Finite Land: Challenges Institutionalising Land Restitution in South Africa, 1995–2000

This article addresses a neglected strand in assessments of the failure of ‘delivery’ in South Africa's land reform programme, through an examination of the institutional obstacles to success in the restitution programme between 1995 and 2000. Here it looks in particular at the impact of ‘the sunset clause’ on initial staffing and the definition of claims, at persistent weaknesses in information management, and at conflicts among and within the implementing agencies. While it can be shown that these problems affected implementation negatively, the difficulties facing the restitution programme cannot be reduced to ‘capacity constraints’ and bureaucratic in-fighting. Understanding the shortcomings of the state's programme, it is argued, also requires an appreciation of the incomplete institutionalisation of restitution as a ‘social field’ (as a domain of shared meanings), and the diversity and malleability of the meaning of land in contemporary South Africa.