i QUEERYING THE LAND DEBATE: A CASE FOR INCLUSIVITY A dissertation presented to The Department of Development Studies School of Social Sciences Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts by Coursework and Research Report By Shinta Jennifer Ayebazibwe 20 June 2022 ii Abstract This report presents the findings to a qualitative study which investigated the experiences of queer people with land in order to understand what such experiences say about South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform programme. The report drew on qualitative research conducted using semi-structured virtual/online interviews with 15 queer participants across six provinces (Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal, Western Cape, Northern Cape, Free State, and North West). It concludes that queer relationships with land and land-based resources exists within a broader context informed by both historical and present realities; that access takes place within a contradictory context in which constitutional guarantees and progressively worded policies exist alongside a homophobic, transphobic, and heteronormative landscape. It argues that queer subjectivity informs and influences land use in ways that positively contribute to communities and the environment yet also inadvertently undermine the ability to take advantage of the government’s land reform programme due to the nature of its design. It concludes that the conventional gender framework that government relies on to engender access for women is limited in its scope and fails to adequately engage with the particularities of queer identity thus leading to exclusion in the land reform programme that cuts across all three sub-programmes of restitution, redistribution, and tenure reform. Key words: Land reform, Queer, Post-apartheid, land access, land use, land-based resources iii Declaration I, Shinta Jennifer Ayebazibwe declare that this Research Report is my own, unaided work. It is being submitted for the Degree of Master of Arts by Coursework and Research Report (Development Studies) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been submitted before for any degree or examination at any other University. Signed: 20 June 2022 iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank the participants without whom this study would not have been possible. I would like to thank my wife, Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe for the love, patience, and support that has kept me going and been a source of great comfort throughout this journey. I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof Samuel Kariuki, for his insights, patience, and guidance. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends, family, and colleagues for cheering me on in ways both great and small and walking this journey with me. v Plagiarism Declaration I, Shinta Jennifer Ayebazibwe (Student number: 2378231) am a student registered for the degree of Master of Arts by Coursework and Research Report (Development Studies) in the academic year 2021. I hereby declare the following: - I am aware that plagiarism (the use of someone else’s work without their permission and/or without acknowledging the original source) is wrong. - I confirm that the work submitted for assessment for the above degree is my own unaided work except where I have explicitly indicated otherwise. - I have followed the required conventions in referencing the thoughts and ideas of others. - I understand that the University of the Witwatersrand may take disciplinary action against me if there is a belief that this is not my own unaided work or that I have failed to acknowledge the source of the ideas or words in my writing. - I have included as an appendix a report from “Turnitin” indicating the level of plagiarism in my research document. Signature: Date: 20 June 2022 vi Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ ii Declaration ...........................................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. iv Plagiarism Declaration .......................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................. vi Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1: Background of the study ............................................................................................................ 1 1.2: Research Topic & Question ........................................................................................................ 4 1.3: Research rationale ..................................................................................................................... 5 1.4: Structure of the report ............................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................................ 9 2.1: Add women and stir? Gender and land in post-apartheid South Africa ..................................... 9 2.2: Queering land: expanding the concept of gender .................................................................... 10 2.2.1: Framing the colonial origins of queerphobia .................................................................... 11 2.2.2: Queer strategies for land access and use .......................................................................... 13 2.2.3: Separatist alternatives ...................................................................................................... 15 2.3: Post-apartheid land reform: problems and challenges ............................................................ 20 Chapter 3: Research Methodology ..................................................................................................... 27 3.1: Using the qualitative approach to study queer access to land ................................................. 27 3.2: Choosing a sample ................................................................................................................... 28 3.3: Sample Description .................................................................................................................. 31 3.4: Collecting data virtually ........................................................................................................... 32 3.5: Data analysis using grounded theory ....................................................................................... 34 3.6: Ethical considerations .............................................................................................................. 35 3.7: Researcher reflexivity .............................................................................................................. 36 Chapter 4: Findings and Analysis ........................................................................................................ 38 4.1: Constructing the meaning of land: positioning queerness in the land discourse ..................... 38 4.1.1: Chasing a rural idyll ........................................................................................................... 38 4.1.2: The legacy of the group areas act ..................................................................................... 40 4.1.3: Aspirant queer commercial farmers ................................................................................. 45 4.2: Deconstructing the intersections between queerness, land administration and governance . 47 4.2.1: Making it past the gatekeepers ......................................................................................... 48 vii 4.2.2: Navigating cisnormativity and heteronormativity ............................................................. 51 4.2.3: What does size have to do with it? ................................................................................... 55 4.3: Deconstructing the intersections between queerness and land use ....................................... 60 4.3.1: Land (non)management: alternative farming practices .................................................... 61 4.3.2: “Love Gardens” ................................................................................................................. 64 4.3.3: Location, location, Location: Queer safety considerations ............................................... 66 Chapter 5: Conclusion, Limitations, Recommendations ..................................................................... 70 References .......................................................................................................................................... 76 Appendices ......................................................................................................................................... 85 Appendix 1.1: Participant information sheet .................................................................................. 85 Appendix 1.2: Consent Form ....................................................................................................... 86 Appendix 2: Interview Guide........................................................................................................... 87 Appendix 3: Call for participants poster .......................................................................................... 88 1 Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter explains the reasons for undertaking this study by delineating the broader context within which it was conceived of and conducted. It then states the research questions and justifies the study’s relevance to scholarship. Lastly, the chapter presents an overview of the structure of this report. 1.1: Background of the study Within the development context, although the importance of gender inclusion has become commonplace, it has often been misapplied. This misapplication is due to the tendency to perceive of gender in a binary sense i.e., denoting two opposite sexes which serves to marginalize and erase the experiences of queer people who do not conform to this binary construct. Thus, gender has become synonymous with women on the one hand and its narrow application then conceives of these women as heterosexual and cisgender (Cornwall & Jolly, 2009). While the failure to adequately frame development through a comprehensive gender lens has been well challenged (Agarwal, 1995; Tamale, 2020; Walker, 2009), the concept and limited scope of a binary gender model has proved difficult to dismantle. This has been, in part, because the development industry tends to shy away from matters of sexuality outside of interventions within the healthcare framework such as the fight against HIV/AIDS (Cornwall et al., 2008). However, gains by the queer movement and allies are slowly but surely denting this binary concept. Also, while queer advocacy has tended to focus on social issues such as tackling queerphobia and Gender-based violence (GBV) and access to social services such as healthcare, the need for queer inclusion in the resource sphere is receiving increasing attention (Badgett et al., 2019; Drucker, 2009; Nyeck et al., 2019; Poku et al., 2017). This shift has also been witnessed on the issue of queer access to land and land-based resources (Console, 2020; Leslie, 2019; LGBT Sem Terra, 2020; Mafolo, 2020; Sbicca, 2012). Moreover, this recognition is also becoming visible within the field of international development where queer people have historically not only faced erasure but animosity. For instance, one of the principles of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to “leave no one behind”, a subtler wording for including the needs of queer people after extensive 2 campaigning by queer organisations and their allies (Dorey, 2021). Alternatively, some scholars have used the concept of “leaving no one behind” to argue for queer inclusion from an SDG perspective and Agenda 2063 (Poku et al., 2017) which is Africa’s own framework for achieving “inclusive and sustainable development” (African Union, n.d.). Furthermore, organisations such as the World Bank are coming to the debate and arguing that queer people comprise of the most marginalised populations globally which has cross-cutting detrimental effects across national and global efforts to meet developmental goals (Koehler & SOGI Task Force, 2015). Legal and social discrimination and broad-based policies that are not cognizant of their specific needs serve to undermine queer inclusion in economic and development policy. In fact, some studies suggest that countries that are more accepting and economically and developmentally more inclusive of queer people tend to fare better on indicators of social well-being and economic growth (Badgett et al., 2019). The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 is broadly acknowledged as one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. This is because it attaches great value to the dignity and autonomy of all South African citizens regardless of gender, race, and sexual orientation. In fact, South Africa was one of the first countries to legalise same-sex marriage, certainly the only one on the African continent to have achieved this milestone1. Regardless of this progressive stance however, queer South Africans continue to experience high rates of discrimination and violence (Gallagher, 2022; SA Government News Agency, 2021) in their daily lives and their identity remains highly contested (De Waal, 2012; Ntlama, 2014; OUT LGBT Well-being & Nudge, 2016; The Other Foundation, 2016) which presents restrictions in terms of resource access and social integration. Furthermore, there is no mention of queer people in development policy and certainly none in land reform policy yet queer people experience socio-economic exclusion due to the prevailing hostility towards them (Nyeck et al., 2019). For instance, a survey conducted by The Other Foundation, the largest of its kind ever produced on the African continent, indicated that as of 2016, 72% of South Africans considered homosexuality morally wrong and 70% percent were against gender 1 See, for instance, Navarre, B. and Trimble, M. (2021) ‘Where Same-Sex marriage has been legalized around the World’, US News, 16 December. Available at: https://www.usnews.com/news/best- countries/articles/countries-where-same-sex-marriage-is-legal (Accessed: 21 March 2022). 3 nonconformity in relation to how individuals dressed and presented (The Other Foundation, 2016). Additionally, Nyeck et al., (2019) argue that the socio-economic issues facing the queer community have their origins in South Africa’s apartheid history whereby the apartheid regime sowed the seed of homophobia and transphobia which seed was left to mature post- 1994. The consequences are broadly felt in economic, health, and social exclusion, to name a few. This is particularly pertinent since the post-apartheid land reform programme was initially constructed around socio-economic transformation for the betterment of those who have historically been excluded from the economy (Department of Land Affairs, 1997; Republic of South Africa, 1994). The hostility queer South Africans face is similar to that experienced by queer people in other parts of the world. This has often prompted queer strategies to counter the marginalization arising from it, for instance, the lesbian separatist movement of the 1970s and 1980s in the United States of America (USA) was a response to what its members perceived as a hostile and disabling environment when it came to land access and use for its members (Anahita, 2009; Levy, 2009). Also known as landdykes, these separatists bought land in rural parts of the USA for their members, most of whom would not have been able to access it otherwise. Access to land was not the only issue the lesbian separatists sought to resolve however, their approach to land also tended to contrast that sanctioned by government or considered commercially profitable. On lesbian land, an ecofeminist praxis guided the relationship with land. As Gaard (1997) argues, ecofeminism was borne out of an understanding that forces of oppression are mutually reinforcing, and women’s and queer liberation was hinged on that of nature. Thus, queer scholarship on land also tends to explore the ways in which identity impacts land use (Leslie, 2017, 2019; Sandilands, 2002; Sbicca, 2012) because this use tends to take place within heteronormative and patriarchal contexts which present limitations for queer people. The 1997 white paper on land policy mentions “the need to remove the practices which discriminate against women acquiring land” (Department of Land Affairs, 1997) as one of the impediments to be addressed if land reform is to be successful. Since then, women have been habitually mentioned in policy and rhetoric as a priority group. While this prioritization has generally not generated the intended results (CGE, 2009; Didiza, 2021), largely because the practices preventing women’s access remain in place (Kedibone Juda-Chembe, 2018), the 4 extent and composition of this category “women” is also unclear. Furthermore, scholarly arguments for women’s access to land tend to be linked to their gender roles as mothers and social roles as nurturers (Walker, 2009). This report argues that the conventional categorisation obscures the extent to which gender and sexuality function to limit access to land and land-based resources and thus intends to fill the current gap in scholarship by broadening the concept of gender to include queer people in the land debate. The term queer will be used throughout this report to refer to people who are not heterosexual and/or cisgender2 who make the focus of this study. Specific identifiers such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender will also be used where necessary. The term is used to both identify and symbolise. As an identity marker, queer encompasses all non-cisgender and non-heterosexual persons while as a symbol, queer subverts and transgresses. In the latter context, the use of the word queer aligns with the objectives of this study whereby land matters have often been explored from a heteronormative and conventionally gendered perspective. By queerying,3 I intend to both include queerness to land analysis whilst also challenging this area of study. 1.2: Research Topic & Question Research Topic Queerying the Land Debate: A Case for Inclusivity Research Question This research report answers the questions: What do queer experiences with land tell us about South Africa’s post-1994 land reform programme? Research sub-questions In order to answer the main question, three sub-questions are utilized: 1. How do queer South Africans conceptualise their relationship with land and land-based resources? 2 A person who identifies with the gender corresponding to the sex they were assigned at birth, for instance, a man who was assigned male at birth. 3 Intentional word play meaning to simultaneously query and queer. 5 3. How do queer South Africans navigate the various institutions enabling access to land and land-based resources? 2. In what ways does queer identity shape and influence land use? 1.3: Research rationale The complete absence of literature on queer people and land in South Africa demonstrates the need to expand gender analysis by delinking it from cisgender/heterosexual assumptions in order to create space for a more nuanced approach. While the queer community could be considered too small to provide significant insights into the gendered land question, literature and examples coming out of the USA (Leslie, 2017, 2019; Levy, 2009; Sandilands, 2002; Sbicca, 2012; Wypler, 2019) and other parts of the world such as Brazil (Console, 2020; La Via Campesina: International Peasants’ Movement, 2015) and Taiwan (Creery, 2018; Tattersfield, 2019b, 2019a) on the subject would suggest this not to be the case. Using queer experiences, scholars and activists highlight the structural inequities inherent in the dominant approach to land reform, which is often heteronormative and patriarchal in nature. Furthermore, research from the USA provides useful alternatives devised by queer people to access knowledge, skills, support, and land, to mention a few, when faced with discrimination and exclusion (Anahita, 2009; Leslie, 2019; Sandilands, 2002; Sbicca, 2012; Wypler, 2019) which can provide a counter narrative to marginalized communities elsewhere. Large commercial farming and exploitative land uses such as the extraction of non-renewable resources from the earth have higher ecological footprints, yet this model remains favoured in South Africa’s official land-based development (Bernstein, 2013; Claassens, 2018; Cochet & Anseeuw, 2015; Cousins, 2016). This, while global warming has reached unsustainable levels and is endangering livelihoods with poorer rural communities and subsistence farmers bearing the brunt of climate change and ecological degradation (Tadesse, 2010; Ware & Doig, 2014). Queer farmers and organizations that incorporate an intersectional ethos are interrogating such farming methods with a more diverse toolkit. For instance, queer ecofeminists in the USA are intentional in creating farming cultures that relate less exploitatively with the earth (G. Gaard, 1997; Sandilands, 2002; Wypler, 2019). Similarly, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra/Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil 6 uses an intersectional approach to critique large agri-business and capitalist exploitation premised on the intersections of class, sexism, racism, and an intolerance for gender and sexual minorities (Console, 2020; La Via Campesina: International Peasants’ Movement, 2015; Nyoka, 2021). The failure for South Africa’s land reform strategy to significantly alter distribution patterns and agrarian practices or to deal with poverty and spatial and socio-economic inequality (Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture, 2019) also suggests a need for a fresh lens in the search for radical alternatives which this report hopes to contribute to. Furthermore, the need to be intentional in inclusion arises from the fact that government programmes often run the risk of reproducing problematic power dynamics if they are not challenged. For instance, as Keep & Hall argue, the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS)—government’s flagship land redistribution instrument—insists on mentors, the majority of whom are white, before applications from potential beneficiaries can be considered (2016: 132). This has created a situation whereby beneficiary marginalization is perpetuated by the unequal power dynamics resulting from these mentorships (p. 134). While government routinely singles out women, youth, and the disabled as groups to prioritize (Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, 2020; Didiza, 2021) such prioritization without a complete overhaul of the structures that cause exclusion is ineffective as some have argued (Tamale, 2004; Walker, 2003, 2009). Secondly, nowhere is the queer community recognized as a group deserving prioritization, even as transphobia and homophobia continue to render them personae non gratae in South African despite the progressive post-apartheid constitution (Matebeni, 2011; Müller, 2019). Yet, for gender and sexual minorities, the marginalization and stigma they face on top of historical dispossession aggravates their circumstances (Collison, 2020). A queer lens does not seek to replace gender analysis but rather to expand, augment and strengthen it; to delink women and gender by taking the argument further than the conventional gender lens is able to. The heterosexual, cisgender assumptions of conventional gender analysis also tend to obscure the particularities of queer subjects and how these play out in the land domain. 7 Furthermore, the challenges facing land reform such as insufficient support for beneficiaries, limited access to funding opportunities, failure to provide adequate training, models of land reform that are ill suited to realities or preferences of the beneficiaries, problematic institutions, and the impact thereof (e.g., traditional authorities) have all worked to undermine the government’s efforts at realizing its initial objectives of using the land reform programme to structurally, spatially, and socio-economically alter the legacy of apartheid. Which leaves some unanswered questions such as how do queer South Africans fit into the land reform process? What drives their demand for land if such demand exists at all? Have they been accommodated by the various reform and redistributive instruments? What are their experiences in this regard? Research investigating the experiences of queer South Africans vis-à-vis their access and use of land is currently missing and this study intends to contribute to the land debate by filling this gap. 1.4: Structure of the report This report comprises of 5 interrelated chapters. Chapter one provides a contextual background, states the research topic and questions, and presents the rationale for undertaking the study. Chapter two reviews some of the key literature on land by first clarifying the victims of apartheid dispossession and post-apartheid marginalization utilized in the land discourse. The chapter then offers a counter narrative which frames the colonial origins of queerphobia and discusses some of the strategies and alternatives devised by queer people to challenge the heteronormative and gender binary hegemony. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the challenges bedevilling the post-apartheid land reform programme. Chapter three explains the methods used to conduct the study from which this report is derived by detailing the research approach, instrument, and sampling technique. It also describes the sample selected and ends by engaging with the ethical considerations involved in data collection and providing researcher reflexivity. Chapter four thematically presents and analyses the findings of this study and answers the research question posed above by situating queer people in the pre- and post-apartheid land narrative, discussing the ways in which queer identity intersects with the institutions administering, governing, and facilitating access to land and land-based resources to limit access. Lastly, the chapter analyses the ways in which identity shapes land use and the role of 8 safety considerations in queer decisions about land and land-based resources. The fifth and final chapter concludes by reiterating this study’s main arguments and how they contributed to the process of achieving its objectives. It also articulates this study’s contribution to the land discourse with its use of the queer lens. This is followed by a brief look at some of the study’s methodological limitations and recommendations for future study. Also, each chapter’s introduction outlines its structure to ease the reader’s navigation of the contents therein. 9 Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter discusses key literature on land reform in post-apartheid South Africa and uses a queer lens to expand the concept of gender beyond South Africa and the narrow confines of its conventional scope. It does this by demonstrating how the narrow application came about and how it has shaped a queer counter-narrative on land and land-based resources. It begins by deconstructing the “master narrative” (Walker, 2010) to construct two binary post- apartheid land reform beneficiaries and demonstrate the absence of queer narratives in both scholarship and government policy. The chapter then discusses the origins of queerphobia in order to make sense of queer erasure in the land discourse. Queer strategies for land access and use against the backdrop of a hostile patriarchal and heteronormative landscape and their resultant strategies follow. Lastly, the chapter looks at some of the problems that have bedevilled the post-apartheid land reform programme such as the limited support received by land beneficiaries and its ramifications on agrarian transformation; the role of traditional authorities in undermining land rights for residents of former homelands; as well as the degree to which the government has been able to achieve its original intentions of socio- economic transformation, restoration, and dignity for all. 2.1: Add women and stir? Gender and land in post-apartheid South Africa There is a dearth of scholarship on land reform in South Africa engaging with or seeking to understand the experiences of queer persons. Where gender has featured, it is conventionally conceptualised and applied with no attempts to broaden its perimeters to include the experiences, challenges, and perspectives of queer people (CGE, 2009; Hart et al., 2018; Moyo, 2013; Walker, 2009). This has been the case in land reform policy as well where habitual mention of women as special categories is made but clarity on the scope of this category is lacking (Department of Land Affairs, 1997; Didiza, 2021). Thus, the focus is generally on the experiences of poor rural women and their experiences particularly under territories governed by traditional authorities (Kedibone Juda-Chembe, 2018; Makhaye, 2020; Rangan & Gilmartin, 2002). Walker (2009) observes that “Given the presumption of masculinity as the political norm in South Africa, the implicit subject of racial redress is male unless otherwise specified.” (p.482) I would add cisgender heterosexual male to that and label this “implicit subject” as the 10 primary victim and also assert that an equal but opposite image of the marginalized subject has been constructed in post-apartheid land discourse. This marginalized subject, whom I shall label as the secondary victim, is also cisgender heterosexual except that she is female. While the primary victim has his origins in the “master narrative” which was instrumental in promoting the notion of a homogenous and collective apartheid dispossession used in mobilising support against the colonial and apartheid regimes (Walker, 2010). In an equal but opposite way, the post-apartheid conventional gender framework relies on a similar logic to construct the secondary victim who is poor, black, rural, and a heterosexual cisgender woman in popular imagination. This is demonstrated by the tendency to structure solutions for this disenfranchised secondary victim around access to land for subsistence farming and human settlement because her positionality suggests that she is also a mother and wife thus her ambitions are located in providing food and shelter for herself and her family at a small scale. The above also clarifies the bimodality of the land reform programme structured around supporting the primary victim to pursue large scale commercial farming on one hand while engendering modest land-based livelihoods for the secondary victim as articulated in the National Policy for Beneficiary Selection and Land Allocation (Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, 2020). However, this bimodal structure makes no space for queer identities nor the potential ways such identities might shape land access and use in post-apartheid South Africa. It certainly makes no attempt to engage with the ways in which a queerphobic environment (ActionAid, 2009; Ditsie & Newman, 2002; Müller, 2019b; OUT LGBT Well-being & Nudge, 2016; SA Government News Agency, 2021; Ujamaa Centre, 2021) might inhibit access to land for queer persons nor how queer identity might alter the prevailing bimodal land use structure. 2.2: Queering land: expanding the concept of gender While we are light years away from the adoption of a queer framework in land and development policy, queer feminist scholars have in fact began to use this lens to extend gender land analysis beyond the binary (G. Gaard, 1997; Leslie, 2017; Sandilands, 2002; Wypler, 2019). For instance, ecofeminists argue that Western culture relies on dualistic constructions of the self and the other to control both women and nature (G. Gaard, 1997; G. 11 C. Gaard, 1993; Sandilands, 2002). They assert that the domination, exploitation, and oppression of women and that of nature are mutually reinforcing and their liberation is equally tied to each other (Gaard, 1997: 115). This domination is produced and reproduced through culture, religion, the economy, and tradition. 2.2.1: Framing the colonial origins of queerphobia However, while ecofeminists made the link between women and nature, they tended to limit their analysis to a heterosexual and binary framework as well. Hence, Gaard makes a case for a queer ecofeminism which unites queer theory and ecofeminism since all oppression is interconnected. She argues that while ecofeminism has challenged heterosexism (The privileging of heterosexuality and subsequent marginalization of those who do not conform to it), this is not always emphasized enough. She asserts that “…when nature is feminized and thereby eroticized, and culture is masculinized, the culture-nature relationship becomes one of compulsory heterosexuality” (1997: 127). Implying that the feminization and eroticization of nature links both it and women in mutual oppression while compulsory heterosexuality provides grounds for queer marginalization. Hence, just as ecofeminism builds a case for shared subordination between women and nature, Tamale posits that ecofeminism is in fact embedded in the African relationship with nature even if African feminists have largely not adopted the European term for themselves (Tamale, 2020: 87). Gaard extends this argument to queer and colonised people by asserting that compulsory European heterosexuality deems anything outside of its perimeters as both “queer and subhuman.” (p.126) It is on this basis that colonialism was packaged as the civilisation of the hypersexual barbaric native. She cites the Spanish conquest of the Americas whereby they took it upon themselves to de-queer the native people whose sexuality was seen as an afront to the colonizers’ Christian morality. The Spanish used “Gender-role deviance and the accepted presence of nonheterosexual erotic practices” in these territories and the subsequent need to civilise the natives out of these practices to rationalize “genocide and colonialism.” (p.125) The hyper-sexualisation of the natives is also tackled by Stuart Hall (1996) in his analysis of how the discourse of the West and the Rest was created to enable colonialism and the subsequent subordination and domination of colonised people. Hall notes that accounts by 12 European travellers spoke of the natives they encountered as “more addicted… to incest, sodomy, and licentiousness than any other race.” (p.214) Hall argues that this process of othering laid the foundation for the characterisation of societies along a West-non-West spectrum whereby the west was civilised, industrialised, developed, knowledgeable, scientific, and good while the opposite was true for the non-West. Such characterisation was used as grounds for colonisation in order to bring non-West societies closer to Western standards. Gaard terms the fear with which colonisers perceived free sexuality “erotophobia” and concludes by saying that this fear is still today used to marginalize queer people and those whose bodies are erotically objectified. Erotophobia served two purposes, that of distinguishing the coloniser from the colonised and that of giving the coloniser permission to correct what they perceived as an affront to God and nature. Thus, she asserts that “Rejecting that colonization requires embracing the erotic in all its diversity and building coalitions for creating a democratic, ecological culture based on our shared liberation.”(1997: 127) Similarly, in her keynote speech for the Eudy Simelane4 Memorial Lecture 2021, Prof Zethu Matebeni (Ujamaa Centre, 2021) draws similar conclusions about South Africa’s history of colonial violence, the feminisation of the land and the men and how this has shaped the treatment of women, queer people, and the land. She asserts that “colonisers raped the land” by taking it without the consent of those who lived on it. They then created a hierarchy in which those at the bottom of the patriarchal system i.e., women and queer people, ceased to be seen as human beings. She uses this analysis to explain the high rates of GBV and the extractivist relationship with land that has since dominated land-based development. She states that in popular imagination, queer people are nothing and the continued brutalisation of queer and women’s bodies demonstrates the inability to decolonise post-apartheid society and the failure to undo the version of masculinity colonialism instituted. Other feminist scholars have made similar arguments on colonialism and the gender relations it imposed on the colonised (Tamale, 2020). 4 A lesbian footballer star and activist who was brutally raped and murdered because of her sexuality in Kwa Thema, Gauteng in 2008. For more on Simelane see, Gallagher, A. (2022, February 8). Eudy Simelane: Is the LGBTQ community safer 14 years later? MambaOnline.Com. https://www.mambaonline.com/2022/02/08/eudy-simelane-is-the-lgbtq-community-safer-14-years-later/ 13 Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (2004) also speaks of this othering and the complete negation of the humanity of the colonized by the coloniser. He asserts that for the coloniser, the colonized subject ceases to exist as a person and becomes part of the landscape, to be tamed and bent to the coloniser’s will. “A hostile, ungovernable, and fundamentally rebellious Nature is in fact synonymous in the colonies with the bush, the mosquitoes, the natives, and disease.” (p.182) Colonial triumph relies on taming all these aspects of the colony. Thus, the obliteration of the essence of the native (which essence includes their precolonial culture, sexuality, and relationship with land) and its substitution with the coloniser’s image and worldview i.e., compulsory heterosexuality and capitalist extractivism, is essential to the success of the colonisation project. Thus, it can be argued that religious fundamentalists have morphed the erotophobia of the colonial era into today’s ‘sex wars’ (militant opposition to “granting sexual rights and freedoms to those who fail to conform to their prescribed norms”(Cornwall et al., 2008: 2)). Cornwall et al., argue that sex wars have broader implications for development over and above their direct impact on sexual minorities. They shape policy on abortion and HIV prevention, comprehensive sex education, and teenage pregnancy, they have repercussions for sex work and human trafficking, and they police masculinities in ways that impede male vulnerabilities (p.18). This could, for instance, explain the higher rates of suicide in men (Schumacher, 2019). Sex wars also serve to marginalize the needs of queer people and create hysteria around queer inclusion in development processes. 2.2.2: Queer strategies for land access and use It is such hegemonic heterosexuality and gender binarism as argued in the preceding section that has led queer scholars to begin to deconstruct the intersections between queerness and land. For instance, while studying queer land access strategies in New England, USA, Lesli (2019) found that queer land access is affected by factors over and above those faced by non- queer people. For instance, fears and perceptions of queerphobia inhibited queer ability to access land in cheaper rural areas. Such considerations place economic, social, and time constraints on queer people in their use of land that would not be visible from a conventional gender lens. 14 Additionally, queer farmers rely on queer networks as a way around the heterosexism they experienced in conventional spaces, this was particularly the case when acquiring skills (Leslie, 2019). Queer apprentices on non-queer farms for instance, felt isolated because such spaces were not culturally compatible with their own lived reality leading them to seek out experienced queer farmers for mentorship (p.941). Leslie notes that some queer people relied on queer networks to access land when their mentors retired or passed on. Leslie argues that when commodities such as land, labour, credit, and knowledge are treated as goods and left to the market forces of supply and demand to regulate, farmers who want to farm sustainably are disadvantaged because their access and use of these commodities does not engender profitability in the same way that industrial farming does (2019: 942). In this way, profitability in farming entails subscription to the dominant model whose ideological underpinnings do not always align with those of queer sustainable farmers. The failure to conform to the dominant model automatically leads to exclusion and marginalization. Furthermore, land access is a “heteronormative process of capital accumulation” (Leslie, 2019: 942) with heterosexual relationships central to the prevailing design by which the conventional path to this access entails. Meaning that by design, the available channels to accessing and using land are constructed around heterosexual relationships whilst being equally inhibiting for queer people. Furthermore, the hostility experienced by queer people as discussed above pushes them out of the race for affordable land, yet their challenges are hardly acknowledged and addressed. Queer subjectivity is also evident in the queer movement within La Via Campesina where queer people are using their presence in member organisations to highlight and tackle queerphobia by exposing its roots. They argue that the struggle for land cannot be isolated from other struggles against patriarchy, GBV, capitalism, and other impediments to autonomous self-expression. “Patriarchy destroys, capitalism makes war, LGBT blood is also landless blood”(LGBT Sem Terra, 2020) is the militant cry of the landless LGBT within MST. Hence, it is not enough to win the struggle for land if the social injustices that created it remain unchallenged. Their presence is thus intended to undermine the notion that queer issues are urban, not indigenous, and removed from ordinary struggles for land and land-based resources. 15 Since 2015, MST has become increasingly intentional in including queer members through its political education programmes due to a recognition of the interconnectedness of their struggles (Console, 2020; La Via Campesina: International Peasants’ Movement, 2015; Nyoka, 2021). The struggle for land is thus understood alongside the struggle for individual autonomy and the right to self-expression. This intentional inclusion of queer struggles in the organisational and political ethos of the movement is passed on to members during periods of land occupation while they await legal judgement (Hammond & Rossi, 2013). In 2017, queer members of MST released the MST and Sexual Diversity: Questions for Debate booklet that now forms part of MST’s political education (Nyoka, 2021: para.13). Such politicisation serves the purpose of inculcating members from diverse backgrounds with a collective vision, a useful strategy with the potential to feed into future community cohesion after legal settlement. Inculcation also serves to shift cultural frameworks in ways that engender equitable access to land. Such efforts are missing in South Africa’s land reform strategy even though the government is constitutionally mandated to alter the context in ways that allow for equitable access to land and land-based resources. Thus, sexism and gender discrimination are rife in contexts under former homelands where women’s participation in land related decision-making is curtailed undermining their access to land and land-based resources as well as tenure security (Kedibone Juda-Chembe, 2018; Makhaye, 2020; Sihlali, 2019). Moreover, queer people within MST seek to broaden the land debate with their presence and influence in order to shift the conventional approach to land issues. As Maysa Matias, a queer MST member reflected “You don’t fragment the subject, there’s no way I can say, ‘Today I feel more like a lesbian, or I feel more like a woman, Oh no, a lie, now I feel black’.” (LGBT Sem Terra, 2020: 8:40). In this sense, a queer lens has the potential to illuminate the ways in which identities intersect within an individual to limit access. Additionally, if such illumination shapes government land policy, the potential for positive social transformation increases. 2.2.3: Separatist alternatives The refusal to fragment the subject was perhaps also behind the lesbian land movement whereby lesbian women sought to form spaces for a lesbian land praxis. Sandilands argues that the lesbian separatist movement was “at least in part, about developing a distinct lesbian 16 culture of nature.” (2002: 132) Sandilands uses this culture of nature to build on a queer ecology using stories from lesbian separatists stretching over 30 years in communities in Southern Oregon, USA (p.135). She states that separatism was a way for the women to live simply and in tune with nature: to grow their own food, build their own houses, develop alternative spiritual and healing practices, and produce a low ecological footprint, amongst others in order to re-conscientize themselves outside of heteropatriarchal and capitalist influences. Sandilands notes that the approach adopted by the separatists was instrumental in “… the development of more and more complex knowledges of nature.” (p.156) The separatists’ knowledge of the landscape went through an evolution over the 30 years (at the time of Sandilands study) which have enriched an understanding of nature from their praxis. Although the separatists originally had utopian idylls about rurality, she finds that their presence changed the rural landscape, but their doctrine and worldview was also changed by it. Anahita demonstrates that before setting off the landdyke movement, other opportunities for coming together to form a collective “prefigurative” politic were available for the women of this movement. Prefigurative here means a politic and praxis that seeks to form the foundation for future generations to emulate (2009: 722). These opportunities for mobilising were found at “women’s music festivals, consciousness-raising groups, and urban collectives” thus enabling collective organising and politicization. These avenues could be likened to the MST’s political education during periods of occupation discussed above and demonstrate the need for collective efforts towards conscientization when attempting to transform society. Anahita notes that while land was cheaper in the 1970s, well located and well serviced land with pre-existing infrastructure was even then not affordable. Hence, she states that most of the land bought was of poorer quality in far flung territories with limited access to economic activity, and quite open to the hostile elements. Hence life on these lands was one of hardship and struggle yet the idea of being part of a reshaping of society for future generations to emulate kept the women going (Anahita, 2009: 724). Nonetheless, the hardship might explain why these communities have dwindled in size since the height of their popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. 17 Additionally, Sandilands observes that the early lesbian separatists sought out rural spaces because they were considered untainted by the heteropatriarchy unlike the urban areas (2002: 138). These gendered parallels are also visible in the disjuncture between women’s land interests and those of the government in South Africa. For instance, The WoMin Collective states their mission as “building of women’s movements to challenge destructive extractivism and to propose development alternatives that respond to the majority of African women’s needs.”(2017: 423). From this mission statement, it is clear that women consider the dominant development hegemony antithetical to their own interests. Also, since men dominate African politics and economies, it is possible that this stems from the “outsider” position women occupy and the knowledge that decisions made by men cannot apply across the board in meaningful ways. Extractivism is here defined as the process by which non-renewable resources such as minerals and fossil fuels as well as raw materials such as agricultural produce leave the global South for processing in the global north. At the centre of this unequal exchange are MNCs and local as well as international elite. This extractivism serves the purposes of depleting these resources, destroying the natural environment, and increasing inequality both within states and globally between South and North (The WoMin Collective, 2017: 426). This inequality is also felt between the core and the periphery even within states i.e., between urban and rural. Tamale further reinforces this point by noting that the automatic assumption of maleness as the operating currency in society is how women are kept out of the “public sphere” and subsequently, from access to productive resources (Tamale, 2004: 53). This standard is an invisible gatekeeper in this case because it relies on innate male attributes to award access to the resource realm akin to the primary apartheid victim identified under 2.1 (p.10) above. Hence, separatism served the purpose of extricating the lesbian women from their urban, patriarchal, capitalist shackles. It also gave them an opportunity to recreate the rural into their own image by applying an ecofeminist framework which allowed them to explore different forms of governance, ownership, production, intimacy, communalism, as well as spirituality and healing (Sandilands, 2002). It can be argued that the women wanted to create a queer consciousness by reimagining all aspects of their lives. Land provided both physical and theoretical opportunities for experimentation. 18 Anahita argues that despite the harsh conditions, the ownership and access to land the movement continues to engender is radical and empowering because all women in the USA were historically excluded from land ownership until as recently as the 1960s. She notes that for the women living on the lands today “…the lesbian land movement offered their only real possibility of having access to land.” She adds that this was true for the majority of the women whether they were from middle class families or not (p.726). Hence, the hardship was a small price to pay for the opportunity to own and control their own land. Strategies for ownership differ in these communities from some providing land free of charge and free of restrictions to others requiring a minimal purchase fee with enabling payment terms including cheap loans for infrastructure investment (Anahita, 2009: 727). Overall, the lesbian lands demonstrate the capacity to privately pursue land reform in ways that align with the ethos of the group and provide opportunities for land-based livelihoods that are generally not conventionally available. Moreover, separatist lands offer the type of bodily autonomy that is difficult to access outside these territories (Anahita, 2009: 734). The women are able to exist away from the male gaze without constant objectification and threats of violence to enforce conformity to heterosexuality and gender expression. This violence is experienced daily by queer people limiting their access to resources such as land and the economy in general (Koehler & SOGI Task Force, 2015; Nyeck et al., 2019) As Gqola emphasises In Rape: A South African nightmare, the threat of rape is an “effective way to keep women in check and often results in women curtailing their movement in a physical and psychological manner.” (2015: 79) This is achieved through social conditioning in both words and actions performed over and over with the intention to make the target aware of their vulnerability. This strategy is used to assert power over women, trans people, and men who do not perform masculinity effectively. As Cornwall et al., argue (2008) discrimination is highest for “those who fail to conform to normative expectations of gender expression, women who adopt ‘masculine’ modes of dress and behaviour – irrespective of their sexual preferences.” The key message is to show control over territory and identity and subsequently over resources and how they are distributed. 19 Thus, part of the landdyke ethos is an encouragement to their members to rethink their own body politics and unlearn conventional trappings of the gender binary (Anahita, 2009). This was actualised through “the development of alternative and liberating ideals such as female self-sufficiency, bodily strength, autonomy from men and patriarchal systems...” (p.729) This rebellion was intended to break the shackles of the gender binary hegemony on which heterosexuality is premised. In fact, the movement has also inspired others such as the similarly named and also politically linked Landdyke group in Taiwan (Tattersfield, 2019b). Although much smaller, this group sees access to land as an opportunity to create an approach that contrasts the dominant commercial model which they perceive as unsustainable and hostile. It is perhaps also an opportunity to create a queer culture of nature in their everyday practice. Similar to their USA counterparts, they are also using this opportunity to reimagine and reconfigure their relationships with land, each other, and their own bodies. Similarly, the Umoja women’s only village in Samburu, Northern Kenya is another example of women choosing to separate themselves from a hostile and disabling society. Although the heterosexuality of these women is often emphasized, they also chose to separate from a society in which GBV and patriarchy renders them voiceless and peripheral to create a niche where they could thrive outside of conventional confines. Created three decades ago by Rebecca Lolosoli5 The women of Umoja have used their collective voice to both fight against cultural practices that undermine women’s social status as well as to improve their own ownership and control over land – a resource that is typically the preserve of men in Samburu (Kirui, 2021). The decision to separate was a rejection of the patriarchal values and norms the women were subjected to and exemplifies a refusal to continue to plead for inclusion and cultural transformation. These cases of separatism gives credence to Tamale’s point when she says that “all programmes that seek to transform African economies must simultaneously seek to transform African masculinity, femininity and gender relations” (2004: 60). No efforts to fill quotas or add more women to patriarchal structures as pursued for the South African 5 See more on Rebecca Lolosoli: Rebecca Lolosoli (no date) Vital Voices. Available at: https://www.vitalvoices.org/people/rebecca-lolosoli/ (Accessed: 2 March 2022). 20 government can fundamentally and meaningfully transform society (Tamale, 2020: 9). At the heart of the arguments made here is the knowledge that no inclusion is possible if the conditions that led to exclusion are not deconstructed and dismantled starting with the gender ideologies which marginalize all those deemed inferior by colonisation and patriarchy. Moreover, what the various queer efforts discussed above demonstrate is the existence of a queer counter-narrative, albeit at a moderate scale, whose intention is to challenge the dominant framework and its patriarchal, heteronormative, and cisnormative (the privileging of conventional gender identity) roots governing access to and use of land and land-based resources. The counter narrative also serves to visibilize queer subjects and queer approaches in a land discourse that has largely erased them. 2.3: Post-apartheid land reform: problems and challenges The land reform design and implementation since 1994 has been structured around the homogenous yet in effect male primary victim introduced in 2.1 (p.9) above as will be further demonstrated in this section. The narrative has for instance focused on race as the primary factor of dispossession and grounds for land reform thus neglecting other intersecting identities such as gender, class, and sexuality and how these shaped individual experiences. Yet, for instance, gender discrimination was concomitantly used with race to undermine black women’s tenure security and citizenship in both the homelands and on white farms during the colonial and apartheid era (CGE, 2009: 23). It is also this tendency to homogenise apartheid dispossession that has seen women’s issues relegated to the margins of the dominant narrative in both the post-apartheid nation building project (Armstrong, 1994; Gqola, 2015) as well as the land reform process. The dichotomy between prioritization of race or gender and sexuality is in any case false since all these hierarchies are products of colonialisation (Tamale, 2020). Since land reform was in part a process of decolonisation, nothing short of a recognition of the intersecting and intricately woven relationships with capitalism and between and amongst these hierarchies can bring about the requisite post-apartheid transformation. 21 In 1994, the ANC set out to redistribute 30 percent of agricultural land from white owners to about 8 million households over a period of five years using the Settlement/Land Acquisition Grants (SLAG) (Borras, 2003: 385). In numbers this would see to a transfer of 26 million hectares of approximately 86 million hectares of viable farmland (Hall, 2004: 214) yet by the end of the five years, only 480,000 hectares were transferred benefiting a more modest 200,000 households (Borras, 2003: 385). This redistribution was part of a comprehensive three-pronged reform programme targeting: restitution to redress historical expropriation without adequate compensation; redistribution to undo racially biased unequal land distribution; and tenure reform to improve security of tenure. However, less than seven percent of the initial target had been transferred by 2019 (Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture, 2019: 33). The SLAG instrument, framed in the emancipatory language of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), was hailed as pro-poor (Atuahene, 2011a; Terreblanche, 1999). SLAG grants amounting to R16,000 per household were aimed at those with incomes of R1500 or less per month; a quarter of the claimants had incomes over this ceiling (Borras, 2003: 384). Due to the modest size of the grant amounts however, the majority of the households had to enter into Community Property Associations (CPA) or form trusts by pooling grants through which they’d receive titles to the land. As of 2017, these CPAs owned most of the land distributed through the restitution and redistribution programmes (Hornby et al., 2017: 6). In reality, the demand to pool funds led to untenable group power dynamics in which a few members wanted to control decision making. Additionally, due to limited government support in terms of running the CPAs, management has been poor which has compromised the tenure security of their members (p.6). The Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform (2019) also raised the issue of tenure security, stating that it is one of the primary sources of economic exclusion in South Africa and disproportionately affects women and the youth. According to the report, there were “over 60% citizens whose land/property rights are not recorded or registered” as of 2019 (p.V). Moreover, tenure insecurity has led to a situation whereby a bimodal system inherited from the apartheid era in which tenure insecurity cuts across gender and race lines remains intact and so do its effects on the ability to use land as collateral for funding acquisition through 22 financial institutions (p.V). This inability prevents economic integration through the continued marginalization of those who were rendered most vulnerable by apartheid laws and policies. Furthermore, SLAG’s flaws were embedded in its haphazard design whose aims and objectives were not well articulated (PLAAS, 2016). Thus, it was intended to be all things to its targeted beneficiaries and did not adequately delineate their needs. This was likely because of the homogenised victim of redress narrative discussed earlier, evidenced by the limited understanding of the particularities of the individual needs and circumstances. This narrative was manifested in the ambiguous focus on “communities” as beneficiaries, however, while some individuals sought land for settlement and subsistence, others intended to farm collectively or pursue other land-based interests. Furthermore, the focus on the poor also upset the commercial farming ambitions of the black elite who wished to individually farm commercially at a large scale (PLAAS, 2016: 16). Moreover, government spending on land reform has gradually decreased since 1996 (Kepe & Hall, 2018: 113) which has contributed to the elite capture of agricultural production at the expense of the poor. From 2000, the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) programme replaced SLAG with grants between R20,000-R100,000 directed at beneficiaries able to convince the government of their ability to farm profitably (Hall, 2004: 215). According to Hall, LRAD “was originally designed for people with capital to invest, preferably those with agricultural diplomas” (Hall, 2004: 215). Although the criterion was later changed to include poor recipients, the focus on resourced individuals did not change. LRAD was later replaced with the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) under which the state became the landowner and beneficiaries were simply given use rights for 5 years which were then extended as needed (Keep & Hall, 2018: 132). This move towards a preference for the less disadvantaged has led to the corporatisation of agriculture and opened the way for big agri- business and multinationals to monopolise agricultural production (Kariuki, 2018: 224). Furthermore, the emphasis on farming strategies inherited from the apartheid era limited beneficiary agency and resulted in the need to hire consultants to run the farms which left them worse off while consultants reaped all the benefits. In other cases, bringing in white expertise maintained problematic power dynamics between trainers and new owners (Cochet 23 & Anseeuw, 2015: 277). Additionally, the use of consultants to create project plans has created scenarios in which the beneficiaries are unable to effectively execute these plans once they acquire farms; the plans are generally based on large scale farming patterns used by the previous owners (p.277). Moreover, a 1970s act regulating subdivision of farmland remains in use (PLAAS, 2016: 17), inhibiting general ability to reconfigure farms to more manageable sizes and reiterating the preference for the large-scale farming model. The shift from focusing on the poor under SLAG to the resourced under LRAD/PLAS exemplifies the cementation of neoliberalism in post-apartheid South Africa (Terreblanche, 1999). The SLAG grants to the poor presented problems for the state because apartheid proletarianized blacks by destroying black farming (Baldwin, 1975). This proletarianization then necessitated high levels of support in infrastructure, knowledge, and markets if an emerging black farming class was to stand a chance against well-established agri-businesses developed over decades of protectionism and a large-scale farming bias during apartheid (Bernstein, 2013; Cochet & Anseeuw, 2015). The state’s limited capacity made provision of this support difficult hence the shift in focus; it is thus no surprise that majority of the beneficiaries of LRAD and PLAS have been men and the economically, socially, and politically connected (CGE, 2009; Cousins, 2016; Didiza, 2021). Moreover, funding has been singled out as one of the most debilitating factors undermining entry for emerging farmers in post-apartheid South Africa (Mtombeni et al., 2019). Besides, the fact that funding is contingent on competitiveness which Cochet & Anseeuw argue is code for profitability means that one must fit into the pre-existing favoured model of commercial farming (p.289) to access it. For instance, the types of business plans capable of convincing the government of future profitability and sustainability of the farm are “moto mechanised; specialised, with the actual separation of cultivation and livestock farming activities; a major consumer of farm inputs (on irrigated land), fossil energy and irrigation water…” Regardless of government rhetoric in terms of priority groups and support to emerging farmers, Cousins (2016) also notes that in reality the large-scale farms receive most of the funds. Thus, some have argued that the prevailing disparity in land ownership has origins in the State’s inability to run an effective land reform programme (Atuahene, 2011b; Kepe & Hall, 24 2016; Walker, 2009). Atuahene, for instance, attributes this dismal performance to several factors some of which are funding constraints but considers “bureaucratic inexperience, ineffective policies, and organizational inefficiency” core to this failure (2011: 128). However, she fails to address the failure of the market-led framework to lead to equitable land reform as has been witnessed globally (Bryant, 1998; Leslie, 2019; S. Moyo, 2007). As Moyo (2007: 16) argues, market-led land reform tends to favour the local and international elite by increasing their land concentration. Similar challenges of this model’s tendency to create barriers to entry by marginalized groups such as women and the poor have also been identified by other scholars (Binswanger-Mkhize et al., 2009: 187; Bryant, 1998: 189; Leslie, 2019). Lahiff et al., (2007: 1419) further observe that market-led reform leaves women worse off since they historically did not have formal rights. Such a framework which does not address previous inequality across a broad range of identities, nor the power dynamics such inequality engendered is most likely to perpetuate said inequality. This further aligns with the argument made in sub-sections 2.2.2 (p.14) and 2.2.3 (p.18) above whereby the market-led model tends to marginalize queer people given its heteronormative, colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal foundation. Also, the land use approaches supported by this model which are rooted in colonial extractivism tend to exclude those seeking to use land less exploitatively. Hence, the neoliberal ideological underpinnings framing the land reform process which contrast the government’s allegedly transformative interests remain one of its biggest shortcomings. Moreover, the recognition and strengthening of traditional authorities by the Constitution and acts such as the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act 3 of 20196 (TKLA) which gave them powers akin to those they enjoyed under the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 further demonstrates a departure from the emancipatory motives of the initial land reform programme. Not only have these authorities been demonstrably discriminatory towards women who are the government’s professed prioritized groups (Kedibone Juda-Chembe, 2018; Rangan & Gilmartin, 2002; Sihlali, 2019) but they have also shown consistent hostility 6 See, Republic of South Africa. (2019). Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act 3 of 2019. Government Gazette. https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286528- 11act3of2019tradkhoisanleadership.pdf 25 towards queer people by for instance calling for the nullification of constitutional protections preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (De Waal, 2012; Ntlama, 2014). It has also been argued that the strengthening of these authorities is linked to the government’s own land-based development agenda and their role as unaccountable administrators of land and land-based resources in traditional territories. Thus, Claassens (2018) argues that the TKLA is a means for the political elite in partnership with traditional authority to circumvent due process when entering into mining ventures with mining giants. While efforts to democratise traditional authorities have been shown, for instance, the Motlanthe report (2017) recommended an overhaul of the laws and frameworks governing former homelands in order to democratise and draw them into the constitutional perimeters with a view to protecting the rights and citizenship of the residents. It advises against the reliance on apartheid era boundaries to trap residents into territories not of their choosing and recommends that: membership should be based on affiliation not apartheid boundaries; it should be choice based whereby customary law applies to those who have subscribed to it (p.446); decision making should be consultative and traditional councils should conform to their membership stipulations i.e., a third women and 40% elected members; and lastly, the report recommends that the Ingonyama Trust Act be repealed or amended to protect the tenure rights of residents (p.278) amongst others. However, most of these recommendations have not been adopted and even those which were adopted have not produced the desired effect. Land reform has therefore been largely unsuccessful in achieving its objectives. While marginalized groups such as women, youth, people with disabilities, tenant farmers, and farm workers, to name a few, are routinely singled out for prioritization, evidence points to their continued and in some cases worsening circumstances. For instance, farm evictions continue despite laws to improve tenure security (Akinola et al., 2021) and job losses as well as an increased dependence on a casual and external work force (Kariuki, 2018: 226) about. These circumstances are likely to get far worse with the recent introduction of a national minimum wage (S. Marais, 2022) which will undermine small farmers competitiveness, increase the shift to labour saving technologies, and result in further agrarian consolidation and monopolisation by MNCs. 26 Hence, while rural development is premised on agrarian transformation to alleviate poverty, reduce inequality, and alter racially biased land distribution patterns (Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, 2014), these have yet to be achieved, in fact, the opposite is happening (Francis & Webster, 2019). Moreover, the queer community remains conspicuously absent in any scholarship and policy even as their identities are contested and their bodies are sites of violence and discrimination (ActionAid, 2009; Gallagher, 2022; OUT LGBT Well-being & Nudge, 2016); and despite a constitutional mandate to foster conditions that engender equitable access to land and land-based resources for all. Given that the post-apartheid land reform programme which is premised on a gender binary and dualistic framework has failed to achieve inclusive and equitable access to land as argued in this chapter; and given that government purportedly prioritizes women and other marginalized groups, yet this prioritization is not preceded by the requisite structural transformation to engender change. I argue that a queer lens is the next frontier in understanding the challenges to South Africa’s land reform programme; that a queer lens would enable the deconstruction of obscure assumptions and biases embedded in the problematic framing that do not only affect queer people but cisgender heterosexual women and men and other marginalized groups. The next chapter will explain the methodology used to construct this study, choose a sample, gather, and analyse the data in the process of answering this study’s research question. 27 Chapter 3: Research Methodology This chapter discusses the research methodology used to answer the research question by explaining the research approach, the research instrument as well as the sampling technique and sample used for data collection. It also outlines the data analysis strategy and explains the process of theme development on which the findings were based. Lastly, the chapter engages with the ethics of conducting online interviews and the dynamics therein and concludes with some comments on researcher reflexivity. 3.1: Using the qualitative approach to study queer access to land This study used the qualitative approach and in-depth semi-structured interviews to investigate the experiences of 15 queer respondents from six South African provinces with the aim of understanding and using their experiences with land and land-based resources to analyse government’s land reform process. The study explored the nature of the participants’ land access or ownership and the circumstances that led to it; their experiences with institutions administering and governing land and land-based resources in order to understand how their queer identity intersected with them; as well as the nature of their land use and the ways in which their queer identity informed and shaped it. The interviews were conducted on the virtual platforms that were most convenient to the participants. Most of the interviews were conducted on Zoom (eight), three were on WhatsApp audio, two were via phone call, one was via Microsoft Teams, and one was a mix of email, WhatsApp audio, and phone call. This was in order to allow participants from a broad socio-economic background to take part in the study. The qualitative approach was deemed most suitable for this study because as Denzin & Lincoln argue, this approach situates the researcher in the participants’ world which is opened up through the instruments used to collect data. They add that “qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.”(2018: 43) The study aimed to get a glimpse into the experiences of the participants with land and land-based resources in order to understand what their experiences reveal about the land reform programme undertaken post-1994. It then relied on the data collected to form categories which were subsequently used to build the themes on which the findings are based. This method gave me the freedom to rely heavily 28 on the participants as experts in their own lives. Schutt states that “…qualitative methods have their greatest appeal when we need to explore new issues… or determine the meaning people give to their lives and actions.” Since land reform has not been studied from a queer perspective within the South African context, I considered the qualitative method the most ideal for laying the foundational ground on this subject. The length of the interviews varied, the shortest interview lasted 39:47 minutes and the longest was three hours and 46 minutes. However, most were an hour long on average. Participants were advised that the interviews would last between 45 minutes and an hour prior to commencement which information I reiterated at the 45-minute point, but I would also allow the participants to exercise agency when they wanted to share their story for longer—this was the case for the three-hour interview. The interviews took place between the 16th of September and the 1st of December 2021. One of the core reasons for choosing the semi-structured interview technique was because I wanted to understand the emotions, reasons, and history behind the participants’ experiences; to uncover their motivations and to understand their joys, desires, fears, and frustrations vis-à-vis land reform. Schutt states that qualitative methods “…capture social life as participants experience it, rather than in categories the researcher predetermines.” (2018: 647). Hence, such a nuanced engagement with stories that does not simply seek to reproduce data as it is given but that breaks it apart to engage with its less obvious meanings was deemed possible through this method of inquiry. Furthermore, this instrument was used because it provided both structure and flexibility, necessary when the aim is to allow participants space to share freely yet remain true to the areas relevant to this study (Bernard, 2006). 3.2: Choosing a sample The primary criteria were that participants had to self-identity as queer and have access to land or land-based resources. Queerness was determined by their sexual orientation and or gender identity which had to either be non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, one participant was both non-heterosexual and non-cisgender i.e., he was a pansexual trans7man. I also 7 Short for transgender and used to denote gender identity that does not align with sex assigned at birth. 29 selected participants based on the nature of their land access and use (making sure to select a sample with a broad range in this respect) and the use of English as a medium of communication. I relied on my networks on social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram—I shared a poster detailing my interest in queer research participants which was reshared widely—the call for participants poster can be found under appendix 3. I also relied on queer organisations such as the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), GALA, and Iranti-Org to spread the word to their networks and members. While I received a lot of positive feedback from these organisations, finding participants proved more difficult, requiring a more vigorous recruitment strategy entailing directly reaching out to potential recruits suggested by my various networks. This strategy proved more effective, and I was eventually able to recruit 20 potential participants. Although 20 queer people initially expressed interest in participating in the study however five dropped out. Two of the five cited time constraints as the reason for not managing to commit, one was due to time constraints, electricity outages, and weather issues—failure to show up for the interview on the final rescheduled attempt was due to a rainstorm which damaged structures on her land. She was located in a small village 30 minutes from Durban, KZN. Additionally, two participants did not show up for the interviews nor give reasons why which left me with the final 15 participants who took part in this study. Hence, purposive and snowball sampling were used to recruit participants for the sample. Etikan et al., (2016) describe purposive sampling as the intentional selection of a participant based on attributes they possess that are critical for understanding the subject on hand. They add that this technique relies on the researcher’s judgment that the participants can positively and deeply illuminate the topic under study. They further note that factors such as availability, willingness to share their experience as experts on the topic, and the ability to articulate this knowledge well are all considerations the researcher must keep in mind when using this method. Patton (1990) also stresses that the aim of purposeful sampling, “is to select information-rich cases whose study will illuminate the questions under study.” Thus, the reason for choosing queer people with access to land for various uses such as different models of farming, settlement, and others was in the knowledge that they would be able to provide information regarding how its ownership came about, the reasons for using it the way they did, and how they had experienced the process of acquiring it. 30 Additionally, Schutt states that snowball sampling “…is useful for hard-to-reach or hard-to- identify populations for which there is no sampling frame, but the members of which are somewhat interconnected…”(Schutt, 2018: 157). This explanation fits with my own sampling requirements in that while the participants were connected by their queerness, they were cast quite wide geographically. However, given the difficulty in recruiting participants, suggestions made by the participants came in handy in my recruitment efforts for instance Magpie suggested two participants one of whom ended up participating in the study (Andrew) while Sugar led me to Tonia and Jay. Hence, I was able to rely on snowball sampling to reach my intended target group. Therefore, using these two techniques, I was able to recruit and select a diverse sample along the following categories: location, sexual orientation and gender expression, nature of land use, means of access, and nature of land authority for instance whether under traditional or state authority. This variety was to allow me access to a broad range of voices and insights into how land is accessed and used by a diverse queer sample. For instance, there were participants whose ownership was through own purchase while others had inherited their land, one participant (Tonia) accessed land for her beehives through a friend, while another (Agang) relied on an occupation in the Reclaim the City (RTC) movement agitating for accessible and safe housing in Cape Town. Additionally, one participant (Msizi) was a recipient of a government subsidised house (RDP), she also built backrooms on the property which she used to shelter homeless lesbian women. Hence, I used queerness and land as focal points of inquiry which allowed me to investigate the experiences of the participants from a wide angle. Schutt cautions that “researchers using snowball sampling normally cannot be confident that their sample represents the total population of interest, so generalizations must be tentative.” (p.158) Schutt’s caution is not unwarranted, and I will endeavour to heed it. However, I should also mention that the relationships between the participants were not concentrated but spread out as their diverse geography demonstrates. Secondly, out of the final sample comprising of 15 participants, those recruited through the snowball technique were only three with the rest recruited via the purposive sampling technique. Additionally, the themes and conclusions drawn from the data are not intended to speak to the sum total of queer experiences with land and land-based resources in South Africa but are intended as a foundational exploration of the land debate from a queer perspective. 31 3.3: Sample Description In terms of gender, majority of the participants were cis8women (9 out of 15). The rest of the sample comprised of three cismen, one transman, one transwoman, and a nonbinary 9 participant. Regarding Sexuality, five participants were lesbians, two identified as lesbian/queer, two were gay, and another two were pansexual. The sample also included one bisexual, one heterosexual, a participant who only used the term queer, and lastly, one participant described his sexuality as same sex attraction (SSA). The table below details the participant biographical information including pseudonym, age, gender, sexuality, as well as location. Participant demographics In terms of education attainment, only one participant had not finished matric, the rest all had tertiary qualifications with four at post-graduate level. On the other hand, only three out of the 15 participants were formally employed while the majority were either self-employed, freelancing, or unemployed at the time of the interviews. Most participants were in the 40 to 8 Short for cisgender and used to denote gender identity that aligns with sex assigned at birth. 9 Does not conform to the binary gender model. Pseudonym Age Gender Sexuality Location Agang 51 Cisman Gay Western Cape Andrew 45 Cisman Gay Northern Cape Dumi 50 Transman Pansexual Gauteng Eve 58 Ciswoman Lesbian Western Cape Hope 23 Ciswoman Bisexual North West Jay 53 Ciswoman Lesbian/fluid Western Cape Magpie 40 Ciswoman Queer (Lesbian) Free State Msizi 47 Ciswoman Lesbian Gauteng Nobuhle 48 Ciswoman Lesbian Kwazulu-Natal Nombi 44 Transwoman Heterosexual Western Cape Sugar 49 Ciswoman Lesbian Gauteng Thabo 40 Cisman Same Sex Attraction Gauteng Thandiwe 34 Ciswoman Pansexual Kwazulu-Natal Tonia 58 Ciswoman Lesbian Gauteng Vandyn 57 Nonbinary Queer Kwazulu-Natal 32 58 age range. Only two were under this range, a 23-year-old, and a 34-year-old at the time of interviews. Additionally, five participants described their locality as urban, five as peri-urban, and another five as rural. Four out of the five participants in rural areas accessed land under traditional authority while one was a hybrid tenure system involving both state authority and traditional authority. Majority of the participants were black (9), five were coloured, and one was white. Classification in this category was quite complex given South Africa’s history and this complexity was evident in the participants’ own challenges with articulating this identity, this was particularly the case for those who formally fall under the coloured and white race group. Some participants felt the need to add an annotation to their ethnicity/race, for instance, Vandyn said that they were African and human before anything else while Sugar said that “I guess am coloured since that’s what they put on my birth certificate” which revealed a disparity between formal categorisation and race identity, a subject outside the scope of this study. 3.4: Collecting data virtually As has been mentioned already, semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to collect data. All interviews were done virtually. All participants were cooperative and answered all my questions in great detail. They were also enthusiastic about the nature of my research and happy to be contributing towards this under-researched subject. All interviews began by first explaining the purpose of the research, seeking consent to proceed as well as to record then asking participants to choose a pseudonym for themselves. Interviewees would then be asked to state their preferred pronoun followed by demographic questions such as gender identity and sexual orientation, age, or age range (all choose to share the actual age), ethnicity/race, location, employment status, and highest academic qualification before delving into questions on land, the main interview guide can be found under appendix 2. Most interviews were video calls which allowed for a less impersonal conversation while a few were audio. Where follow-up questions were asked, this was done via WhatsApp text and email with participants either responding with text or voice notes. Follow up questions would be specific to the participant’s unique circumstances and did not follow the interview 33 schedule but were related to the study. Using text and voice notes made asynchronous data collection possible which eased the process of getting responses to follow-up questions. The need to use virtual interviews to conduct the interviews was created by the covid-19 pandemic and the safety measures thereof. This platform was also useful in terms of reaching participants in diverse locations across the country in order to give breadth to the study. Given the general shift to online platforms necessitated by the pandemic, all participants were well versed in the platform of choice they selected which made conducting interviews seamless. A lot of flexibility was allowed regarding platform choice given my aim to open the study up to a diverse group of people. Hence, I often had a conversation via email or text beforehand where participants would be given options. I found Zoom to be the most reliable platform in terms of the quality of the connection and the recording options. Although most participants (including the ones in rural areas) did not experience debilitating problems with internet connectivity, some few did. In such cases, I had to devise ways to accommodate them by switching to a more amenable platform, rescheduling or both. For instance, a participant who lived in the village of Hluhluwe, Kwazulu-Natal had such poor connectivity that the interview was moved multiple times across four platforms. In her case, even the phone network was poor both largely caused by constant electricity outages, but we eventually made it work and conducted a successful interview. In instances where the interview was conducted via phone call or WhatsApp, I would use my phone for the interview and use the recorder on my computer for recording, this worked out quite well. The one interview I conducted on Microsoft Teams was the most problematic whereby I could not record through the platform directly. My solution was to use my computer recorder however on playing back the interview, I found that it was completely scrambled. Fortunately, I had taken well detailed notes during and after the interview which I then relied on for analysis. There were two participants with whom I had to reschedule several times before we were able to meet, in one instance, it was because she was in a rural area and her connection was very poor while in another, the participant’s schedule kept getting in the way, but my patience eventually paid off and I was able to interview her. In fact, there were several times I had to wait for participants for close to an hour after our scheduled time. Mostly, these delays were 34 due to circumstances out of their control although once it was because a participant had double booked themselves. All in all, I believe the data I collected through these virtual interviews were rich and informative especially since I could not rely on other data collection techniques such as observation or photographic data to augment the interviews. Still, interviews were further supplemented with other sources of data to enhance my analysis such as government policy documents and acts, NGO reports, and secondary data from newspapers and other literature. I was therefore able to answer my research question with the data collected. 3.5: Data analysis using grounded theory Merriam & Tisdell (2016:202) describe data analysis as, “the process of making sense out of the data.” The data analysed in this study consisted of interview transcripts, audio recordings, jottings, “fieldnotes”, and other notes on codes and my thoughts written throughout the data collection process. Merriam & Tisdell further emphasize that “data analysis is the most difficult part of the entire process”, this was indeed true for me as well. Trying to make sense of the large volume of data gathered in the limited time available was an intimidating task however, I would like to believe that I rose up to the challenge. Given that no scholarship of queer people and land has been undertaken in South Africa, I relied on grounded theory as a strategy with which to understand the data collected—a strategy that uses the data collected as the basis for theory formation seemed the only viable option for my analysis. According to Charmaz, “grounded theory methods consist of systematic, yet flexible guidelines for collecting and analyzing qualitative data to construct theories 'grounded' in the data themselves.” (2006: 2) I used this method because of its heavy reliance on textual data to create theories. As Charmaz adds, “…data form the foundation of our theory and our analysis of these data generates the concepts we construct.” (p.2) Charmaz further argues that coding of data through separation, sorting, and synthesis from the beginning of data collection is an important aspect of grounded theory. (p.3) This process requires labelling the parts of the text by subject (codes) which is intended to guide the researcher to areas of further investigation. These codes were then used to compare the experiences of the participants throughout the data gathering process. According to Charmaz, 35 this process improves the researchers “analytic grasp of the data.” (p.3) My early codes were in vivo codes which Elliott (2018:2856) argues are the most appropriate when the goal is to focus on the participants’ lived reality. These were followed by axial codes whose purpose it is to link and organise related categories in order to create a more “coherent whole” for conceptualisation (Bernard, 2006; Charmaz, 2006: 60; Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). The coding process was accompanied by notes both about the codes as well as my thoughts on what the data was revealing to me. In grounded theory, such notes are called memos (Charmaz, 2006: 3). These aid a researcher in the process of category formation. Charmaz states that at this point, the researcher would seek out more information to answer any visible gaps or questions. In my case, these gaps were filled with follow up questions to my participants to add to, clarify, or expand on key aspects of their stories. However, there were a few times when participants were not responsive to follow up questions in which cases I either dropped that line of inquiry or simply made use of the data on hand. 3.6: Ethical considerations First and foremost, ethics clearance was obtained from the School of Social Sciences’ ethics committee in September 2021 before any data gathering or participant recruitment took place. Throughout this study, I was guided by the four principles of ethical research put forward by Wassenaar i.e., “respect for persons, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice” (2006: 67). Respect was shown to participants by seeking and receiving their consent before all interviews which was preceded by clear explanation of my intentions so that they were in a position to give informed consent. The participant information sheet which was distributed prior to interviews and a consent form can be found under appendix 1.1 and 1.2. In instances where participants were not able to sign the consent forms because they were not able to electronically sign the form sent or had no means of receiving the form because they did not have a smart device, consent was sought and given verbally at the beginning of the interview. Secondly, I made sure to the best of my abilities, that participation in this study did not harm the participants in any way, for instance, I kept information divulged to me confidential and I will continue to do so going forward and I have used pseudonyms throughout this report in order to protect the identity of the participants. Additionally, while the interviews required 36 the divulgence of private information, and since anonymity could not be guaranteed given the use of the interview method, I have no reason to believe that the information received caused any emotional stress or triggered any past hurts. Hence, I believe the request for a low risk level ethics clearance was vindicated. Thirdly, this study benefits the participants because it brings into the public domain unique queer experiences around land that have not been explored academically in the South African context, to my knowledge. From the participants’ enthusiasm and willingness to co-operate, I believe that they too found great value in the study. Lastly, I endeavoured to be just in my sampling process, as Wassenaar states, just “selection of participants should not be based on convenience” (2006: 68). While Covid-19 restrictions presented some challenges, I made sure to provide participants with a wide range of communication channels so as not to inhibit their participation. For instance, the use of phone calls to interview participants who could not access data enabled those with data challenges or without smart phones to participate. The sample I selected is also the most likely to benefit from any positive outcomes of this study hence they are not being used for the benefit of others. 3.7: Researcher reflexivity As a lesbian woman who is aware of the marginalization experienced by queer people, the issue of access to resources and inclusion is close to my heart. This positionality has undeniably shaped my own data processing and influenced how I interpreted my findings. This insider status however also granted access into the world of my participants as one of them. While such access helped me to gather the data that I needed to answer my research question, I am also well aware that this positionality would have also inspired biases and assumptions on my part. Schutt writes that “Qualitative researchers recognize that their perspective on social phenomena will reflect in part their own background and current situation. Who the researcher is and “where he or she is coming from” can affect what the research “finds.””(Schutt, 2018: 648). Hence, since my interest in queer access to land is informed by my own positionality as a queer woman, it would be disingenuous of me to suggest that this 37 positionality does not shape my interest in queer inclusion in the land debate, my understanding of the issues raised, as well as