PhDRDV / Institute for Rural Development / Land reform programmes have been implemented to address challenges of inequality in land ownership and poverty in many countries worldwide. They provide the poor people with important livelihood opportunities, such as livestock rearing, crop production and game farming in many rural areas. The government of South Africa, through the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) allocated various farms through the restitution programme to deal with unemployment, poverty, unsustainable livelihoods, shortage of skills and inequality challenges. This study focused on the restituted farm beneficiaries in Waterberg District. This was informed by the fact that since these farms were restituted, the majority of the farm beneficiary’s livelihoods have not significantly changed. A transformative sequential mixed method design was applied in this study in order to enable beneficiaries define their own issues and seek solutions. This involved concurrent collection of both quantitative and qualitative data; a stratified random sampling method was used to select 474 respondents. Qualitative data was collected using Interview guides, photo-voice and focus group discussions mainly from key informants- traditional leaders and the Ward Councillors. Two focus group discussion were held with the key informants and an observation was also used to collect qualitative data from the farmers. The data were analysed using ATLAS. ti version 7.5.7 and Thematic Content Analysis. The quantitative data was collected using a survey questionnaire and the Geographical Information System (GIS) approach to provide trends of the farm production. Remote sensing analysis was used to determine farm production performance of these restituted farms while the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS version 25) was used for computing descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation. The data indicated that farm production has declined since occupation of farms by the farm beneficiaries from 1995 to 2015. The decline has negatively affected the livelihoods of farm beneficiaries since more than half (61.6 %) indicated difficulties in effective operation of the farm due to lack of markets. About 64% of the farm beneficiaries have not been trained in farming. From 1995 to 2015, most of the restituted farms have lacked markets for their produce due to poor production arising from lack of funds to manage the farms. This has impeded beneficiaries from receiving any benefits, in terms of income or employment. Generally, the study concluded that there were no changes in the socio-economic status of the farm beneficiaries in the Waterberg District because most of the farms are not being utilised. The study recommends that the sector Department and private organizations should work together in ways, such as assisting the farm beneficiaries with capacity building, developing marketing strategy for the farm produce, with funds and infrastructure to improve production. With respect to farm performance satisfaction, the majority (77.2 %) of the farm beneficiaries were not satisfied with the restituted farms. Their benefits in terms of human development, financial, social and physical capitals had not changed as the majority (83.3 %) said there are no improvements in terms of salaries or wages. They claim that their livelihoods have remained the same because the farms are not operational due to lack of basic farming skills and conflicts. Agricultural Extension Advisors, Councillors, Traditional leaders and officials from DRDLR confirmed that production levels have declined because the land was transferred to people with no basic training in farming; most (54 %) of the respondents confirmed that the beneficiaries, therefore utilise only a portion of the farms. It is imperative, thus, to ensure that production on the restituted farms is enhanced to improve the areas, such as social, financial, human and physical capital. A three-pronged intervention strategy was, therefore, developed to help restituted farm beneficiaries in Waterberg District to improve their livelihoods, emancipate themselves from poverty and ultimately contribute to the National Development Plan of South Africa. The developed strategy is anchored on three key factors: the need for thorough assessment by the government on the farm beneficiary’s level of commitment to the farm prior to farm allocation and funding, need to incorporate new experts in agricultural economics and agricultural engineers into the restituted farms personnel and the need to decentralize the services of mentors and agricultural extension advisors at District and local Municipalities. / NRF

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / As a means to assuage historical land inequities, resultant socio-economic disparities and poverty alleviation, the Namibian Government undertook to reform the land sector. Guided by the Constitution and the Resolutions of the 1991 Land Conference policy and legal framework, a fractured consensus is built on the rationale to redistribute land to a targeted group. Parallel to the reform agenda, systemic challenges to the resettlement process are growing amid questions on Government’s ability to respond to sustainable programme objectives embedded within land reforms. Literature coalesces on the issues of land-reform programmes having lost direction, being skewed in favour of a few, being biased towards commercial agriculture, and requiring review and re-configuration to be inclusive and to satisfy equity and poverty-alleviation concerns.

The thesis interrogates how the political dynamics that emerged in the formulation of the 2016 land legislation in Malawi influenced the gendered outcomes. It highlights the complexity of the policymaking process that was shaped by divergent interests and power dynamics of the stakeholders. It argues that although the interests and agenda complicated the process, their discourses were framed and justified their positions within the development and gender equality framework. It highlights the progressive nature of the socio-legal provisions in the legislation by significantly recognising and promoting women’s land rights. It contends that advances in legal institutions are essential; however, for inclusive transformation to be sustainable, changes in social and cultural practices and norms are imperative. This is because Malawian women continue to face exclusion in owning, controlling and accessing land albeit being the major agricultural producers. This is owed to the persistence of patriarchal attitudes in institutions that perpetuate contestation in the public and private spheres of women’s rights to access, own and control over land. Such is persistent particularly within customary laws which remain sites of struggle between traditional leaders’ claims and women’s societal positions. Hence, creating enabling environments for women will allow them to articulate their political voices and agenda and as such influence policy and legal formulation. Through a multi-faceted approach encompassing of legal pluralism, feminist perspectives on gender and development, and the theory of change, the paper discusses the complexity of policymaking that has been shaped by interests and power. For instance, most chiefs contested against their limited powers and the inclusion of women in land administration issues as stipulated in the new Land Laws, while CSOs advocated for the laws to be people-centred, gender-sensitive and responsive to women’s needs. Also, International organisations were interested in ensuring that there is improved land governance framework and its implementation is in line with VGGT. Thus, apparent realities emerge from the analysis of these political dynamics within the adoption of the 2016 Land Laws: the differing stakeholders’ agenda and how they all pressed on advancing their agenda. Nonetheless, gender equality and development discourse was an aspect that was apparent in the debates.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This thesis investigates socio-spatial trajectories of class formation and processes of accumulation from below and above on redistributed farmland, the ‘New Qwaqwa Farms’ in the Eastern Free State province of South Africa, from the mid-1980s to 2016. Class formation trajectories of the studied land beneficiaries are traced across localised historical geographies and political contexts, from apartheid to the current democratic dispensation, that is, from the land beneficiaries’ recent ancestral history as labour tenants on white-owned farmland, and subsequent systematic expulsions from farmland, to their Bantustan labour reserve resuscitations as mainly nonagricultural petty commodity producers, and later targeting for land reform, as one measure of redistribution. The study adopted a mixed-methods survey, combining indepth qualitative and quantitative data, informed by critical realism and historical materialism within Marxist agrarian political economy. This methodology was retrospective, circumspective and prospective in unravelling agricultural households’ livelihood trajectories over time and space. The state’s targeting of classes of labour and fragments of the middle class as beneficiaries of land reform in the area of study has materialised into heterogeneous land reform outcomes centred on differentiated farming systems, farming scales, and farm labour requirements. Research findings suggest class differentiation of a sample of 62 cases of family farms into agricultural households engaged in social reproduction (50%), simple reproduction (26%), and accumulation (24%). The first two categories, constituting 76% of the sample, are essentially small-scale capitalist enterprises engaged in constrained and successful reproduction of capital – some of these households can be theorised as an impoverished landed property for their reliance on farm-rental income, combined with marginal farming, and precarious off-farm work for social reproduction. These are small-scale capitalist enterprises on the basis of the capital-wage relation. Their farm production rest upon small livestock herd reproduction and generalised renting out of arable and grazing land. A minority of these small-scale capitalist farms use solely family labour and can thus be defined as petty commodity producers on the basis of their embodiment of the capital-wage relation in one soul or family. The third category constitutes agricultural households on upward trajectories of capital accumulation from below and above, through expanded reproduction of mixed-farming systems, expressed in intensive farming of small but capitalised farms, as well as extensive farming expressed in livestock expansion/accumulation and renting in of additional grazing land, plus capital intensive crop expansion on non-irrigated land and renting in of additional arable land by some of the top 24% of the sample. These research findings illuminate heterogeneous land reform outcomes centred on improved access to land for widening the base of social reproduction for classes of labour, and attendant simple reproduction of small-scale capitalist farms. This heterogeneity also includes the function of land reform for accumulation of capital for the black middle class who can muster off-farm capital resources into expanded farm reproduction on their own and without accumulation from above, demonstrated by some accumulators in the area of study. Accumulation from above is taking place on some of the studied land reform farms, often through intersections with economic histories of accumulation from below, exposing the contradictions of capitalism and attendant compulsions of accumulators to accumulate capital by any means necessary. The downside of accumulation from above, however, through capture of public agricultural subsidy in the area of study, is that the collective 76% of the sample at the lower ends of social differentiation and those accumulators excluded from extraeconomic accumulation, are barred from accessing state subsidy that benefit a few politically-connected farmers. Whether class alliances across those excluded from accessing state subsidy will materialise into overt political action in demanding a share of public goods from the local ruling elite remains to be seen. These research findings contribute to a heterogeneous understanding of land reform which is sensitive to differentiated livelihood outcomes. Prospectively, this suggests much-needed government policy tailored to different classes of farmers in post land reform localities.

A Research to the Development Studies Department, Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master’s Degree (M.A) in Development Studies. 27 AUGUST, 2015 / The relationship between farmers and farm workers in South Africa in one steeped in controversy, yet this area of study has received little attention. Agrarian history in South Africa is topical especially when considering the interaction between farmers (predominantly white) and farm workers (almost entirely black) in a capitalist economy. Farm workers current social and economic situation is a product of colonialism, segregationist and apartheid policies, as well as capitalist development and post-apartheid development strategy. This study hence analyses the social cohesion within the commercial farming community, placed against the backdrop of the Land Reform Programme – tenure reform. The social relations and labour are highly shaped by the capitalist mode of production and through the control of capital. Total institutions, domestic governance, and paternalism, impedes successful tenure reform. The study reveals a mutual cohesion between farmer and their employees based on a variety of reasons ranging from mutual understanding, good communication, good working relationship, and treating such other fairly. Nonetheless, this does not mean that farm workers are not being maltreated as other studies on farm relations have shown. Without a doubt, land reform particularly tenure reform has clearly tested the patience of farmers. The study further acknowledges that the current land reform programme (especially tenure reform) is deficient, and has not benefited those for whom it was intended. Despite the legislation that have been passed in order to protect the rights of those living on farms, and to secure the labour right of those who work on them, there has been little improvement in securing tenure rights as well as the poverty level of many farm dwellers. Successful implementations of recent interventions to tenure security are the preconditions necessary for the broader land reform programme to reduce poverty levels among farm workers. Hence, securing tenure rights for farm workers must therefore be tired to programmes which aim to reduce poverty level among farm dwellers in general. Tenure reform by itself cannot alleviate rural poverty unless the government take a decisive action to stimulate the rural economy. Equally, farm dwellers (including farm workers and labour tenants) have felt the harshest consequence of the crises facing post-apartheid South Africa’s agriculture sector. This historical process has left its legacy in post-apartheid South Africa, characterised not only by a bimodal agricultural system but also by an unequal relation within (white) commercial farms where farm workers and labour tenants are faced with the harshest reality of poverty in the mist of agrarian wealth. This study therefore explores the disputed labour regime in the farming sector – the mechanisation and casualization of farm labour, as well as farm consolidation, both leading to a drop in rural/farm employment as an immediate consequence; and low unionisation of farm workers.

PhD - Political Studies / In this thesis, the following methods were used to assess the South African Land Reform Programme; historically important documents, policy papers, library research, qualitative interviews and a comparative analysis, which included a wide range of African, Asian and Latin American countries. The aim of the thesis was twofold. First, to assess whether an essentially market-based land reform programme might bring about equity and growth. Second, to draw lessons and make recommendations based on an analysis of land reform programmes in other countries, as well as on South African case studies. Emerging issues related to farm size, food security, poverty alleviation, appropriate credit policies, the limitations of market-based reform, the problems relating to bureaucratic reform programmes, the importance of beneficiary participation, the necessity to develop a gender sensitive programme and, finally, the undeniable relationship between violence and land reform. This thesis highlights the link between the omission of gender in policy development and subsequent policy failures. It highlights the relationship between land reform and violence and, it points to the varied nature of rural livelihoods. There is also a focus on how South African land reform policies developed and an analysis of the influence that the various actors, who participated in this process, had on subsequent

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Criminal violence is one of the most serious challenges in contemporary Latin America. While the drug economy -- which sparked much of the violence -- developed later in the 20th century, the institutions which shape contemporary vulnerability have deep historic roots. In this dissertation, I study three informal institutions: systematic corruption in the security sector, traditional governance institutions, and patriarchal norms, all of which have consequences for contemporary violence and vulnerability. In combining these essays, I aim to uncover some of the historical and social origins of contemporary variation in criminal violence and vulnerability. The first paper examines systematic corruption in the security sector. I ask: why did Mexico's strong and enduring civilian autocratic regime fail to reform a military riddled with corruption? I argue that the regime's reliance on the military for political control and repression created openings for the military to act corruptly when the center state was faced with political threats. I use an original data-set of military-landlord paramilitaries under the Cárdenas administration to show that where the regime faced greater political threat, military officials abused their power to profit from collusion with landed elites. Tracing these dynamics through to Mexico's dirty war, I find that the presence of these militaries in the 1970s is associated with higher levels of excess repression, suggesting enduring consequences of these collusive agreements for military professionalization. The second paper examines collaborative governance institutions -- created in Mexico's land reform -- as a source of variation in contemporary vulnerability to criminal violence. Each major land reform in Latin America was accompanied by the creation of collective institutions to administer redistributed land and govern beneficiary communities of land reform. However, little is known about the long term consequences of these administrative institutions. I advance a theory which argues that administrative institutions which enable the preservation of indigenous governance traditions can facilitate collective action capacity, which yields security dividends by empowering communities to respond strategically and collectively to criminal threat. I leverage insight from two months of in-depth, interview-based fieldwork in Michoacán, Mexico, combined with a difference-in-difference design to uncover the consequences of institutional variation in Mexico's land reform for vulnerability to criminal violence and criminal presence. In line with theoretical expectations, I find that land reform communities which preserve traditions of indigenous governance generate security in the context of Mexico's drug war. These findings have important implications for a vast literature which studies the relationships between violence and property rights, as well as for studies of rural security. The final paper studies the relationship between social inequality and criminal victimization, focusing on hierarchies created and upheld by patriarchal norms. I advance a theory of intersectional vulnerability to criminal violence, arguing that the same traditional structures which enable high collective action and social control of criminal violence can also lead to the preservation of stronger patriarchal norms. I suggest that these strong patriarchal norms lead to more criminal victimization of women relative to men. In patriarchal contexts, women's relative vulnerability is increased by community failure to apply social control to protect women from criminal violence, and exacerbated by women's lack of recourse due to their political exclusion. I test this theory empirically in the context of the Mexican drug war. I use an original measure of patriarchal norms drawn from household surveys on gender roles to identify empirical associations between traditional social structures and higher levels of patriarchal norms pre-drug war. Exploiting the shock of the onset of the drug war, I find that higher levels of patriarchy pre-drug war lead to substantially greater increases in women's victimization relative to men's following the onset of the war. I find strong evidence that this victimization is non-domestic, reflecting how community control of violence fails to protect women from criminal victimization, and that women are most at risk when they are politically excluded. These findings speak to how social and political inequalities shape vulnerability to criminal violence, particularly in contexts where the state fails to provide security. Together, these papers highlight the complex layering of informal institutions which shape contemporary welfare in the context of widespread criminal violence.