Landscapes of Deracialization Power, Brokerage and Place-Making on a South African Frontier Yves Van Leynseele Landscapes of Deracialization Power, Brokerage and Place-Making on a South African Frontier Yves P.B. Van Leynseele I Thesis committee Promotor Prof.Dr J.D. van der Ploeg Professor of Transition Processes in Europe Wageningen University Co-promotor Dr PG.M. Hebinck Associate professor Rural Development Sociology Group Wageningen University Other members Prof.Dr W. Beinart, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Prof.Dr M. Bollig, University of Cologne, Germany Prof.Dr C. Minca, Wageningen University Prof.Dr C.J. Walker, Stellenbosch University, Matieland, South Africa This research was conducted under the auspices of the Graduate Schools CERES and WASS. II Landscapes of Deracialization Power, Brokerage and Place-Making on a South African Frontier Yves P.B. Van Leynseele Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor at Wageningen Univeristy by the authority of the Rector Magnificus Prof. dr. M.J. Kropff in the presence of the Thesis Committee appointed by the Academic Board to be defended in public on Tuesday 5 November 2013 at 4 p.m. in the Aula. III Yves P.B. Van Leynseele Landscapes of Deracialization. Power, Brokerage and Place-Making on a South African Frontier, 248 pages PhD thesis, Wageningen University Wageningen, NL (2013) With references, with summaries in English and Dutch ISBN: 978-94-6173-731-1 IV To Pierre V Contents List of figures ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... viii List of acronyms ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... x-xi Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 1 Land restitution as Cultural politics ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Managerial Entitlement and the Privatization of the Responsibility for Development .................................. 9 Space and Landscape ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Place-making: Towards a Networked Account ................................................................................................................................................................. 18 Aim of the Study: Brokerage in Two ‘Status Projects’ of Land Restitution ............................................................................ 21 Methodology: Ethnographies of Opening and Closing Spaces .............................................................................................................. 25 Case Study Sites ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 27 Structure of the Book ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 2 ‘Mother Kranspoort’: Land, Memory and Community ................................................................................................. 31 Setting the Scene ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 35 Place of Exception: The Mission Farm .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 37 Forced Removal and the Political Economy of Dispersal ................................................................................................................................ 42 Rehearsing Repatriation: The Good Friday Movement ....................................................................................................................................... 46 Actualizing Community: The Land Claims Court .......................................................................................................................................................... 49 Representation ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 52 Collective Aspirations and Social Differentiations ....................................................................................................................................................... 55 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 60 Chapter 3 Between Virtuality and Materiality: Kranspoort’s Entangled Landscape ............................................ 65 Territorialization, Mentorship and Entanglement .......................................................................................................................................................... 69 The Land Claims Court and the ‘Current use of the Land’ ......................................................................................................................... 73 The Dual strategy and the Emergent Community–Public–Private Partnership ......................................................... 77 Enacting Environmentalism ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 82 A Knotted Partnership ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 87 Grounding the Land Claim: A Competing Spatiality ................................................................................................................................................ 94 Mining the State .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 100 Conclusion: Geographies of Fear and Hope ........................................................................................................................................................................ 106 Chapter 4 Environmentalism, Whiteness and Defence of Place in the Soutpansberg .................................. 113 White Brokerage and Environmental Politics ..................................................................................................................................................................... 116 Building Bridges and Appropriating Platforms: Early Beginnings of a Liberal Landowner ............................ 120 Emplaced Acts of Preservation: The Hamasha Wilderness Centre for Appropriate Technology and Indigenous Knowledge ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 123 VI ‘Looking at the Bigger Picture’: The Biosphere Reserve Spatial Framework ..................................................................... 125 White Stewardship in the Biosphere Committee: Stepping In and Mapping Out .................................................. 129 Invoking the Biosphere Reserve in Defence of Place ........................................................ ................................................................................. 133 Conclusion: Neo-natures at a racial frontier ........................................................ ............................................................................................................