Abstract of my thesis

I finished writing my thesis in the summer, after some struggling, some nightshifts and all the pleasureful moments when inspiration strikes. Here is the executive summary:


In this thesis I analyse how rural Basotho in the Butha-Buthe district, Lesotho, claim and use land in relation to their local state institutions and a transfrontier conservation area, the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation and Development Project (MDTP). The land claims and uses of rural Basotho are mainly based on their subsistence lifestyle. Land is claimed for agriculture, grazing and residential sites. Besides this they have places that are invested with cultural meaning, e.g. spiritual sites.

It is these claims and uses that are partly contested by the MDTP. The MDTP is a joint project of Lesotho and South Africa with the objectives of biodiversity conservation and economic development of the local population through nature-based tourism across their state borders. Conservation is promoted as land use option through which nature-based tourism as livelihood strategy can emerge. Notwithstanding its intention, I argue that the MDTP zones land to influence and affect the people’s land use. Mapping is an important tool as are pilot project areas, both elements of a process of territorialisation.

The local state is marked by an extended period of unclear jurisdiction and a vacuum in local governance. The election of Community Councils in 2005 was meant to close this gap. These Community Councils claim the right to natural resource management, including the allocation of land and the restriction of its use, in competition with traditional structures. The MDTP strengthens the elected body, mainly by the creation of another, more local advisory body, thus effectively enhancing the presence of the state in the villages. Notwithstanding this standardisation of local land administration, both elected bodies do cooperate with the traditional structure, which has retained much practical power among the local population.

The rural Basotho interact in a variety of patterns with both the state and the MDTP. In the interaction with the local state institutions, the rural Basotho utilise the competing jurisdiction to shop for the appropriate procedure and forum to realise their own end. The interaction with the MDTP takes place as disregard (unawareness and refusal), instrumentalisation, commitment and protest. It is through these patterns of interaction as well as the shopping behaviour that the Basotho claim their agency. They interpret and evaluate what is presented to them by the MDTP and the state against their life projects and livelihood options and then interact via the patterns outlined.

In a wider context, I conclude that development and conservation projects are an alien, external agenda, far removed from people’s culturally and historically constituted life projects. Therefore most of the interaction tends to be in a disregard and instrumentalisation pattern. While promoting community participation, the MDTP is strengthening the state rather than the local population through the creation of new state institutions, leading to a higher state infiltration in spite of a participation and empowerment rhetoric. Further the perception of the current situation in ‘development countries’ is informed by outside agendas, resulting in the application of uniform solutions, such as decentralisation and nature-based tourism. The thesis points to the negotiation that these solutions have to undergo in the local context.