We Want What's Ours

Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program

Bernadette Atuahene

Provides a detailed analysis of the South African government's Land Restitution Program, estalished to grant restitution to those whose land was confiscated under colonial rule and apartheid
Investigates potential solutions to the fundamental problems faced by such a program: the lack of physical evidence of previous ownership, disputed property rights, and new owners of the land
Argues that redress for dispossession must take account of the societal consequences of land confiscation, to ensure that victims' visibility is restored
Draws on a series of interviews with over 150 participants in the Land Restitution Program

We Want What's Ours

Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program

Bernadette Atuahene

Description

Millions of people all over the world have been displaced from their homes and property. Dispossessed individuals and communities often lose more than the physical structures they live in and their material belongings, they are also denied their dignity. These are dignity takings, and land dispossessions occurring in South Africa during colonialism and apartheid are quintessential examples. There have been numerous examples of dignity takings throughout the world, but South Africa stands apart because of its unique remedial efforts. The nation has attempted to move beyond the more common step of providing reparations (compensation for physical losses) to instead facilitating dignity restoration, which is a comprehensive remedy that seeks to restore property while also confronting the underlying dehumanization, infantilization, and political exclusion that enabled the injustice. Dignity restoration is the fusion of reparations with restorative justice. In We Want Whats Ours, Bernadette Atuahenes detailed research and interviews with over one hundred and fifty South Africans who participated in the nations land restitution program provide a snapshot of South Africas successes and failures in achieving dignity restoration.

We Want What's Ours is globally relevant because dignity takings have happened all around the world and throughout history: the Nazi confiscation of property from Jews during World War II; the Hutu taking of property from Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide; the widespread commandeering of native peoples property across the globe; and Saddam Husseins seizing of property from the Kurds and others in Iraq are but a few examples. When people are deprived of their property and dignity in years to come, the lessons learned in South Africa can help governments, policy makers, scholars, and international institutions make the transition from reparations to the more robust project of dignity restoration.

We Want What's Ours

Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program

Bernadette Atuahene

Introduction
Part I: Dignity Takings
1:Dignity takings: A Theoretical Framework
2:Dignity Takings: The South African Case
Part II: Dignity Restoration
3:Dignity Restoration: The Importance of Process
4:Dignity Restoration: The Importance of Communication
5:Dignity Restoration: The Importance of Restitution Awards
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Critical Methodology
Appendix 2: Codebook

We Want What's Ours

Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program

Bernadette Atuahene

Author Information

Bernadette Atuahene, Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology

Bernadette Atuahene is a Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, and a faculty fellow at the American Bar Foundation. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and Harvards Kennedy School of Government. She has done extensive research, writing, speaking, and consulting on land issues. We Want Whats Ours is part of a larger body of work that includes a short documentary film called Sifuna Okwethu, which is about one South African familys fight to regain their land stolen by the apartheid authorities; and a curriculum to accompany the film that encourages students to explore how land injustice in South Africa relates to the many injustices they may have witnessed in their own communities. For more information, go to the book website: wewantwhatsours.com

We Want What's Ours

Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program

Bernadette Atuahene

Reviews and Awards

"This book is highly recommended to all those who are interested in transitional justice, land restitution or South Africas post-apartheid experience." - Jonnette Watson Hamilton, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights

"Bernadette Atuahene's We Want What's Ours is a powerful discussion of the impacts - economic, physical, and emotional - that Apartheid-era property dispossessions have had on South Africa's non-white urban dwellers. During that era, government-supported projects proceeded in areas occupied by non-whites with only the most minimal regard for the belongings of the local occupants. Atuahene uses extensive interview material to illuminate the still-raw sensibilities raised by past instances of property loss, as well as the difficulties that post-Apartheid South Africa has had in attempting to provide reparation." - Carol M. Rose, Lohse Professor of Water and Natural Resource Law, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law; Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor Emeritus, Yale Law

"This book contains a detailed description of the steps taken in post-Apartheid South Africa to remedy past deprivations of land by racist colonial and Apartheid regimes. It emphasizes that much more than financial loss is involved. Land deprivation includes also the taking of the dignity of the former owners. If there are to be meaningful reparations, a programme designed to help restore that lost dignity is essential. The author has conducted impressive research and many moving interviews with victims of land deprivation. This book is essential reading for all interested in restorative justice." - Richard Goldstone, Justice of the South African Constitutional Court

"Professor Atuahene's book brings a fresh perspective to analysis of South Africa's land restitution programme. For her analytical framework, she focuses on the right of every person to human dignity. She examines how this was impacted by racial land dispossession under colonialism and apartheid. She then asks whether dignity has been restored through the remedies afforded under the Constitution. The focus of her research is also novel. She concentrates on urban rather than rural racial dispossession. In assessing the impact of the remedies afforded, she provides the results of her ground-breaking research on how claimants' have used and benefitted, in particular, from financial compensation awards." - Alan Dodson, former Judge of the South African Land Claims Court

"This book is a sober and nuanced reflection on the dignitary harms that accompany displacement of a people from their place on earth. Atuahene favors remedies that acknowledge and respond to those harms while revealing the successes and failures of South Africas approach to this problem. Atuahene suggests ways to improve such responses not only in South Africa but in the many places around the world that have suffered dignity takings. A compelling and humane contribution to our understanding of what we owe each other." - Joseph William Singer, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School