Field Method Toolkit
Conversations about land rights administration in community groups
Conversations around tenure happen more easily when you ask people to create a visual material in which they express something very familiar and concrete. The facilitator's task is then to get them to talk about these concrete and familiar things in a way that takes them into the more abstract issues. The facilitator picks up on critical incidents - actual cases that have happened in land rights administration - and probes them.
Starting conversations about structures and authorities
| The following conversation about land rights administration processes took place during discussion around a visual exercise in which people chose pictures of people to represent structures and authorities who play a role in land. |
Checking allocation practice
| Inf: | Person went to induna. He called the men (amadoda). Person / family was allocated a site. |
| Fac: | The men? Amadoda? That's only part of the community |
| Inf: | Community was called, there were women and young people there. |
| Fac: | Who was there? [2-3 women raised their hands.] What topic did you talk about? |
| Women: | We were clear. Induna explained that there was a new member of the community, and that person was accepted. Community was called not for decision, but for stamping (shaya igqiviza). Payment was made to the induna. |
| Fac: | When was the last time? |
| Ans: | Very recently. |
Starting conversations with household mapping
The following examples of conversations around tenure took place during discussions around a visual exercise in which people drew their own homesteads, the people in the homes, their fields and their animals on sheets of A4 paper and then put them together to form a broad map.
Exploring understanding of household head
The facilitator picked up on the household map of a family that showed two women and lots of children, then....
| Woman: | I am the household head |
| Fac: | What does it mean to be the household head? |
| Women: | I manage, I am in charge of everything, of the children, of decisions about the fields. |
Exploring understanding of ownership
| Fac: | Here we have Msikazi, here we have households. What does it mean to you to be amongst these people [to be a household]? |
| Woman: | We can plant, the family eats. We are the owners of the land. |
| Fac: | What does it mean to be the owners of the land? |
| Young woman: | We have title. |
| Fac: | What does it mean to have title? |
| Young woman: | Not being oppressed (hlukumeza). |
| No: | What does it mean - not hlukumeza. |
| Man: | Police do not [harass us] when we cut cane. Not being evicted (xoshwa). We can build houses of blocks. |
Exploring difference between rights held by different families
| Fac: | Are the sizes of sites equal? [She explained why she is asking this]. Is there a particular reason why people have big and small sites? |
| Infs: | No. Some with lots of children have small sites, and some with few children have big sites. The size of the site was left as it was. Our forefathers were there, and we were using [the land]. The size of the site depends on luck. [General agreement] |
Reflection later: No sense that people thought this was unfair except in the case where a person was asked to move to make way for the sugarcane project
Exploring demarcation
| Fac: | How do you know where the boundaries are? |
| Inf: | Induna comes. Shows start here, from this bush to that bush. |
| Fac: | How do you have evidence? |
| Inf: | We put something there to mark "This is mine". Should something happen the men were there. They know. |
| Fac: | [Comment] When the men die the knowledge dies with them. |
| Inf: | [Giving actual case] Someone ploughed over MamNgema's boundary. She went to the induna - he solved the problem, he showed the boundary. |
| Fac: | This works well? |
| Inf: | It works well FOR NOW! |
Starting a conversation around a critical incident in land rights administration
To start the following conversation, the facilitator referred back to a case that had been named but not probed in an earlier meeting, where the committee made a map of the whole farm, and had answered the question "Has anyone settled here since land transfer to the CPA?"
Exploring allocation practice
| Fac: | Asks about the case where a person had settled after transfer of the land to the CPA. |
| Inf: | Baba Ngcobo wanted a farm. He talked to a community member. He chose where he wanted to be - build near the road. The induna checked him out with the induna from the area where he came from. |
| Fac: | Did he pay? |
| Inf: | He paid a little to the induna. He bought a case of drinks for the community. The community rejoices. Umphakathi uyajabula. He was written down in the book [registered]. |