Socio-historical research and land tenure in South Africa

The aim of the research was to clarify the land tenure relations of an impoverished farming community on a farm called Melkkraal. The farm is co-owned but it is also home to twenty six households of which three are co-owners. The remaining households have occupied the land through a haphazard process of acquiring oral permission from some of the co-owners and non-owning residents. This has led to a tenure conundrum because the way in which the farm is registered means that neither the households nor the co-owners can access the necessary government assistance or assert their authority to make development decisions. As a result, the Surplus Peoples Project undertook to investigate the nature and content of the rights of the households in relation to the rights of the co-owners. The findings revealed that very little difference exists between the non-owning residents and the co- owners in terms of how land is used and transacted. This was attributed to the evolution of a social land ethic such that one can speak of the Melkkraal farm as a commom property regime.This means that there is just cause to upgrade informal rights in land into real rights in property.

Autorentext

Cameron Lee Jacobs is a senior researcher for economic and social rights for the South African Human Rights Commission. He holds an honours degree in industrial sociology and an Mphil degree in public policy from the University of Cape Town. He is currently completing his degree in law.