Agt stellings oor die geskiedenis van moderne grondbesit in die Mpumalanga Laeveld
Abstract
Since the 1990s considerable historical research has been done on the history of land tenure in
South Africa. Much of the work has a bearing on the issue of land claims and restitution in the
aftermath of South Africa’s transition to a multiracial democracy. The government focused on the
socio-economic development of the country and gave special attention to the upliftment of previously
disadvantaged South Africans. It became legal for South Africans to claim the right to land on
which they had formerly lived. Many had been removed in terms of controversial racial policies
of the former government. For obvious reasons both land owners and land claimants have since
1994 contracted historians to shed some light on the history of land tenure pertaining to single
entities, and sometimes also large tracts of land. In addition, it was also expected of historians to
try and shed some light on the future, based on their historical research findings.
In the article attention is given to some new trends in the discipline of history in which the
future features prominently. There seems to be broad support amongst theorists for the integration
of natural and human/social sciences and technology studies in contemporary research. Furthermore, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research methodologies require of historians
to take note increasingly of ongoing changes in scientific thinking with a view to synchronising
our contemporary knowledge with an understanding of the past. Reference is made to complexity,
actor-network theory (ANT) and a return to universal history. Within the framework of an empirical
philosophical approach to the history of land tenure in the Lowveld of Mpumalanga eight
theoretical statements are posited on the evolution of land tenure in Mpumalanga.
These include:
• private ownership of land is legally justified in South Africa;
• the emergence of modern land tenure in Mpumalanga is the result of customary practices
formalised in the nineteenth century;
• land tenure can be understood in terms of our comprehension of assumptions about
materialism;
• lack of integration in former times undermined the legitimacy of black land ownership;
• land tenure in the Lowveld should be seen as part of an ecology that includes the Middle
Veld, Highveld and Drakensberg escarpment;
• land is an actor and part of a network of interactions that emerged historically;
• the value of land is constantly subject to entropy determined by its usefulness; and
• traditionally land as a production factor was a mediatory actant, but since 1994 it has
been transformed into a remediating actant.
The final section of the article features a brief assessment of the manner in which European land
tenure and Roman Law were transformed in the transition from classical times to the Middle Ages
in Europe in the 3rd to 4th centuries CE. On the frontiers of the former empire erstwhile Roman
citizens and their offspring had to find consensus on the legal tenets of land tenure in consultation
with foreigners who settled in parts of the former empire. Many elements of Roman Law remained
intact in parts of Europe. This was made possible by what Innes describes as processes of
ethnogenesis. Contemplating the future of land tenure in Mpumalanga’s Lowveld it is suggested
that attention be given to the peripheral deconstruction of land tenure in a transforming commons
in which negotiated processes of ethnogenesis, could potentially lead to a state of equilibrium Sedert die 1990s het heelwat geskiedenisnavorsing op die terrein van grondbesit in Suid-Afrika
plaasgevind. Dit was grootliks die resultaat van maatreëls deur die regering om voorheen
benadeelde Suid-Afrikaners ekonomies op te hef en ook die geleentheid te gun om grond te verkry
wat, na alle waarskynlikheid, onregmatig van hulle vervreem is. In die artikel word gefokus op
teoretiese aspekte van die dissipline van geskiedenis en die vraagstelling na die toekoms waarop
grondbesitters en grondeisers antwoorde soek wanneer die navorsing van historici oorpeins word.
Nadat ’n uiteensetting gegee word van sommige van die nuwere tendense in terme van multi-,
inter-, en transdissiplinêre navorsing, kompleksiteit en akteur-netwerkteorie, word ingegaan op
die geskiedenis van grondbest in die Laeveld van die Mpumalangaprovinsie. Agt teoretiese stellings word gemaak wat op ’n empiriese filosofiese grondslag verantwoord word, na aanleiding van die
geskiedenis van grondbesit in die gebied. In die gevolgtrekking word ’n vergelykende benadering
gebruik wat daarop dui dat ’n proses van etnogenese moontlik in die toekoms nodig sal wees om
knelpunte met berekking tot die bestaande grondbesitstelsel in ’n staat van ekwilibrium te laat
oorgaan
Collections
- Faculty of Humanities [2042]