Women, land and authority : perspectives from South Africa edited by Shamin Meer

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Shamim Meer -- Women and tenure : marginality and the left-hand power / Catherine Cross and Michelle Friedman -- Access to land : a rural perspective on tradition and resources / Lisa Thorp -- Women's land rights : a case study from the northern Transvaal / Janet Small -- Cornfields, gender and land / Cherryl Walker -- Women's land rights and needs : the case of Thornhill and Merino Walk / Sue Middleton -- Women, tenure and land reform : the case of Namaqualand's reserves / Fiona Archer and Shamim Meer -- Women on Highveld farms : an outlook for development / Linda Waldman and Mampe Ntsedi -- Western Cape fruit and wine farms: land, labour and housing tenure / Sandra Hill-Lanz and Kathy O'Grady -- Evicted farm workers and gender in the small town of Aberdeen / Bronwyn James and Sibongile Ngcobo.

"The issue of land lies ar the heart of south Africa's democratic transformation, but the extremity of apartheid's racial legacy is in danger of obscuring an equally pervasive oppression : that of women. New initiatives to restore land rights and redistribute colonial landholdings often fail to address women's disadvantage in matters of land. This volume brings together recent research on women by the National Land Committee. It reveals the circumstances of tenure and rights of access to land in a changing South Africa, from the perspective of women. Through several pioneering surveys and case studies, it explores women's attitudes to land and related resources, and examines conditions of housing, labour and subsistence for women. Its compass extends from the former Reserves and "betterment" schemes, to islands of freehold and informal settlements. It includes the circumstances of women on white farmland, from the maize farms of the Highveld to the winelands of the Cape. What emerges is a sharp sense of transition and crisis - and a pressing need for women's organisation, to ensure that development and legislation are informed by the priorities of women, and that South Africa's land question is treated not least as a problem of gender transformation."