Ruth Hall

University of the Western Cape | uwc ·  Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)

Amid socially and ecologically failing food systems, land commoning has been proposed as a pathway to align food systems with agroecology and food sovereignty. This article aims to contribute to nascent understandings of land commoning movements in relatively deagrarianized contexts by presenting two distinct and complementary case studies in Engla...

In 2010, the Land Deals Politics Initiative formed to study the rising number of large-scale land deals taking place around the world. As the so-called 'global land grab' took shape, we organised small grant competitions to generate more empirical research into the phenomenon, and we organised conferences to debate the parameters and dynamics from...

The politics of food, climate, energy, and the yet unfinished work of ending colonialism run square through questions of land. The classical agrarian question has taken on new forms, and a new intensity. We look at four dimensions of the agrarian question today: urbanization and labor; care and social reproduction; financialization and global food...

While South Africa shares some characteristics with other middle-income countries, it has a unique economic history with distinctive characteristics. South Africa is an economic powerhouse with a significant role not only at the southern African regional and continental levels, but also as a member of BRICS. However, the country faces profound deve...

Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, natural resource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness resources considered ‘underutilised’, leading to contestations over rights and entitlements and producing new scarcities. Yet scarci...

Contrary to populist political discourses, in South Africa the ruling party's approach to land policy is reproducing paternalistic relations that echo apartheid practices and represent the 'colonial present'. This reality stands in stark contrast to the initial aim of land reform, which was conceived as part of a larger project of decolonisation. T...

Agrarian change in South Africa over the past two decades has seen consolidation of the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agribusiness within agro-food systems. Constrained domestic demand and growth opportunities elsewhere have driven both farming and agribusiness capitals to move into other African countries, attempting to...

A new political moment is underway. Although there are significant differences in how this is constituted in different places, one manifestation of the new moment is the rise of distinct forms of authoritarian populism. In this opening paper of the JPS Forum series on ‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’, we explore the relationship between...

Whether or not investments in African agriculture can generate quality employment at scale, avoid dispossessing local people of their land, promote diversified and sustainable livelihoods, and catalyse more vibrant local economies depends on what farming model is pursued. In this Forum, we build on recent scholarship by discussing the key findings...

The most recent incarnation of South Africa’s land reform is a model of state purchase of farms to be provided on leasehold, rather than transferring title. This briefing presents headline findings from our field research in one district.

This article introduces this collection, which focuses on the economic and political rise of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and its implications for global agrarian transformation. These emerging economies are undergoing profound changes as key sites of the production, circulation, and consumption of agricultur...

The *Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) are a globally negotiated and agreed framework endorsed in the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on 11 May 2012. The VGGT represent a political agreement on the minimum standards for land governance, com...

We conducted a systematic review on the effects of land tenure recognition interventions on agricultural productivity, income, investment and other relevant outcomes. We synthesise findings from 20 quantitative studies and nine qualitative studies that passed a methodological screening. The results indicate substantial productivity and income gains...

This paper focuses on large-scale land acquisitions and the implications of these new trends for land tenure rights in sub-Saharan Africa. It highlights trends in legal and policy approaches; describes and analyses new pressures on land and related natural resources; provides an analysis of drivers of resource scarcity and competing uses; summarise...

Africa has been at the centre of a "land grab" in recent years, with investors lured by projections of rising food prices, growing demand for "green" energy, and cheap land and water rights. But suchland is often also used or claimed through custom by communities. What does this mean for Africa? In what ways are rural people's lives and livelihoods...

Africa has been at the centre of a "land grab" in recent years, with investors lured by projections of rising food prices, growing demand for "green" energy, and cheap land and water rights. But suchland is often also used or claimed through custom by communities. What does this mean for Africa? In what ways are rural people's lives and livelihoods...

Political reactions ‘from below’ to global land grabbing have been vastly more varied and complex than is usually assumed. This essay introduces a collection of ground-breaking studies that discuss responses that range from various types of organized and everyday resistance to demands for incorporation or for better terms of incorporation into land...

Looking back at the century since the promulgation of the Natives Land Act, it could be argued that it shaped the trajectories of most South Africans' lives. It expelled black people from the land into crowded reserves and formed the cornerstone of the migrant labour system through which accumulation of wealth in white-owned mines, farms and factor...

Cet article place la restitution des terres à l'intérieur de débats plus larges sur la manière dont l'Afrique du Sud doit faire face à l'expropriation passée, et ce faisant, donner forme à un avenir agraire équitable. Il décrit les origines de la restitution et ses structures légates et institutionnelles, retrace les succès et les échecs les plus i...

This collection of essays in Governing Global Land Deals provides new empirical and theoretical analyses of the relationships between global land grabs and processes of government and governance. Reframes debates on global land grabs by focusing on the relationship between large-scale land deals and processes of governance. Offers new theoretical i...

The most recent ‘land rush’ precipitated by the convergent ‘crises’ of fuel, feed and food in 2007–2008 has heightened the debate on the consequences of land investments, with widespread media coverage, policy commentary and civil society engagement. This ‘land rush’ has been accompanied by a ‘literature rush’, with a fast-growing body of reports,...

Land and agrarian reform has the potential to expand South Africa's rangeland commons and enhance their contribution to the livelihoods of the rural poor, yet to a large extent this has been an opportunity missed. Shifting policy agendas have prioritised private land rights and commercial land uses, seeking to dismantle the racial divide between th...

Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in large‐scale land deals, often from public lands to the hands of foreign or domestic investors. Popularly referred to as a ‘global land grab’, new land acquisitions are drawing upon, restructuring and challenging the nature of both governance and government. In the Introduction to this spec...

One of the less studied legacies of settler colonialism and agrarian dualism in South Africa is the substantial population of people living and working on (still mostly) white-owned commercial farms – a feature distinct from most other countries in Southern Africa. Many farm workers and farm dwellers in South Africa experience precarious tenure, an...

The South African Government aims to expand the smallholder sector as part of its broader job creation strategy. However, research shows that government attempts to support smallholder farmers have generally been costly and ineffective. Using secondary data and case study evidence, this study investigated the problems of supporting this sector. One...

The contributions to this collection use the tools of agrarian political economy to explore the rapid growth and complex dynamics of large-scale land deals in recent years, with a special focus on the implications of big land deals for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation. The first part of this introductory...

This paper analyses the shifting role of South African farmers, agribusiness and capital elsewhere in the Southern African region and the rest of the continent. It explores recent trends in this expansion, and investigates the interests and agendas shaping such deals, and the ideologies and discourses of legitimation employed in favour of them. Whi...

The popular term ‘land grabbing’, while effective as activist terminology, obscures vast differences in the legality, structure and outcomes of commercial land deals and deflects attention from the roles of domestic elites and governments as partners, intermediaries and beneficiaries. This paper summarises initial evidence of the characteristics of...

Land is central to the prospects for development in sub-Saharan Africa. While a growing proportion of the region’s population is living in urban settlements, the absolute rural population continues to grow. The vast majority depend on land-based livelihoods derived mostly from the region’s 80 million small-scale farms. Yet many have precarious live...

The embrace of socio-economic rights in South Africa has featured prominently in scholarship on constitution making, legal jurisprudence and social mobilisation. But the development has attracted critics who claim that this turn to rights has not generated social transformation in practice. This book sets out to assess one part of the puzzle and as...

In South Africa land is one of the most significant and controversial topics. Land restitution has been a complex, multidimensional process that has failed to meet the expectations with which it was initially launched in 1994. Ordinary citizens, policymakers, and analysts have begun to question progress in land reform in the years since South Afric...

"The new cabinet ushered in after the 2009 national elections features new and renamed ministries. Those expected to take the lead in a new initiative to resuscitate the rural economy are the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. While the newfound priority placed on rural development...

The commercial agricultural sector in South Africa has historically been dominated by large-scale operations run by white owners and managers. In redressing this imbalance, black farmers classified as 'emerging' are being encouraged to engage in high-input agricultural production in order to obtain 'commercial' status. Since existing practices in c...

This research study was conducted in late 2004 and the findings presented to the Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) and shared with the Department of Land Affairs (DLA) in 2005. Since then, some of its recommendations have been incorporated into new directions in land policy. At the National Land Summit in July 2005, the South Afr...

This report investigates emerging trends evident in the limited literature available on the impact of land restitution on livelihoods, and suggests ways of thinking about, and planning for, livelihoods. The report has a two-fold emphasis: its primary focus is on rural restitution claims where land has been restored, but it also addresses rural land...

Land reform is one way in which the 'new' South Africa set out to redress the injustices of apartheid and, by redistributing land to black South Africans, to transform the structural basis of racial inequality. During the first decade of democracy, land reform has fallen far short of both public expectations and official targets. This article descr...

RUTH HALL argues that there is a need for a stronger global bargaining presence by Government if agricultural trade is to contribute to improving the quality of life of farm workers and not the reverse

Farm workers are among the poorest communities in South Africa. Despite legislation to protect the tenure rights of those who live on farms, and to secure the labour rights of those who work on them, there has been little improvement in poverty levels since South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994. This paper reviews the laws and policies whi...

The question posed in this article is why do land reform policies aiming at equity regularly result in inequitable outcomes?The question is examined in relation to the new land reform policy in South Africa (DLA, 1997), and with emphasis on the commitment to gender equity contained in this policy. Four points are made. First, planning for developme...

As Minister of Education in the Republic of Guinea, Aicha Bah campaigns against female circumcision, fights against poverty and improves girls' education through interactive rural community participation. Ruth Holl and Thandi Lewin spent some time with Aicha, who sees herself as a role-model for girls and women in Guinea

Land reform is one of the ways in which past racial exclusions and inequalities are being addressed in the 'new South Africa'. The Department of Land Affairs (DLA) is responsible for restoring land to those unjustly deprived of land rights since 1913; redistributing land to those denied equitable access to it under segregation and apartheid; and se...

Redistribution of land is widely seen as having the potential to significantly improve the livelihoods of the rural poor and to contribute towards economic development. Nine years into the transition to democracy, however, the underlying problems of landlessness and insecure land rights remain largely unresolved. In line with its neo-liberal macro-...

Thesis (M. Phil. in Development Studies)--University of Oxford, 1998. Includes bibliographical references.