W. Odendaal, & W. Werner (Eds.), "Neither here nor there..."Indigeneity, marginalisation and land rights in post-Independence Namibia. Windhoek: Legal Assistance Centre, pp. 163-183., 2020
The fencing of communal lands in Namibia is not a recent phenomenon. Older case material and repo... more The fencing of communal lands in Namibia is not a recent phenomenon. Older case material and reports, databases from the regional Division: Land Reform offices, and reports from TAs such as the one quoted above show that the fencing of communal lands has been taking place over more than 40 years. The first cases of illegal fencing had already been reported in the early 1970s, when local businessmen began to seek and obtain approval from local chiefs and headman for large areas of communal land to be allocated to them for grazing. Fencing expanded rapidly in the 1980s and accelerated thereafter. Towards the end of 1990, it was estimated that in the densely populated Oshikoto Region of northern Namibia, between 25% and 50% of the communal land had been fenced off into large private ranches. In parts of some regions, the enclosure of land has now effectively been completed. The recent Ongandjera TA report confirms what was found during a fact-finding mission in 2011 in Omusati Region, in which one of the authors participated. On the basis of a comparison with the results of the 2011 fact-finding mission and of conversations with many residents in the field and MLR office personnel, the researchers noted that the clear pattern that emerged was that fencing had escalated and intensified.
There is some agreement in Namibian society, as well as in scholarly and grey literature and reports that fencing in communal lands is problematic. Fencing is primarily associated with issues concerning access to key resources. The title of the chapter suggests that our perspective on illegal fencing as a developmental question is that it is rather similar to the agrarian or land question. The land question literature focuses on land as a key resource, debates the distribution of benefits from the use of the land, and so on. Identifying fencing as part of the series of development issues and making fencing a central component of the analysis allows us to generate a series of key questions, such as who fences and for what purpose; who benefits most and who is losing out; and perhaps more importantly, what is the social and material effect of fencing and thereby (re)ordering the communal areas. We will not be able to answer questions related to material or ecological changes such as biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and so on. Our focus is on what fencing does to property and property relations, on processes related to exclusion and the future of the commons in Namibia, and on how the struggle to remove fences is organised.
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agricultural production and the corresponding increase in dependence on social grants and wages. Despite this trend remnants of the agrarian do exist.
The title of the book echoes the tensions and contradictions that arise from the increasingly complex entanglements in which social actors find themselves in as they struggle to achieve sustainable livelihoods. The contributors to this volume - both academics and practitioners - engage with these complex imbroglios by combining solid academic analysis and sympathising critique to add, each in his or her own idiosyncratic way, to the legacy of Wageningen Sociology and Anthropology.
The book is divided in three sections. The first part illustrates how an actor approach resonates in such dissimilar fields as legal anthropology, rural sociology, technology and agrarian development, communication and innovation studies, and irrigation and water engineering. The second part shows the many faces an actor-oriented approach may acquire as it articulates with different bodies of thought. Finally, the last part exemplifies how development practice may be positively informed by an actor-oriented approach.
These assertions and explanations are rather inadequate. The picture is spatially highly variable and the arguments underplay that many of the seemingly abandoned fields are still claimed by their owners and hence the possibility of re-activation sometime in the future. The assertion ignores that fields are also used for many other purposes then crop production only. To examine the landscape I refrain here using concepts like ‘field abandonment’ or ‘under-cultivation’, but rather prefer the term ‘de-activation’ as after some years, rural dwellers re-activate and rejuvenate cropping in distant fields and home gardens. Drawing on longitudinal data and with a focus on understanding the influence of prolonged labour migrancy on the landscape, it is argued here that the impact is rather differentiated. Migrancy has produced a landscape that varyingly hinges on homesteading expressing that the social and physical reproduction of the homestead. Observations also learn that certain patches of land continue to be used by (former) migrants and they use the land to produce at scale; hence this pattern is referred to as production at scale. These two patterns are found to emerge as relevant and meaningful for those involved which guarantees in turn their reproduction over time in times of neo-liberalism and globalisation. Interestingly these land use patterns also evolve relatively autonomous from post-apartheid agrarian polices.
turn, motivate ‘local’ people to engage in modes of appropriation of nature that, given the enactment of conservation laws, are designated as illegal. The act of ‘poaching’ is consequently treated as a criminal offence. ‘Poaching’ does, in my view, not always do justice to why local people in villages close to sites of plenty appropriate natural resources in this way. ‘Local poaching’ has, despite the community and the participatory- oriented nature of the recent (community- based) conservation discourses,4 too often been probed without incorporating the underlying values, claims on usufruct, and access to resources, practices, and knowledge repertoires of local people and their interactions with the natural environment, including domesticated and wild animals. Nor are the emerging local realities in villages and in community- based conservation projects and programmes, and their relative achievements, taken into account. Moreover, not much is known about what is hunted and by what means. The often- used term ‘illegal wildlife hunting’, as preferred by some contemporary authors, is also a problematic notion. Routine subsistence activities come to be criminalized under the category of ‘poaching’. ‘Illegal wildlife hunting’ leaves political questions unanswered, such as ‘whose laws’ are being trespassed. The focus of this chapter is on wildlife, which, in addition to what are known as ‘iconic’ animals, also includes fish. The objective is to develop a more nuanced view concerning ‘poaching’, one that reflexively provides space for ‘poaching’ in contemporary (rural) development, and conservation discourses and debates.
There is some agreement in Namibian society, as well as in scholarly and grey literature and reports that fencing in communal lands is problematic. Fencing is primarily associated with issues concerning access to key resources. The title of the chapter suggests that our perspective on illegal fencing as a developmental question is that it is rather similar to the agrarian or land question. The land question literature focuses on land as a key resource, debates the distribution of benefits from the use of the land, and so on. Identifying fencing as part of the series of development issues and making fencing a central component of the analysis allows us to generate a series of key questions, such as who fences and for what purpose; who benefits most and who is losing out; and perhaps more importantly, what is the social and material effect of fencing and thereby (re)ordering the communal areas. We will not be able to answer questions related to material or ecological changes such as biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and so on. Our focus is on what fencing does to property and property relations, on processes related to exclusion and the future of the commons in Namibia, and on how the struggle to remove fences is organised.
of such efforts worldwide, many of them do not stand the test of time. But why not? Our answer hinges on the dissonance between the social-material realities of the new maize varieties that arrived in West Kenya through a series of ‘external’ interventions and what we understand here as the ‘culture of seed’. Seed practices in Luoland in West Kenya are well embedded and structured by cultural beliefs and associated kinship based practices. This culture of seed is not one homogenous
practice but is, rather, heterogeneous and fragmented.
irrigation technologies and ways in which changes therein affect intra-household
arrangements for sharing and distribution resources, labour and incomes.
The ways in which farmers talk about agricultural production and low-cost
irrigation technologies are a starting point, that is: we look at farmers’ narratives
around investments in low-cost irrigation technologies and confront these with
observations on practices of the mobilisation and sharing of resources, labour
and incomes. We pay special attention to the gendered nature of these processes.
which new forms of land use emerge. Moreover, this chapter argues that the Maasai are not passive receivers of new land tenure policies enacted by the Kenyan state. They accommodate land tenure
changes in many different and unex- pected ways. The case discussed here involves the (further) space subdivision of once communal land to group ranches and to individual Maasai families. The further subdivi- sion of land creates space for new practices such as cultivation of crops, notably by women. Men on the other hand build alliances to aggregate smaller pieces of land to allow continuation of a pastoral lifestyle. The chapter also draws attention to land leasing which initiated unsustainable land use practices.
In Brazil, for instance, food is commercialized through both traditional street markets that have existed for a long time and through newly created ones (or feiras) as well as shops, delivery systems, the internet, supermarkets and institutional markets (which are established by public policy and their operation involves considerable state intervention) . The chapters about Africa detail contrasting examples of real existing markets.
agricultural production and the corresponding increase in dependence on social grants and wages. Despite this trend remnants of the agrarian do exist.
The title of the book echoes the tensions and contradictions that arise from the increasingly complex entanglements in which social actors find themselves in as they struggle to achieve sustainable livelihoods. The contributors to this volume - both academics and practitioners - engage with these complex imbroglios by combining solid academic analysis and sympathising critique to add, each in his or her own idiosyncratic way, to the legacy of Wageningen Sociology and Anthropology.
The book is divided in three sections. The first part illustrates how an actor approach resonates in such dissimilar fields as legal anthropology, rural sociology, technology and agrarian development, communication and innovation studies, and irrigation and water engineering. The second part shows the many faces an actor-oriented approach may acquire as it articulates with different bodies of thought. Finally, the last part exemplifies how development practice may be positively informed by an actor-oriented approach.
These assertions and explanations are rather inadequate. The picture is spatially highly variable and the arguments underplay that many of the seemingly abandoned fields are still claimed by their owners and hence the possibility of re-activation sometime in the future. The assertion ignores that fields are also used for many other purposes then crop production only. To examine the landscape I refrain here using concepts like ‘field abandonment’ or ‘under-cultivation’, but rather prefer the term ‘de-activation’ as after some years, rural dwellers re-activate and rejuvenate cropping in distant fields and home gardens. Drawing on longitudinal data and with a focus on understanding the influence of prolonged labour migrancy on the landscape, it is argued here that the impact is rather differentiated. Migrancy has produced a landscape that varyingly hinges on homesteading expressing that the social and physical reproduction of the homestead. Observations also learn that certain patches of land continue to be used by (former) migrants and they use the land to produce at scale; hence this pattern is referred to as production at scale. These two patterns are found to emerge as relevant and meaningful for those involved which guarantees in turn their reproduction over time in times of neo-liberalism and globalisation. Interestingly these land use patterns also evolve relatively autonomous from post-apartheid agrarian polices.
turn, motivate ‘local’ people to engage in modes of appropriation of nature that, given the enactment of conservation laws, are designated as illegal. The act of ‘poaching’ is consequently treated as a criminal offence. ‘Poaching’ does, in my view, not always do justice to why local people in villages close to sites of plenty appropriate natural resources in this way. ‘Local poaching’ has, despite the community and the participatory- oriented nature of the recent (community- based) conservation discourses,4 too often been probed without incorporating the underlying values, claims on usufruct, and access to resources, practices, and knowledge repertoires of local people and their interactions with the natural environment, including domesticated and wild animals. Nor are the emerging local realities in villages and in community- based conservation projects and programmes, and their relative achievements, taken into account. Moreover, not much is known about what is hunted and by what means. The often- used term ‘illegal wildlife hunting’, as preferred by some contemporary authors, is also a problematic notion. Routine subsistence activities come to be criminalized under the category of ‘poaching’. ‘Illegal wildlife hunting’ leaves political questions unanswered, such as ‘whose laws’ are being trespassed. The focus of this chapter is on wildlife, which, in addition to what are known as ‘iconic’ animals, also includes fish. The objective is to develop a more nuanced view concerning ‘poaching’, one that reflexively provides space for ‘poaching’ in contemporary (rural) development, and conservation discourses and debates.
There is some agreement in Namibian society, as well as in scholarly and grey literature and reports that fencing in communal lands is problematic. Fencing is primarily associated with issues concerning access to key resources. The title of the chapter suggests that our perspective on illegal fencing as a developmental question is that it is rather similar to the agrarian or land question. The land question literature focuses on land as a key resource, debates the distribution of benefits from the use of the land, and so on. Identifying fencing as part of the series of development issues and making fencing a central component of the analysis allows us to generate a series of key questions, such as who fences and for what purpose; who benefits most and who is losing out; and perhaps more importantly, what is the social and material effect of fencing and thereby (re)ordering the communal areas. We will not be able to answer questions related to material or ecological changes such as biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and so on. Our focus is on what fencing does to property and property relations, on processes related to exclusion and the future of the commons in Namibia, and on how the struggle to remove fences is organised.
of such efforts worldwide, many of them do not stand the test of time. But why not? Our answer hinges on the dissonance between the social-material realities of the new maize varieties that arrived in West Kenya through a series of ‘external’ interventions and what we understand here as the ‘culture of seed’. Seed practices in Luoland in West Kenya are well embedded and structured by cultural beliefs and associated kinship based practices. This culture of seed is not one homogenous
practice but is, rather, heterogeneous and fragmented.
irrigation technologies and ways in which changes therein affect intra-household
arrangements for sharing and distribution resources, labour and incomes.
The ways in which farmers talk about agricultural production and low-cost
irrigation technologies are a starting point, that is: we look at farmers’ narratives
around investments in low-cost irrigation technologies and confront these with
observations on practices of the mobilisation and sharing of resources, labour
and incomes. We pay special attention to the gendered nature of these processes.
which new forms of land use emerge. Moreover, this chapter argues that the Maasai are not passive receivers of new land tenure policies enacted by the Kenyan state. They accommodate land tenure
changes in many different and unex- pected ways. The case discussed here involves the (further) space subdivision of once communal land to group ranches and to individual Maasai families. The further subdivi- sion of land creates space for new practices such as cultivation of crops, notably by women. Men on the other hand build alliances to aggregate smaller pieces of land to allow continuation of a pastoral lifestyle. The chapter also draws attention to land leasing which initiated unsustainable land use practices.
In Brazil, for instance, food is commercialized through both traditional street markets that have existed for a long time and through newly created ones (or feiras) as well as shops, delivery systems, the internet, supermarkets and institutional markets (which are established by public policy and their operation involves considerable state intervention) . The chapters about Africa detail contrasting examples of real existing markets.
around Lake Victoria. As well as operating alongside each other, these markets
also interact and shape each other in many ways. Lake Victoria’s fish resources
have over the years gradually been integrated in the global market for fresh
water fish. This counts in particular for species such as the Nile perch and
Tilapia, but increasingly also for the sardine like Dagaa which until recently
were only available at local markets. The export industry, which is dominated by
a few export factories, is an aggressive market player distributing the added
value in highly unequal ways. The factories control most of the Nile perch catch
through their control over the fishing networks. The intensification of fishing,
notably for Nile perch, has triggered a range of controls to streamline and
improve production and guard food safety aspects (discussed in this chapter).
The processing sector is currently facing a structural over-capacity
and the
export factories have developed ways to control most of the productive fishing
grounds, often at the expense of those local fishers who are not linked to the
export processing industries.
involves fresh produce. It differs from the mainstream South African fresh
produce network in terms of the relationships between producers, traders and
consumers, the quality control and price setting mechanisms, and, most importantly,
the distribution of benefits. From a developmental perspective this alternative
fresh produce network is significant because it generates high levels of
local employment and gives people living in the locale broader access to fresh
produce than supermarkets do. This broadened access is the result of improved
distribution and low prices, which are brought about by competition among
farmers and traders, and also at present, between the traders and the supermarkets.
This fresh produce network was created by local people without external
intervention. To an extent it involves ‘unconventional’ fresh produce, which
forms part of the local food culture, explaining why some of this produce
escaped the attention of supermarkets, at least initially. Considering the local
embeddedness of this alternative food network and the various ways in which it
differs structurally from the mainstream food network, it can be regarded as a ‘nested market’. The development and expansion of this ‘nested market’ was
made possible by a change in policy from one which was highly interventionist
and regulatory to one which is almost totally ‘laissez faire’.
South Africa. Notions of land and agrarian reform are well entrenched in the
everyday life of a significant number of people in post-apartheid South Africa, as
is evident when one visits government departments and meets policymakers and
practitioners, attends academic and policy-oriented seminars, reads newspapers
and media reports, or interacts directly with land reform beneficiaries and people
in villages. What reform actually means for everyday life, however, varies considerably,
as do the ways in which we study and understand land and agrarian reform
processes. There are contrasting theoretical frameworks; the field of study is inherently
multidisciplinary and complex, and varying experiences of historical events
and situations colour our interpretations. Moreover, it is often forgotten that
agrarian development policies have been designed and implemented in South
Africa since the nineteenth century and that the current crop of policymakers had
little or no experience in dealing with land and agrarian reform when the reform
process started.
In contrast to this positioning, the modernisation perspective treats knowledge as transferable, e.g. from scientists to farmers. The believe that scientific knowledge is superior to any other form of knowledge, such as farmer or local knowledge, makes the latter superfluous. The major tenet of the modernisation school was that modernisation tendencies would trickle down from the centre to the periphery. The more the periphery was linked with the centre the more knowledgeable it became. At the centre were the experts, the scientists producing knowledge to solve the problems of the layman and the layman who had nothing worthwhile in terms of knowledge to offer the expert . This position gave rise to the transfer of technology model (TOT) of which the Green Revolution is a good example. This is the approach to knowledge that both the colonial and post-colonial governments in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania have adhered to. As a way of distancing themselves from the modernisation school other schools of thought emerged. The dependency school of the 1960s came to realise that knowledge and power are interrelated. The school however failed to recognize that farmers, even the poor amongst them can be attributed with agency. Poor farmers were rather portrayed as helpless victims and whose knowledge was sidelined not because it was unscientific and traditional but because it was a view from the powerless.
and non-elites alike is endemic in Namibia. Fencing violates the
Communal Land Reform Act of 2002. Court cases are held to stop
the illegal use of land. The institutions that according to the Act
have the authority to stop these practices do not perform accordingly
and their authorities frequently overlap. The legal battle to
remove fences or stop illegal grazing evolves as more than a
struggle for justice. The case unfolds as an ontological struggle
between actors, their institutions and respective policies and discourses,
pivoting on conflicting visions of modernities and interpretations
of the meaning of land.
Namibia fence in land that belongs to the indigenous San people who
collectively manage their land as a conservancy. Fencing violates the Communal
Land Reform Act of 2002. The conservancy started a lawsuit in
August 2013 with reference to this Act to remove the fences and end the
illegal occupation of land. The High Court ruled in 2016 in favour of the
conservancy, but the fences have not been removed and more illegal settlers
have settled in the conservancy. We conceptualize and analyse the act
of fencing as land grabbing but argue simultaneously that the legal battle
of the conservancy is more than a struggle for justice. The case unfolds
as an ontological struggle between actors, their institutions and respective
policies and discourses, pivoting on conflicting visions of modernities
of (rural) development in Tsumkwe West. The wider significance beyond
N̸=a Jaqna is that the core of struggles about land and rights in situations
of land grabbing is whose modernity counts. The court case has
also paved the way for conservancies and other resource communities to
become involved in dealing with land issues and contesting the multiple
meanings of land.
impact.