEMENTATION OF FPIC AND FAIR VALUATION PRINCIPLES 15 ECO-TOURISM 15 PUBLIC INVESTMENT IN SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE 15 CONCLUSION 17 REFERENCES 18 WORKING PAPER #61 | 4

The social role of youth, in the last twenty years, has become a key point of the political agenda of many African nations. In South Africa, the consequences of segregationist politics, market economy and migrations have profoundly shaped the social and cultural role of youth, both in urban and rural contexts. Moreover, the end of apartheid has opened a new period of wide transformation. Based on my ethnographic research in KwaMashabane, a rural region of South Africa, this article analyses how the social role of male youth is shaped by national state policy and by local dynamics. I will focus on the relationship between models of adulthood, and the strategies that youth adopt to cope with confl icts and continuities. This analysis will show how post-apartheid freedom and the constraints of the local social structure are negotiated, and how society is coping with the complex relationships between cultural reproduction and social change.