LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION AND COMMON PROPERTY STRUGGLES IN SOUTH-AFRICA AGRARIAN-REFORM

This study focuses on conflicts over livestock and rangeland resources in post-apartheid South Africa, and suggests that the roots of these struggles lie not only in the skewed distribution of land, but also in the important role of livestock in complex rural livelihood systems a nd in processes of social differentiation. Perspectives from the wider literature on livestock and rangelands in Africa and on common proper ty regimes are brought to bear on the specifics of the South African c ase, and several axes of struggle over common property are identified. Complex interactions between the economic, ecological and political a nd institutional dimensions are explored in two case studies from the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal. These provide general lessons for the political economy of common property resources within South Africa's a grarian reform.