Arenas of Contestation: Policy Processes and Land Tenure Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa.

• Main Author: Fortin, Elizabeth.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Post-apartheid; Policy processes; South Africa.
• Online Access: http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&action=viewtitle&id=gen8Srv25Nme4_6486_1264557568

<p>This thesis considers different groupings that have come together in their participation in the policy processes relating to tenure reform in post-apartheid South Africa. It is methodologically and theoretically grounded in Bourdieu&rsquo === s notion of cultural &lsquo === fields&rsquo === , spaces of ongoing contestation and struggle, but in which actors develop a shared &lsquo === habitus&rsquo === , an embodied history. In these land reform policies and law-making activities, individuals and groups from different fields &ndash === the bureaucratic, activist and legal &ndash === have interacted in their contestations relating to the legitimation of their forms of knowledge. The resulting compromises are illuminated by a case study of a village in the former Gazankulu &lsquo === homeland&rsquo === &ndash === a fourth &lsquo === cultural field&rsquo === . Rather than seeing these fields as bounded, the thesis recognises the influence of wider political discourses and materialities, or the wider &lsquo === field of power&rsquo === . In each of the four very different fields, as a result of a shared history, actors within them have developed practices based upon particular shared discourses, institutions and values.</p>