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Law in Context
Acting for Rural
Women
Women make up 59 percent of the poorest areas in
South Africa, and while research shows significant
numbers of single women have managed to acquire
independent land rights since 1994, these positive
developments have been put at risk by recent
traditional leadership laws that bolster the power
of chiefs to unilaterally define the content of
custom. These new laws have also exacerbated the
tendency of chiefs to enter into unilateral mining
and investment deals on communal land without
consulting its occupants.
The apartheid tribal boundaries effectively re-imposed
by these laws serve two purposes: they lock 16
million people into ascribed tribal identities, while
simultaneously locking alternative institutions out.
This pre-empts rural people’s ability to organise
themselves in any way other than as tribal subjects.
The Rural Women’s Action Research Project highlights
thedanger of reactionary versionsof customary lawused
to bolster autocratic chiefs and shut down processes of
local transformative change. At the same time, there
is enormous potential in recent Constitutional Court
judgments that interpret customary law as ‘living law’
that develops as society changes.
So it becomes crucial to provide evidence of current
practice and underlying values in challenging the
distorted version of customary law entrenched by the
new laws. This is necessary for litigation purposes in
striking down the new laws, and to develop feasible
alternatives to government’s current approach.
RWAR’s research shows that rural people are engaged
in finding positive ways to reconcile citizenship rights
and indigenous precedents. Rigorous empirical
research is crucial, as is the involvement of rural people
in the design and development of the research, and for
the articulation of policy implications.
Documenting
Traditional Courts
Researchers have documented on a daily basis for
nine months – under the leadership of Dr Sindiso
Research Projects
Mnisi Weeks – the vernacular dispute management
practices of six headmen in the Msinga area.
Drawing on this data, and further interviews with
members of the Mchunu and Mthembu traditional
councils, traditional leaders and disputants, Dr
Mnisi Weeks will complete a monograph on the
subject. The research provides a foundation for
opposing the autocratic Traditional Courts Bill in
its current form and is the basis for developing a
position on the future regulation of these courts.
Pathways to Justice:
Msinga and Surrounding
Areas
This project, led by Associate Professor Dee
Smythe with Diane Jefthas, complements research
concerning Traditional Courts in the same area of
Msinga.
It documents intersections between traditional
justice mechanisms and the formal criminal justice
system. Analysis of 1066 police dockets have begun
to reveal patterns of vigilantism, compensation
payments, and the relationship between police
and traditional leaders. Qualitative research
with traditional leaders, police, prosecutors and
magistrates is under way.
Changing Marital
Status and Access to
Land for Rural Women
Massive processes of change are under way in rural
areas in relation to single women’s access to land
since 1994, according to survey data.
Using in-depth qualitative research, Dr Aninka
Claassens and Nolundi Luwaya, have set out
to better understand the dynamics of change
processes and the factors that both support and
inhibit positive change. Research findings will
be used in policy briefs and articles that critique
current