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South African Institute of International Affairs invites you to the launch of two new books, "The Struggle over Land in Africa - Conflicts, Politics and Change" and "Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa".
Date: Tuesday 20 April 2010
Time: 16:15 for 16:30 until 18:00
Venue: Jan Smuts House, East Campus, University of Witwatersrand,
RSVP: Please reply to Ndumi Nqunqa Nondumiso.Nqunqa@wits.ac.za
Tel: (011) 339 2021 ext 117
About the Books
Chris ALDEN & Ward ANSEEUW (2009). Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa. London, Palgrave-Macmillan.
Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa provides a novel framework for understanding the inherent volatility of the politics of land in contemporary Southern Africa. The link between the established political economy of settler colonialism, the role of liberation politics and the enduring impact of the transition to democracy in Southern Africa, key factors inhibiting attempts to embark on substantive agrarian reform after independence, are crucial to comprehending why the Zimbabwean crisis impacted so profoundly on regional politics.
Furthermore, infusing these conditions with rhetorical and substantive power are a host of regional narratives in Southern Africa – drawn from the settler state era, the liberation struggle itself and implicit in neoliberal policies pursued by democratic governments after independence – which have shaped perceptions among elites, social groups and the wider population. By exposing the lingering contradictions in former settler states between society’s heightened expectations of liberation movements and the constitutional and the ideological constraints that bind them to the past, this book offers a comprehensive regional perspective into the dynamics of the politics of land and their impact on democracy in Southern Africa.
Ward ANSEEUW & Chris ALDEN (eds.) (2010). The Struggle over Land in Africa - Conflicts, Politics and Change. Cape Town, HSRC Press.
Disputes over land are an enduring feature of African politics. Although many of these issues are not new, they change continuously and are extremely complex and embedded. This may lead to the inability to deal with such issues and, subsequently, to questions about the legitimacy of the forms of intervention and prevention of conflicts. The ways in which these issues are dealt with often do not take into consideration this complexity of their major - and thus potentially recurring - causes.
The Struggle over Land in Africa: Conflicts, Politics and Change is a compelling book which analyses the role of land as a place and source of conflict, especially with regard to policy development, crisis management and post-war/post-conflict reconstruction. The authors’ main aim is to gain insight into the nature of policy-making concerning land and to delve into the underlying causes of these land issues, not only at national level but also in terms of broader Africa. The book covers land issues in Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, northern Cameroon, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Some of the themes explored in this powerful volume include: Ethnic and indigenous land conflicts, Traditionalism versus modernity, renewed land interests, land use and conflict, state building, politics and land (for example Agricultural land reform); land policy development, planning, inclusiveness/non-inclusiveness; regional scopes of land conflicts and changing norms.
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