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Field Method Toolkit

Critical incident analysis

Critical incidents are those things that have actually happened that highlight problems or good practice around tenure security, and show whether tenure security is increasing or decreasing.

You listen for the critical incidents during fieldwork and then analyze them to understand what they are saying about tenure security. Because critical incidents are familiar to people, they help in structuring feedback, providing concrete examples of generalizations.

Particularly important, but not the only critical incidents, are those that talk about land rights administration processes.

Most important information will come out of the telling of the story of the critical incident. The question is: "What happened?" NOT "What happens". Check that you are clear on:

  • who was involved
  • steps and outcomes (procedures) Probe: What happened first? Then what happened? What happened in the end?
  • authorities Probe: Who made the decision?
  • when this happened (after land transfer or before). Asking when is important because we are trying to learn something about trends: Are people moving towards or away from tenure security as a result of land reform? What happened since land transfer gives different information from what happened in the time before land transfer. Recent happenings tell us about current practice - land reform is so intense that practice may shift over a period of months.

NB: Critical incidents are not necessarily only bad things. Listen for the good!

Example of critical incident analysis Msikazi 2002

The story: Allocation of residential and arable land rights to Mr C at Msikazi
An outsider, Mr C, wanted to farm. He talked to a member of the community, approached the induna and chose a site near the road. The induna checked on him with the induna of the area where he came from. After he'd paid "a little" to the induna, the induna allocated the site and then informed the CPA committee. This decision was ratified and witnessed in a community meeting attended by men, women and young people, who accepted Mr C as a member of the community, after which his name was included on the list of registered members.

The analysis
The analysis was a process of reflecting on the LEAP indicators, and included comparing practice with the constitution....

As a CPA, residents at Msikazi are legally constituted as an association with the right to own property and with the obligation to set up a committee to manage the internal rights of members and the property itself according to a locally developed constitution. The constitution defines membership of the group as households that are beneficiaries of grants, residents who buy immovable assets from a member who is leaving or outsiders who buy the rights and immovable assets of a vacating member after a community meeting has approved his or her membership. The physical division and allocation of property must be dealt with in accordance with the settlement and development plan.

However, very few residents at Msikazi have any understanding of the term communal property association, the work of the committee or of the constitution. The group understands itself in terms of a tribal identity where key land management functions are the responsibility of the tribal authority. Membership is understood as people who were born on the property or who have applied to the headman (induna) and have been accepted in a community meeting.

The land reform intervention has resulted in some changes to this tribal identity, but the new form is still emerging and is as yet unclear.

There is more than one authority and set of procedures through which people can come into the community and acquire land rights, the official ones of the constitution and the familiar traditional practice. Evidence of this is Mr C's arrival and acquisition of land rights through the induna, which has resulted in a reduction in the rights of the group. However, everybody knows about Mr C and seems happy about his arrival although some committee members question how these allocations should happen in future.

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