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Abstract:
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"This article provides some perspective on the consequences and specific nature of colonial expansion in the remote North Western corner of South Africa forming the border with Namibia, called the Richtersveld reserve in the region of Namaqualand. It attempts to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the future of these semi-arid rural areas reserved for the so-called coloured people by examining the origins of these reserves and engaging in the argument about the results of the reserve policy for the residents of the Richtersveld. The article also compares the marginal (isolated) North Cape reserves with the much larger and more significant bantustans. Finally, it discusses the failed implementation of the policy of economic fanning units in relation to conceptualizations of the merits and demerits of communal and individual land tenure. The article moves from a historical and comparative perspective of reserve policies in South Africa as a whole to the local conditions in one village of the Richtersveld reserve, Lekkersing, and finally to the experiences of one stock-farmer in Lekkersing, Joseph Cloete. The problem of efficient resource management in the former coloured rural reserves is complicated by the diversity, even opposition, of interest groups within the reserves. It is a problem that cannot be adequately addressed without an understanding of the peculiar processes of colonial dispossession and state intervention in the North Western Cape reserves. This article attempts to demonstrate exactly how the pre-existing form of land-holding was undermined and distorted, not only by the abortive attempt at individualization in the 1980's, but by nearly one and a half centuries of colonial rule."
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