Linking theory to practice
Developing our conceptual framework changed the way Leap saw things, and how we worked. We recognised that land reform interventions come into existing systems for land rights administration that started long before we arrived and will continue long after we have gone. We stopped talking about "legal entity establishment", and rather about "formalizing institutional arrangements for tenure". Instead of spending our time teaching people about new kinds of legal forms, we facilitated processes in which they could think about and articulate how they understand land rights administration now and how they practice it, and discuss what works for them and what doesn't, and what kinds of changes will improve their tenure security or make them more vulnerable.
LEAP indicators |
What is important in fieldwork |
|
| 1. | People's rights are becoming clearer; people know better what their rights are and they are more able to defend these rights |
How people use land now. Land rights administration processes that people use differ for different land uses, and rights holders are organized differently for different land uses. e.g. a residential site is allocated to a family, whereas the whole group may be able to use grazing. |
| 2. | Land rights administration processes are becoming clearer, better known and more used. |
How people want to use land in future - their real purposes in upgrading tenure. Policy pressures to "deliver income generating projects" can distort the way people name their purposes. Future purposes are likely to be different for groups which differ in interests, skills and wealth. |
| 3. | Authority in these processes is becoming clearer, better known and more used. |
How people understand group identity now- who is a member of the group, and who is not and why. This shapes who is eligible for rights for different kinds of land uses or who is eligible to help decide about land. Asking why or why not? tells you about the criteria that people use to include or exclude people from membership. |
| 4. | There are more and increasingly accessible places to go to for recourse in terms of these processes, and these are becoming better known and more used. |
Who are the rightsholders and what rights do they have now. Who is excluded from holding rights and why. How people understand what is fair now. How the group wants to change this in future. Asking how the existing rights holders got their rights, and asking about past or current disputes about rights takes you into understanding land rights administration processes and authorities and recourse that people use now. |
| 5. | Land rights administration processes are becoming less unfairly discriminatory against any person or group. |
Whether processes of land allocation, transfer, dispute resolution etc. discriminate against particular people (e.g. women) and how they can be changed so that they are less discriminatory. |
| 6. | Bridges are being built that span the gaps between actual practice and legal requirements. |
If the group consciously adapts existing practice and you write the principles and rules into documents for legal registration, you help close the gap between law and practice. |
| 7. | Benefits and services are becoming equally available to people living under different tenure systems. |
Linkages to external institutions e.g. linkages to municipalities for delivery of services, existing or proposed joint venture partners, use of land as security in getting bank loans and so on, links to the deeds office and other land rights administration systems. Being able to use the land as intended may depend on the types of linkages a group has to outside institutions. For instance, for a community to get electricity, it will have to give Eskom a servitude over the lane where the pylons are erected. |
See more under fieldwork and case studies for how we have applied our concepts in the field.