What land struggles are undertaken by communities and social movements to advance land justice in different contexts? How do authorities respond? What training and policy support is required for the realisation of land justice? What mechanisms of state accountability do landless people ask for? Through action research, qualifying communities will be approached for collaboration to co-document land struggles, together identify how justice is conceptualized in different land contexts, identify how government institutions have responded to their struggles and what mechanism of accountability have to be in place for the realization of the right to equitable access to land.
The Constitution of South Africa in Section 25(5) directs the state to foster conditions for equitable access to land for all citizens. The state programme for land reform has had a strong focus on rural land, which has also not adequately benefited landless people, while it has completely neglected the urban focus, leaving it without coherent policy. PLAAS’s Land Justice research project co-documents land struggles in different communities and identifies what can be learnt to inform the upcoming law to give effect to Section 25(5), contribute to the national discourse on land, and strengthen activism. The study looks at different conceptions of land justice and how it can be achieved in different contexts. It will identify democratic mechanisms that have to be in place to ensure the state is accountable to landless people to realise their constitutional right to land on an equitable basis.
Objectives of the study
- Identify different conceptions of land justice in different land contexts.
- Identity how people are advancing land justice across different land contexts.
- Identify what can be learnt for different strategies used to advance land justice.
- Learn how government authorities or institutions have responded to struggles for land justice.
- Identify land what democratic mechanism of state accountability need to be in place by government to landless people and feed to the section 25(5) process
- Identify training needs to strengthen land struggles, law and policy, scholarship, and democratizing the national discourse on land.
Research sub-questions
- What are the land movements’ visions of what land justice would look like across different contexts?
- How are people advancing land justice (tactics, discourses, alliances and theory of change) across different contexts?
- What can be learnt for strengthened activist strategies and improved adjudication of the law to ensure land justice?
- How have government authorities or institutions responded to struggles for land justice?
- What would a democratic mechanism of state accountability to landless people look like?
- What more training is needed to strengthen land struggles, for law and policy, for scholarship, and for democratizing the national discourse on land?
Project team
