Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape
Abstract
This report documents a study of
the social and economic structure
of cattle ownership and production
in the communal tenure
areas of the Eastern Cape (i.e. the former
Bantustans of Transkei and Ciskei).
The report begins with a review of the
conventional arguments relating to cattle
production systems in communal tenure
areas, i.e. that they are inefficient and
irrational. In seeking to challenge these
pervasive assumptions concerning the way
in which cattle production systems in these
areas apparently work, it is argued, first,
that very little systematic and detailed
knowledge of these systems actually exists
on which to base arguments that have had
considerable impact and, second, that
cattle ownership and production for African
people in the Eastern Cape, quite apart
from its obvious utility and cultural resonance,
has been, for many decades, expressly
about political-economic struggle
against the state and its varied policies,
which have had the effect – if not always
the explicit intention – of the gradual
proletarianisation of the rural population
