Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province: Caught by Continuities

Abstract

Investigating continuities and discontinuities is useful for an analysis of changes over time. Continuity is not just a simple, unbroken line of events, but involves a set of institutional and discursive linkages. The paper explores continuities in that relate to the agricultural expert system that has gradually taken shape in South Africa and that plays a prominent role in the design of land reform. The persistence of continuities indicates the extent to which dramatic transformations of the institutional infrastructure in agriculture have occurred, but with fewer changes in its content. Historical and contemporary analysis allows us to underline the continuity of prescriptions and modes of ordering in the past and present, evident in three land and agrarian reform projects in the Eastern Cape.