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 Action research and advocacy in supporting labour tenants and their land claims in South Africa

Year of Funding: 2024-01-02 to 2026-12-31

Applicant and Institution Award Acceptance Date: 2024-04-02

The Postgraduate Diploma in Land Tenancy

History, Precarity and Law

The Postgraduate Diploma in Land Tenancy: History, Precarity and Law

 

SUMMARY: The R2-million NRF research grant has four components that are listed below that centre around a social group identified as labour tenants.

 

The latter are small scale (black) farmers and households who were historically provided land and farming rights by large scale (white) farmers in exchange for their labour.

 

The democratic government has set into motion land restitution and land redistribution processes that involve labour tenants making land claims applications.

 

The processing of land claims by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has proved to be dismally slow and frustrating for labour tenant households and the law courts.

The latter appointed a Special Master of Labour Tenants, Professor Richard Levin, to help speed up the process.

 

Three universities are co-operating in this project, namely the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Sociological Research and Practice, the University of Limpopo and the Nelson Mandela University.

Thus, research that supports specific land claims continues being done, a film documentary on labour tenants is in production, and preliminary discussions on the Estcourt farming project are taking place. The focus of this document is on the development of the diploma course.

1

The teaching and learning component of the project entails developing a diploma course for civil servants and practitioners on the land question, labour tenants and land claims.
The aim is to assist in understanding the need to speed up the processing of land claims and to acquire the skills to do so.
This can help achieve effective land claim resolution that best meets the needs of the beneficiaries including linking the process to supporting their agricultural activities as small-scale farmers

2

Oral history and geographical mapping research to assess the extent of land dispossession with respect to labour tenant households.
The aim is to provide evidence in support of the land claims of labour tenants. Related research skills are important for practitioners involved in processing land claims.

3

The production of a film documentary and a photo exhibition to illuminate and popularize the past and present farm activities and struggles of labour tenants as small-scale farmers.

4

The implementation of a post-settlement farming strategy co-designed and driven by a labour tenants’ women organization in a farm in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal.

Potential Impact and Outputs

The ultimate impact of the proposed action research project will be a deepened understanding of the history, plight, living conditions, and land ownership aspirations of former labour tenant farm servitude households with outstanding and unresolved land claims to privately owned farmland. Such an understanding will be philosophical, methodological, and practical by way of policy influence in land and agrarian reform.

Philosophical in the sense that a postgraduate diploma will be offered to state officials working on labour tenant land claims to farmland as a theoretical contribution against the backdrop of demoralisation on the part of civil servants attached to the wider dynamics of a disabling neoliberal state.

Methodological and practical in such a way that historical geography methods of gauging the land that was lost through colonialism and apartheid will be taught and implemented practically by the course participants.

Furthermore, the practical component involves the real post-settlement support to a community of former labour tenants who have received land through land reform – this will entail the construction of a solar powered domestic and commercial agriculture water system.

The envisaged diploma

The Postgraduate Diploma in Land Tenancy: History, Precarity and Law will be delivered by Advocate Thembeka Ngcukaitobi and Professor Victor Mmbengwa, under the auspices of the Centre for Sociological Research and Practice, University of Johannesburg, and the Office of the Special Master: Labour Tenants, under Professor Richard Levin.

Advocate Ngcukaitobi is a respected acting judge in the country on land matters, and Professor Mmbengwa of the University of Limpopo, is a prominent agricultural economist in South Africa.

Professor Levin is the appointed Special Master of Labour Tenants and has vast experience as an academic and senior government civil servant in agriculture and rural development.

The Post-Graduate Diploma in Land Tenancy: History, Precarity and Law will train state officials on fundamental principles of selfless service delivery in land and agrarian reform, as well as rural development. Its core themes are as follows

Course outcomes

i

State officials and related practitioners will be equipped with fundamental progressive elements of land reform law, historical geography research tools, life history documentation skills and Geographic Information Skills (practical aspects of Geographic Information Systems).

ii

State officials will acquire the motivation, knowledge and skills necessary to implement land claims processes and procedures as they relate to labour tenants thus assisting in achieving the speedy and effective resolution of land claims.

iii

State officials will gain academically directed, supported and monitored practical experience of conducting research into and resolving land claims through a practical assignment that will be an important component of the diploma course and on which they will be assessed. This will generate knowledge about the challenges of processing land claims from the point of view of civil servants.

iv

The academic institutions (University of Johannesburg, University of Limpopo, and Nelson Mandela University) and personnel involved will learn and deepen their knowledge of the land question, land restitution and land redistribution from interacting directly with government officials implementing these important processes. This will inform future curriculum development and the research agenda thus expanding the body of knowledge and improving practice

State officials will be trained on three core themes

The Post-Graduate Diploma in Land Tenancy: History, Precarity and Land is anchored upon a Memorandum of Understanding between the Office of the Special Master of Labour Tenants, appointed by the Constitutional Court of South Africa to supervise the administration of labour tenant land claims, after a two-decade stalemate, and the Centre for Sociological Research and Practice, University ofJohannesburg

History

The historical land dispossession that was legitimized by the notorious Natives Land Act of 1913. Within this historical context theme, the Historical Geography of Land Dispossession, which explores intersections of oral history and historical geographic methodology in gauging historical land dispossession towards labour tenants land claims resolution will be dissected.

Precarity

The economic positioning of labour tenant land claimants in relation to the state and land owners. This theme will also unpack dynamics of feminisation of service delivery towards a caring state in deepening democracy to the deepest of rural areas through, firstly land redistribution, and the construction of early childhood centres, schools, installation of crucial water and electricity infrastructure.
Within this theme, a sub-theme of Racialised Capitalism Theory will be dissected, looking into the theorisation of the current macro-economic context of post-apartheid South Africa.
This includes teaching that is grounded within the present moment highlighting the continuities of racialised inequalities as they manifest themselves in the South African land question.

Law

Analysis of the Land Reform (Labour Tenant) Act 3 of 1996, and its progressive elements in ways that deepen constitutionalism for the benefit labour tenant land claimants