New Law against an Old State
Land Restitution as a Transition to Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4822671 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Olaf Zenker (0000-0002-4484-3718, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 502-523 |
| Publication date | 2014-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Development and Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/dech.12092 |
| OpenAlex | W2152213951 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 21 |
Based on a case study of the so-called 'Kafferskraal' land claim, this article scrutinizes the ongoing land restitution process in post-apartheid South Africa with regard to its capacity to provide a transition towards 'justice'. After sketching the legal and institutional set-up of land restitution, the justice of the actual restitution process is explored with reference to conflicting interpretations by various actors involved in this exemplary case. Here, a focus on divergent understandings of what historically constituted valid rights in land as well as forms of past compensation reveals continuing discrepancies regarding the legitimacy of various property regimes. These differences, leading to divergent evaluations of 'the justice' of this claim's final outcome, are shown to be ultimately rooted in incompatible logics of exceptionality and the ordinary, which conceive of land restitution in terms of either 'law making' or 'law preserving'. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of such a configuration of land restitution as a measure of transitional justice
Economic Justice · Geography · Land tenure · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Political science · Restitution · Sociology · Transitional justice · Land Rights and Reforms · Law · Legal Issues in South Africa · Legal principles and applications
Gaining Ground?
Constituting Democracy
The surplus people
The State of Exception
Transition and Justice
Land, Memory, Reconstruction, and Justice
Localizing transitional justice
Homo Sacer
The Property Clause
Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth-Century South Africa
The Emergence and Decline of a South African Peasantry
Land shortage and Inheritance in a Lebowa Village
Sovereignty and political modernity
The Farce of Homeland Independence
Memory, landscape and event
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,36 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2023 (9) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |