https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2550-485X
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ABSTRACT
It is well acknowledged that most African cities are inheritors of colonial systems of administration, legislation, policy and plans. In most of them, this inheritance has not changed, even though it is several decades after gaining independence. As a result, many scholars have tended to overemphasize the influence of the colonizers, precluding an analysis of the ability of indigenous populations to resist, reimagine and remake colonial visions of urban life. Invariably, customary tenure and traditional authority have been treated with some ambivalence in the literature on land in Africa and are often seen respectively as unregulated capital or associated with colonial repression holding back the ability of poor people to prosper. Based on archival and desktop research, this paper examines the ways in which indigenous expressions of urban life have both subverted and been subverted by the British colonial project in Eswatini since the colonial period. The paper argues that while many of the categories and divisions of (settler) colonial rule are still visible in Eswatini, the Swazis have engaged neo-customary practices through kukhonta system centred on the role of the chiefs to reimagine and remake urban life.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Abu-Lughod, “Tale of two cities;” Njoh, “Colonial spatial development policies;” King, Colonial urban development.
2 Watson, “African Urban Fantasies.”
3 De Satgé, and Watson., “African Cities;” 35
4 Monteith, “Markets and monarchs,” 247 (Also see Mbembe and Nuttall, “Writing the World,” 353.
5 Lund and Boone, “Introduction: Land Politics in Africa;” Boone, “Sons of the Soil;” Boone, Legal Empowerment of the Poor.
6 The World Bank, “Agriculture for Development;” De Soto, Mystery of Capital.
7 Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.
8 Simone, City Life from Jakarta to Dakar, 102.
9 Watson, “Seeing from the South,” 2268.
10 Roy, “Slumdog Cities;” Yiftachel, “Theoretical Notes on ‘Gray Cities’.”
11 Bayat, “From ‘Dangerous Classes’ to ‘Quiet Rebels’;” Desai & Sanyal, Urbanizing Citizenship.
12 Goodfellow and Lindemann, “The Clash of Institutions”
13 Englebert, “Patterns and Theories”; Foucher and Smith, “Les aventures ambiguës”; Ubink, Traditional Authorities in Africa.
14 Watson, “Conflicting Rationalities.”
15 Sihlongonyane and Simelane, “The Impact Of Political Dualism.”
16 See Matsebula, “A History of Swaziland;” Simelane, “Landlessness and Imperial Response;” Levin, When the Sleeping Grass Awakens.
17 All SNL is held in trust in perpetuity for the Swazi Nation by His Majesty the King. Under the authority of the King, a chief may allocate a plot of land to a Swazi for his use (i.e., to live on, farm, etc.), but no actual transfer of land ownership occurs. Under this system, no individual Swazi may sell the land.
18 See Hughes, “Some Swazi View on Land Tenure;” Rose, The Politics of Harmony; Mkhabela, “Impact of Land Tenure Systems on Land Conflicts.”
19 Kukhonta refers to a process whereby newcomers apply to a local chiefdom to get access to land and pay a cow or equivalent to settle as well as give allegiance to the local chief.
20 Yiftachel, “Critical Theory and ‘Gray Space’.”
21 Hesselbein, et al., “Economic and Political Foundations of State Making,” 1.
22 see Whittington, “Towards Urban Development;” Miles-Mafafo, “Fantasies of Development and Housing Provision”; Simelane, “Urban Land Management and its Discontents.”
23 See Rosen-Prinz, “Urbanisation and Political Change;” Mkhonta, “Local Government in Swaziland;” Simelane, “The Interplay of Urban Land Tenurial Systems.”
24 See Sihlongonyane, “Development Planning in Swaziland”; Sihlongonyane and Simelane, “The Impact of Political Dualism.”
25 See Hoek-Smit, Housing Markets in Swaziland; Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, HABITAT II Report; World Bank, Upgrading Low Income; Lowsby and De Groot, A Brief History of Urban Development.
26 See Whittington, “Towards Urban Development;” Rosen-Prinz, “Urbanisation and Political Change”; Lea, “Underlying Determinants of Housing Location;” DeGroot, Urbanization in Swaziland; Wilsenach, “The Provision of Urban Housing;” Miles-Mafafo, “Fantasies of Development.”
27 African Planning Association, The State of Planning in Africa.
28 Crush, “The Colonial Division of Space.”
29 Unwin and Grant, Swaziland.
30 Potholm, Swaziland: The Dynamics of Political Change.
31 Crush, “The Colonial Division of Space.”
32 Thompson, Mbabane into the Millennium.
33 Crush, “The Colonial Division of Space”
34 Ibid.
35 Hailey, Native Administration; Youé, “Imperial Land Policy;” Bonner, Kings, Commoners, and Concessionaires.
36 Crush, “The Colonial Division of Space.”
37 Scott, “Land Policy and the Native Population.”
38 Vieceli, “Swaziland After Sobhuza,” 57.
39 Authority of a sub-region of a chiefdom.
40 Youé, “Imperial Land Policy”; Temu, History of Manzini 1885–1990.
41 Bonner, Kings, Commoners, and Concessionaires.
42 Simelane, “Landlessness and Imperial Response; Macmillan, “Swaziland: Decolonisation”
43 Fransman, The Colonial State and the Land Question.
44 Crush, “The Colonial Division of Space.”
45 Crush, “Landlords, Tenants and Colonial Social Engineers.”
46 Macmillan, “Decolonisation and the Triumph of Tradition,” 646.
47 Ibid., 641.
48 Rosen-Prinz, “Urbanisation and Political Change,” 88–89
49 Crush, “Landlords, Tenants and Colonial Social Engineers.”
50 Rosen-Prinz, “Urbanisation and Political Change.”
51 King, “Exporting ‘Planning’,” 15.
52 Rosen-Prinz, “Urbanisation and Political Change,” 88–89.
53 Booth, Swaziland: Tradition and Change; Levin, When the Sleeping Grass Awakens.
54 Kuper, Sobhuza II.
55 Temu, History of Manzini.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid., 40.
58 Daniel, “The Political Economy.”
59 Harris and Parnell, “The Turning Point in Urban Policy.”
60 Daniel, “The Political Economy,” 95.
61 Temu, History of Manzini.
62 Daniel, “The Political Economy.”
63 Fair et al., Development in Swaziland.
64 Ibid.
65 Miles-Mafafo, “Fantasies of Development,” 110.
66 Lea, Squatting as an Epiphenomenon.
67 Rosen-Prinz, “Urbanisation and Political Change.”
68 Miles-Mafafo, “Fantasies of Development and Housing.”
69 Lowsby and De Groot, A Brief History.
70 Forster and Nsibande, Swaziland: Contemporary Social and Economic Issues.
71 Ibid.
72 Lea, “Underlying Determinants.”
73 Sihlongonyane and Simelane, “The Impact of Political Dualism.”
74 Kusno, “Urban Pedagogy”
75 Macmillan, “Decolonisation and the Triumph of Tradition,” 646.
76 Mkhonta, “Local government in Swaziland.”
77 DeGroot, Urbanization in Swaziland.
78 World Bank, Report No. 12753-SW.
79 Simelane, “The State, Landlords, and the Squatter Problem.”
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid., 337.
83 Wilsenach, “The Provision of Urban Housing.”
84 Pile et al., Unruly Cities.
85 Watson, “Conflicting Rationalities,” 395.
86 Lowsby and De Groot, A Brief History, 9.
87 Ibid.
88 World Bank, Upgrading Low Income.
89 Wilsenach, “The Provision of Urban Housing.”
90 See Miles, “Women’s Groups and Urban Poverty;” Davies and Dlamini, The Kingdom of Swaziland.
91 Rogerson, “Regional Development Polity”; Rogerson, “Beyond Racial Fordism.”
92 Miles-Mafafo, “Fantasies of Development.”
93 The concept of Tinkhundla is used in two different ways: as a political ideological system and to refer to the local councils as a form of local government. One Inkhundla is constituted by two to seven chiefdoms (depending on size) and there are 55 Tinkhundla currently.
94 Simelane, “The Evolution of the Swazi Electoral Process.”
95 Mkhonta, Local government in Swaziland, 116.
96 Ibid.
97 Kuehnast, Reframing the Issues.
98 See Durand-Lasserve, Can Neo-customary Land Delivery Systems.
99 See Hickel, “Neoliberal Plague,” 513–29.
100 Riddell, “Things Fall Apart Again”
101 Daniel and Vilane, “Swaziland: Political Crisis”; Levin, When the Sleeping Grass.
102 Ibid.
103 Booth, A Historical Dictionary.
104 Todes and Turok, “Satellite Settlement on the Spatial Periphery.”
105 World Bank, World Development Report 2009.
106 Ibid.
107 Hall, Local Government Workshop.
108 Lowsby and De Groot, A Brief History.
109 MHUD, Habitat II.
110 MHUD, Urban Government Act 1969 (No. 8 of 1969).
111 The World Bank, Upgrading Low Income.
112 Mattingly, Housing the Poor.
113 Rakodi and Leduka, Informal Land Delivery Process.
114 Goodfellow and Lindemann, “The Clash of Institutions,” 3.
115 Sihlongonyane and Simelane, “The Impact of Political Dualism.”
116 Yiftachel, “Critical Theory and ‘Gray Space.’”
117 Ibid.
118 Hesselbein et al., Economic and Political Foundations of State, 1
119 MHUD, Strategy Paper, 7.
120 Marks, “Structural Policy and Multilevel Governance,” 392.
121 Bache and Flinders, “Themes and Issues,” 3.
122 see also Mukhtarov and Daniell, “Diffusion, Adaptation and Translation.”
123 The World Bank, Upgrading Low Income.
124 Todes and Turok, “Spatial Inequalities and Policies.”
125 Ibid.
126 Nikoi, “Reframing the Issues.”
127 Lowsby and De Groot, A Brief History, 15.
128 Ibid., 16.
129 Ibid., 36.
130 World Bank, “Integrated Safeguads Data Sheet”
131 Englebert, “Patterns and Theories;” Foucher and Smith, “The Ambiguous Adventures;” Ubink, Traditional Authorities in Africa.
132 Goodfellow and Lindemann, “The Clash of Institutions,” 3.
133 Torfing et al., Interactive Governance.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane is a professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has been the Alternate Chair of the South African Planning Council (2013–2017). His research encompasses principally the interface between development Planning and urban studies largely within the context of the poignant dynamics of the political economy in Africa. His main research interests include: African city and African Urbanisms, Dynamics of Globalisation and Local Economic development, Urban change and the political and cultural economy, Traditional Leadership, theories and Discourses of Urbanisation.