The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)

08/06/2026

This 🌊, we're highlighting research that puts small-scale fishers at the center of conversations about ocean governance.

This new paper 📊 explores what causes conflict for small-scale fishers while they’re trying to eke out a living and maps out the different forms of conflict that artisanal fishers face across the Global South.

The research found more than 1,000 conflicts over the study period, most of which were verbal disagreements. But because they’re non-violent, it draws less attention, yet they define how the ocean is used, managed, and who benefits from it.

Using 10 years of data across 34 African countries, PLAAS Professors Mafa Hara and Moenieba Isaacs, alongside other researchers, help understand and map out what fair interventions for small-scale fishers could look like.

Read this blog in The Conversation Africa to learn more about what this means, including for South Africa’s blue economy. 🎣 🌍

As ocean uses expand, it will be necessary to reduce disputes because they disrupt the environmental sustainability and equity central to a blue economy.

01/06/2026

What can South Africa learn from Colombia’s land reform programmes? PLAAS researcher Nkanyiso Gumede shares insights in this Food For Mzansi article.

A key lesson he shares is the subdivision of farmland for mixed farming, where families retain autonomy over their own production, while participating in collective commercial production, allowing them to compete better with corporations. We saw this happen on a certain farm during our time at the conference in Cartagena.

This is one of four insights he shares. To learn more, visit:

Examine the challenges of land reform in South Africa and the role of international lessons in addressing land inequality.

18/05/2026

Join us and the DSTI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security (CoE-FS) at the The University of the Western Cape for a public lecture by Cuba Ambassador to South Africa, HE Fakri Rodríguez Pinelo. Through his lecture titled “The current situation in Cuba, and bilateral relations between Cuba and South Africa”, Ambassador HE Rodríguez will reflect on the current social, economic and political context in Cuba and the country's longstanding relationship with South Africa.

🗓️ Wednesday, 20 May 2026
🕜 13h30 – 16h00
📍Library Auditorium, University of the Western Cape, Bellville Campus
RSVP is essential: https://shorturl.at/hrLut

06/05/2026

Students! Solidarity in 2026 has a different look. This is critical conversation tomorrow will delve into what that means for Norway - a key supporter during apartheid and in a context that no longer exists. What is the call for solidarity today?

Join us on campus The University of the Western Cape tomorrow to ask the questions and enjoy a light lunch with us. The speaker line-up is 🔥

Colloquium invitation Solidarity then and now: African and Norwegian perspectives on scholarly collaboration and social justice amid geopolitical change Thursday, 7 May 2026 12:00 to 13:30 (SAST) University of the Western Cape, Bellville Campus Library Auditorium / livestream Lunch will be served af...

04/05/2026

Can solidarity from a moment in history be reimagined for the present geopolitical moment?

Join us for our colloquium on Solidarity then and Now, with a panel of experts from Africa and Norway at The University of the Western Cape. Lunch will be served after the event.

🗓️ Thursday, 7 May 2026
🕛 12:00 to 13:30 (SAST)
📍 University of the Western Cape, Bellville Campus
Library Auditorium / livestream (livestream link will be shared with confirmed RSVPs)
🥙 Lunch will be served after the event
✅ RSVP is necessary (in the link)

Over a long time, partnerships between academic institutions in Norway and across Africa have centred on democracy, governance, and social justice, and increasingly climate justice.

To what extent is this a form of solidarity, and how have partnerships advanced scholarship for social justice and the public good in both countries? What does, and what should, solidarity mean now?

Panel discussion:
A facilitated panel discussion with leading African and Norwegian scholars:

Professor Tor Halvorsen, University of Bergen
Professor Lyn Ossome, Makerere University News
Professor Moenieba Isaacs, PLAAS, The University of the Western Cape
Professor Poul Wisborg, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Mr Siphesihle Mbhele, PLAAS, The University of the Western Cape
Professor James Murombedzi, former head, African Climate Policy Centre, UNECA
Chair: Professor Ruth Hall, The University of the Western Cape

Colloquium invitation Solidarity then and now: African and Norwegian perspectives on scholarly collaboration and social justice amid geopolitical change Thursday, 7 May 2026 12:00 to 13:30 (SAST) University of the Western Cape, Bellville Campus Library Auditorium / livestream Lunch will be served af...

13/04/2026

📢 Happening tomorrow! We hope to see you there!
🗓️ Tuesday, 14 April 2026
🕥 10:30 – 12:30
📍 Edith Stephens Nature Reserve - Govan Mbeki Road, Philippi, Cape Town
✅ RSVP https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe8GmDhFcGXunnS4QjC0P74Vm9d-jYrzw-jWuVi6DNh0l5BtQ/viewform

Urban nature as commons: The case of Cape Town, South Africa Tuesday, 14 April 2026 10:30 – 12:30 Edith Stephens Nature Reserve Govan Mbeki Road, Philippi, Cape Town Location RSVP by 10 April 2026 ‘How do working class urban communities see nature conservation, and how can it be pursued to meet ...

08/04/2026

‘How do working class urban people see nature conservation, and how can it be pursued to meet social justice as well as biodiversity objectives?’ Our new research shows how to think about urban conservation differently.

🚀 RSVP for the launch of our new report on conservation in Cape Town, happening on Tuesday next week.

🗓️ Tuesday, 14 April 2026
🕥10:30 – 12:30
📍 Edith Stephens Nature Reserve - Govan Mbeki Road, Philippi
Location
✅ RSVP by 10 April 2026

Urban nature as commons: The case of Cape Town, South Africa Tuesday, 14 April 2026 10:30 – 12:30 Edith Stephens Nature Reserve Govan Mbeki Road, Philippi, Cape Town Location RSVP by 10 April 2026 ‘How do working class urban communities see nature conservation, and how can it be pursued to meet ...

20/03/2026

🎉 Today, PLAAS celebrates two of our students from The University of the Western Cape!

🎬 PLAAS PhD graduate and Nelson Mandela University senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Dr Mnqobi Ngubane this week won the SAFTA for best documentary short. Based on years of research he's done on labour tenants' land claims, Mathonga Elizwe - Spirits of the Land is a beautiful documentary created with his co-producers Rehad Desai and Anita Khanna and directed by the award-winning Tsogo Kupa and "a film to lay bare the daily struggles of former labour tenants in reclaiming ancestral lands". https://shorturl.at/kuAzf

📚 Next week, our current PhD student Shane Phiri will be in conversation with Dr Dineo Skosana on her new book, "No Last Place to Rest: Coal Mining and Dispossession in South Africa." As we look at unemployment and the state of one of our biggest employment industries, this timely book launch will take place at the Centre for African Studies (University of Cape Town) next Tuesday and will feature Land and Accountability Research Centre (LARC) researcher Thiyane Duda. RSVP via the poster below to attend, or catch it on zoom.

26/02/2026

For Prof Hall, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)'s Status of Land Tenure and Governance report launched yesterday showed there are three concrete steps can take to ensure people live securely on their land and water.

She says that what's needed is not more guidelines. What we need to do is:

#️⃣ advance the Tenure Guidelines and strengthening redistribution, restitution, recognition and regulation;
#️⃣ call on states to strengthen law, policy and implementation, and to promote the Tenure Guidelines;
#️⃣ strengthen reporting and accountability mechanisms; and
#️⃣ invite research institutions and civil society structures and social movements to collaborate to track progress

Read her blog from the discussion yesterday here: https://plaas.org.za/7-things-to-consider-about-the-faos-status-of-land-tenure-and-governance-report-and-3-things-we-can-do-about-it/

Today, Prof Ruth Hall also sits on this high level panel debating what leaders, academia and researchers can do to reach this goal.

The University of the Western Cape

25/02/2026

🌍 Global land tenure statistics: what we now know about who holds which land.

🦶🏾Land tenure is about belonging, identity, cultural values and meanings, all grounded in lived experience and distinct ways of knowing.

📃 It is also about the rules, processes, and institutions that dictate how land is accessed, used, managed, controlled and owned.

🔴 Yet implementing policies on land tenure and governance is still lagging.

🌱This report generates and provides data, evidence and analyses, which contribute to informing and documenting the state of land tenure, land rights and land governance globally.

💻 Watch the launch of the Status of Land Tenure and Governance live at 15:45 UTC-5 (19:45 CAT).

English: https://vimeo.com/event/5748098
French: https://vimeo.com/event/5748104
Spanish: https://vimeo.com/event/5744497
Portuguese: https://vimeo.com/event/5748106

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

24/02/2026

"The land question is one of the great questions of the 21st century. It is the question of who belongs, who owns, who eats, who is safe, & who survives" - Minister Mwanzele Nyhontso at the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development ( ) in Colombia.

We couldn't agree more! The Cartagena Declaration from the second International Academic Conference Land, Life and Society we co-hosted this weekend with the Universidad de Cartagena highlighted 4 Rs: redistribution, recognition, restitution & regulation! Halala! 🌱

Read the full declaration here: https://shorturl.at/DuLhK

Department of Land Reform and Rural Development
The University of the Western Cape

20/02/2026

"We are living in a moment of multiple, overlapping crises. If we do not alter our way of living together and on the earth, we risk destroying humanity and the planet itself. The crises have been in the making for centuries, but accelerating rapidly, and are experienced as conditions of everyday life for the majority of peoples everywhere:
- poverty and hunger are a reality for billions of people (and more every day);
- contaminated and disappearing water supplies;
growing rates of poverty, powerlessness, and hunger;
- an inability to confront the climate crisis, even as scholarly consensus warns of an impending tipping point; and
- degradation of the essential conditions of life (air, water, land, forests).
Increasingly, authoritarian leaders weaponise these crises in exclusionary dispossessions, state-sanctioned violence, and genocide as we see around the world, in Palestine, Sudan, and elsewhere."

The 2nd International Academic Conference Land, Life & Society at University of Cartagena, Colombia, has started with the Cape Town Declaration, written at the International Academic Conference: Land, Life & Society in October 2025 at The University of the Western Cape.
📃 Read the declaration in ENG, SPA, FRA & POR: shorturl.at/zoFP2

18/02/2026

♥️ Territories as the heart of self-determination & life
🌍 A framework rooted in food sovereignty, agroecology & planetary healing
👩🏾‍🌾 Building a feminist agrarian reform & economies of care
👓 A vision for the future
🫄🏾🧑🏾‍🦽👨‍👧 Diverse realities, shared struggles
🌽 Reclaiming & broadening the understanding of agrarian reform & rural development

The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty has released its position ahead of , calling for global transformative agrarian reform grounded in food sovereignty. These are six points on its vision for agrarian reform and rural development. The full paper is available in French, English and Spanish here: https://shorturl.at/oims4

What is it and why are we and The University of the Western Cape here?

The First International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (2006) marked a turning point - it placed just access to land as an essential condition to address hunger, reduce rural poverty, and strengthen peace. Twenty years later: land, water, forests, and oceans are grabbed, concentrated, commodified and degraded at an accelerating rate. Women, youth, Indigenous people, peasants, pastoralists, fishers, agriculture workers and rural people are excluded from their land, livelihoods, and ways of life.

What else does the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty's position paper say?

Seven points on context:
1. Systems of dispossession & inequality
2. Climate breakdown, biodiversity loss & false solutions
3. Conflict, occupation, war & militarisation
4. Digitalisation & new frontiers of control
5. Structural inequalities & state complicity
6. Impacts on people
7. Global politics, radical economic liberalism, fascism

There are 5 proposals and demands for :
1. Acknowledge the root causes of the crisis
2. Commit to structural transformation, not technocratic fixes
3. Implement public policies for agrarian reform & rural development at national levels
4. Integrate agrarian reform & rural development across policies
5. Strong monitoring & accountability mechanisms

Read more and download the full position paper here: https://www.foodsovereignty.org/ipc-releases-its-position-paper-on-agrarian-reform-icarrd/

Journal of Peasant Studies - JPS International Land Coalition Transnational Institute

The IPC urges governments to move beyond voluntary commitments and adopt binding, measurable actions to ensure redistributive agrarian reform

09/02/2026

📢 Putting land redistribution back on the agenda: this Wednesday - don't miss it!
🗓️ Wednesday, 11 February 2026
🕐 13:00 CAT
📍PLAAS or online
Register: https://shorturl.at/rDJ1N

Prof Ian Scoones, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK Wednesday, 11 February 2026 13:00 – 14:00 SAST PLAAS seminar room, 2nd Floor, Jakes Gerwel Hall, UWC Register via Zoom Despite claims of its decline, redistributive land reform remains a key policy issue, particularly as ...

02/02/2026

‼️ Putting redistribution back on the agenda:

Professor Ian Scoones will be hosting a seminar at The University of the Western Cape next week Wednesday, reminding us why redistribution remains the topic of the day in the natural resource sector.

As we approach the Second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) taking place at the end of February, join us for this vital seminar. 👩🏾‍🌾

🗓️ Wednesday, 11 February 2026
🕐 13:00 – 14:00 SAST
📍 PLAAS seminar room, 2nd Floor, Jakes Gerwel Hall, UWC

Register to watch on Zoom in the link below.

Institute of Development Studies

Prof Ian Scoones, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK Wednesday, 11 February 2026 13:00 – 14:00 SAST PLAAS seminar room, 2nd Floor, Jakes Gerwel Hall, UWC Register via Zoom Despite claims of its decline, redistributive land reform remains a key policy issue, particularly as ...

12/01/2026

👩🏾‍🎓 Welcome to 2026! Our renowned Postgraduate Diploma in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at University of the Western Cape is open for 2026 applications.

🗓️ Applications deadline: 31 January 2026
1️⃣ First semester: 23 February to 13 March 2026
2️⃣ Second semester: 20 July to 7 August 2026

Designed for passionate and committed working professionals such as policymakers, planners, managers, and fieldworkers; we're looking forward to welcoming students working in government departments, local government bodies, NGOs, private sector companies, and consultancies. Read more about the programme syllabus and apply via the UWC portal in this link.

Author PLAAS View all posts

09/01/2026

💥 In 2025, PLAAS planned, executed, and thrived. In 2026, we still see the value of our work, creating new knowledge to support more rather than fewer people.

📰 In The Conversation Africa this week, a new journal article by Siviwe Shwababa, Matthew Child, Alta De Vos, Naledi Mneno, and Hayley Clements highlights how land reform in South Africa can expand people's economic opportunities outside of farming alone.

✍🏿 Citing PLAAS's Dr Farai Mtero, Nkanyiso Gumede, and new PLAAS Research Fellow (more on this later) Lerato Thakholi, the recent Land Use Policy journal article shows how new land owners can work in the wildlife economy - if they're supported by government.

👓 Click below to read the blog, and read the the full journal article here: https://shorturl.at/Zn1CI

https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-how-new-landholders-could-prosper-from-wildlife-and-not-just-farming-270986

The University of the Western Cape
Stellenbosch University

Land reform is a key social justice movement across the world, typically focused on agricultural land uses. However, in many parts of the world, land …

09/01/2026

📢 LAST CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Are you our next Professor? We're looking for a Professor or Associate Professor to join PLAAS at University of the Western Cape.

What you'll do:
✍🏿 Conduct research and publish in the field of land and agrarian studies
⚖️ Generate research grants and initiate income-generating projects
🎓 Facilitate learning and teaching
💻 Undertake postgraduate supervision
🗓️ Undertake curriculum development and assessment
👩🏿‍💻 Provide mentorship to emerging scholars
🗣️ Participate in community engagement and outreach
🌱 Contribute to a high public profile for PLAAS nationally and internationally
⭐ Provide academic and administrative leadership
💥 Contribute toward overall organisational efficiency
🙌🏿 Work with a team dedicated to helping marginalised people achieve their goals

Read more about the qualifications and experience we're seeking, and apply through our University's system here:

ApplyAdmission Support ServicesFees & Financial AidUndergraduate AdmissionPostgraduate AdmissionRecognition of Prior LearningInternational Students

09/12/2025

We asked five participants from our special JPS Writeshop Africa how about their learning processes. We followed them through the week, and they explained how they managed to get to level that their journal articles are publishable.