Centring ordinary people: grounded approaches to land reform in Southern Africa

This introduction to the timely special issue of Anthropology Southern Africa examines land reform in the region, offering ethnographic perspectives on a subject often dominated by economists, lawyers and journalists. It points to the need for grounded approaches that go beyond and critique the grand narratives of land and land reform that so often influence policy. The six articles introduced here cover South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, despite efforts to attract inputs from the region more widely. The debate about land and land reform in Southern Africa is dominated by South Africa and Zimbabwe; this introduction calls for broader perspectives beyond these two former British colonies. It strengthens this call by referring to a few examples in other countries in the region. Nevertheless, the articles in this collection present valuable detailed ethnographic insight on a wide range of issues: from examination of the debates around land reform and the premise on which much of land reform policy rests, to explorations of the messy and complex outcomes of existing attempts at land restitution and redistribution. It argues that lessons from these cases must be fed into policy to ensure that land reform approaches are more grounded, relevant and sustainable.