Tenure Reform in South Africa: Titling versus Social Embeddedness

Abstract This article describes the key features of African land tenure systems, with particular emphasis on their social and political embeddedness, and the origin of rights in entitlements flowing from group membership rather than from an allocation by authorities. It reviews experience of tenure reform in other parts of Africa, and then analyses the potential impacts of the Communal Land Rights Act of 2004, recently promulgated in South Africa. It argues that the paradigm that informs this legislation is inappropriate and likely to undermine rather than secure the land rights of the residents of the former reserves. The key lesson is that the inherent features of African tenure systems, and in particular the underlying norms and principles that they are based upon, need to be adequately recognised in law.