Fighting fences and land grabbers in the struggle for the Commons in N≠a Jaqna, Namibia

Abstract

Livestock owners, elites and non-elites alike, from different parts of Namibia fence in land that belongs to the indigenous San people who collectively manage their land as a conservancy. Fencing violates the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002. The conservancy started a lawsuit in August 2013 with reference to this Act to remove the fences and end the illegal occupation of land. The High Court ruled in 2016 in favour of the conservancy, but the fences have not been removed and more illegal settlers have settled in the conservancy. We conceptualize and analyse the act of fencing as land grabbing but argue simultaneously that the legal battle of the conservancy is more than a struggle for justice. The case unfolds as an ontological struggle between actors, their institutions and respective policies and discourses, pivoting on conflicting visions of modernities of (rural) development in Tsumkwe West. The wider significance beyond N≠a Jaqna is that the core of struggles about land and rights in situations of land grabbing is whose modernity counts. The court case has also paved the way for conservancies and other resource communities to become involved in dealing with land issues and contesting the multiple meanings of land.