A Contested Commons: Competition for Public Land in the Free State

This paper traces the history of the ‘Butleng’ commonage in the Free State, South Africa. Commonage is municipally owned land available for public use. The post-apartheid government provided grants for the purchase of commonage to assist poor township residents and to provide a ‘stepping stone’ for emerging Black farmers. This article outlines how plans for collective control and use of the commonage have been overwhelmed by individual accumulation strategies, which illustrate tensions within the township, notably class differentiation and gendered claims to economic resources. An emerging township elite, centred on the batho ba sebeletsang mmuso (those who work for government), quickly prevailed over attempts by the baruri ba kgale (old rich/influential) township residents and White officials to implement a managed commonage programme. Plans for managed grazing were scuppered when fences across much of the area were cut, allowing uncontrolled access. Competition for land saw women pushed aside, with land allocated for horticultural projects overrun by cattle owners. An occupation of commonage land for stands (allocated spaces for residential buildings), primarily by backyard shack dwellers, posed a direct challenge to the authority of the African National Congress-run municipality and the squatters were evicted. Some parts of the commonage have, for complex reasons, remained fenced and are therefore assets available for individual farming. Attempts to maintain public control over these fields or camps have also failed, with occupational titles/rights opaque and linked to connections within the local state. The failure to manage or develop the commonage collectively has resulted in a process of creeping privatisation. Attempts to democratically organise communities for sustainable development have proved no match for individualistic accumulation strategies championed by interest groups formed around new configurations of power. The article underlines how the transformation of South African society, including land reform, needs to take cognisance of the sociological terrain.