Land reform, knowledge systems, and the reconfiguration of work and livelihoods in Southern Africa

Abstract

Land reform in Southern Africa is often framed narrowly as a redistributive tool to correct historical dispossession. This article advances a decolonial political economy perspective that conceptualizes land reform as structural reconfiguration across three interlinked domains: labor regimes, livelihood systems, and knowledge/epistemic orders. Using an integrative, theory-informed review of peer-reviewed scholarship and selected policy texts, the study synthesizes literature on land reform trajectories, colonial and post-colonial tenure systems, agrarian change, Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), and conservation and planning regimes in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Mozambique. The analysis shows that contemporary land reforms operate within enduring colonial land and conservation ideologies, frequently deracialising ownership while reproducing paternalistic state control and hierarchical tenure forms. These reforms generate fragmented classes of labor and hybrid, precarious livelihood portfolios rather than secure agrarian livelihoods. At the same time, land and conservation policies continue to privilege Euro-modern epistemologies and “fortress” conservation, marginalizing indigenous knowledge and communal ontologies, although decolonial and IKS-oriented practices in communal landholding and policy reform reveal countervailing possibilities. The article argues that redistribution without concurrent transformation of labor regimes and knowledge systems risks entrenching the “colonial present.” A conceptual framework is proposed that links land, labor, livelihoods and knowledge to dimensions of agrarian and epistemic justice, and a research and policy agenda is outlined to align land reform with decolonisation, livelihood sustainability and just transitions in Southern Africa.

1 Introduction

Land reform in Southern Africa has long been framed as a redistributive response to the legacies of colonial land dispossession, racialised agrarian dualism, and deep rural poverty. In former settler colonies such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, colonial conquest entrenched large-scale expropriation of indigenous lands, concentration of fertile land in the hands of a white minority, and the relegation of African populations to crowded reserves or marginal lands (Goebel, 2005; Mseba, 2018; Tong, 2014). Post-independence land policies have been charged with addressing these injustices while simultaneously advancing economic development and social stability (Chipenda, 2024; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024).

Despite strong normative commitments, outcomes have been deeply ambivalent. In South Africa, the pace and character of land redistribution have fallen far short of official targets, with only a small fraction of land transferred and persistent rural inequality (Gumede, 2014; Mthembu, 2019; Shiba et al., 2025; Tong, 2014). Kepe and Hall (2018) argue that the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy, which keeps the state as landowner and leases land to beneficiaries, reproduces paternalistic relations that echo apartheid and represents a “colonial present” rather than substantive decolonisation. In Zimbabwe, fast-track land reform radically altered agrarian structures but generated new forms of exclusion, political patronage and economic dislocation, even as it opened possibilities for agrarian welfare and livelihood reconstruction (Aliber and Cousins, 2013; Chipenda, 2024; Goebel, 2005; Moyo, 2011; Mseba, 2018).

At the same time, scholarship on land, conservation and governance has foregrounded the persistence of colonial land ideologies and legal frameworks. Colonial and postcolonial states have frequently privileged individualized, registered ownership, cultivation, and “fortress” conservation over collective tenure and customary practices, often criminalizing or displacing indigenous communities (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Doumbia, 2020; Pereira, 2023). These regimes are underpinned by epistemic hierarchies that view indigenous land uses and knowledges as backward or illegible, justifying interventions in the name of development, environmental protection, or “good” governance (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Pereira, 2023).

Parallel debates in IKS and decolonisation of knowledge highlight that colonial domination was as much epistemic as territorial. African indigenous knowledges sustained societies for centuries prior to colonization, yet were systematically devalued and marginalized within colonial and postcolonial institutions (Ayeni and Aborisade, 2021; Emeagwali, 2020; Mapara, 2009). Recent work underscores how African IKS remain central to ecological sustainability, livelihood practices, and alternative visions of development, even as they confront ongoing pressures from globalization, cultural homogenisation, and digitisation (Ayeni and Aborisade, 2021; Chirima, 2025). In South Africa, policy and legal frameworks for protecting indigenous knowledge have expanded, but their implementation raises complex questions about ownership, benefit-sharing, and the risk of re-inscribing top-down, state-centric control (Masenya, 2022).

Decolonial scholarship provides a critical language for analyzing these dynamics. Ndlovu-Gatsheni's work on the “coloniality of power” emphasizes how formal decolonisation often leaves intact deeper structures of political, economic, and epistemic domination (Kepe and Hall, 2018). From this perspective, land reform that focuses narrowly on deracialising ownership without transforming labor regimes, livelihood systems, and knowledge hierarchies risks reproducing colonial logics under new guises (Kenjio, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018). Similar arguments appear in analyses of land governance initiatives such as the African Union's NELGA network, where statutory land codes derived from colonial legislation continue to conflict with local norms and customary regulations (Doumbia, 2020; Lawry et al., 2023).

Recent contributions extend decoloniality into spatial planning and communal tenure. Winkler (2023) shows how communal landholdings in southern Africa, governed by traditional leaders and living customary law, can embody grounded relationality and non-occidental ontologies, while also harboring internal power asymmetries and poverty. Huizenga (2018) demonstrates that Aboriginal title and indigenous rights in South Africa's restitution programme are not simply constrained by colonial legal regimes; they are co-constituted through litigation, social activism, and living customary law in ways that sometimes expand space for indigenous agency.

Against this background, there is a need for a conceptualization of land reform in Southern Africa that moves beyond a narrow redistributive lens. This article advances a decolonial political economy perspective that understands land reform as a process of structural reconfiguration encompassing labor regimes, livelihood systems, and knowledge production. It asks:

• How have land reforms in Southern Africa's former settler colonies reconfigured work and livelihoods, particularly in relation to class formation, gendered social reproduction, and rural welfare?

• In what ways do land policies and related governance frameworks reproduce or challenge epistemic hierarchies between dominant and indigenous knowledge systems?

• How might land reform be aligned with broader processes of decolonisation, livelihood sustainability, and just transitions?

The article develops a conceptual framework that links land redistribution to transformations in labor and knowledge systems, drawing on scholarship on land reform trajectories, transformative social policy, decoloniality, indigenous knowledge systems, and land governance (Chipenda, 2024; Doumbia, 2020; Kenjio, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018; Masenya, 2022). By synthesizing these literatures, it seeks to reframe land reform debates in Southern Africa through the intertwined prisms of agrarian and epistemic justice.

2 Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework integrates three strands: (1) decoloniality and the coloniality of power; (2) agrarian political economy and land reform in former settler colonies; and (3) epistemic justice and indigenous knowledge systems. Collectively, these provide the basis for conceptualizing land reform as structural reconfiguration of labor, livelihoods, and knowledge.

2.1 Decoloniality and the coloniality of power

Decolonial theory distinguishes between formal decolonisation—changes in juridical sovereignty—and the enduring “coloniality of power,” in which racialised hierarchies, capitalist accumulation, and Eurocentric knowledge regimes persist after independence. Drawing on Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018) argue that South Africa's celebration of liberal democracy and nominal land reform can be seen as a move from “global colonialism” to “global coloniality,” in which invisible hierarchies of political, economic and epistemic power remain largely intact. Decolonisation, in this sense, requires more than the transfer of title; it entails the dismantling of colonial structures embedded in land tenure, labor relations, conservation paradigms, and knowledge production. Domínguez and Luoma (2020) show how “fortress” conservation models, rooted in European land ideologies, continue to justify the displacement and criminalization of indigenous communities in Africa and Asia. These models rest on assumptions about individualized ownership, cultivation, and wilderness that marginalize indigenous ontologies and land-use practices. Doumbia (2020) similarly highlights how Mali's state land code, shaped by colonial legislation and postcolonial centralization, fails to recognize community-based land regulations, prompting calls for decolonisation of higher education and land governance.

Decoloniality, as developed by Winkler (2023), also includes grounded normativity and grounded relationality: ethical and spatial practices rooted in indigenous systems of thought that challenge occidental planning frameworks. Communal landholdings in southern Africa reveal both the potential of such grounded practices and the persistence of internal inequalities and patriarchal power, underscoring that decoloniality is a contested, incomplete project rather than a finished state (Winkler, 2023). Within this article, decoloniality is used to interrogate how land reforms either unsettle or reproduce colonial formations in three domains: ownership and tenure, state–community relations, and the recognition of indigenous authority and knowledge. It posits that redistribution without decolonisation of these deeper structures risks “recolonisation” in practice (Kenjio, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018).

2.2 Agrarian political economy and land reform

A second pillar is agrarian political economy, which situates land reform within broader dynamics of class formation, labor regimes, and state–capital relations. In Southern Africa's former settler colonies, land is not only a productive asset but also a terrain of political struggle and social reproduction (Mseba, 2018; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Land policies shape the trajectories of agrarian and non-agrarian classes, including commercial farmers, smallholders, farmworkers, and urban–rural migrants. Comparative work emphasizes that South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia have followed distinct trajectories of reform, yet all contend with the legacies of settler colonialism and high expectations of post-independence redress (Mseba, 2018; Tong, 2014). Zimbabwe's fast-track land reform restructured ownership on a massive scale but was marked by violence, politicization, and uneven support, with significant economic disruption (Goebel, 2005; Mseba, 2018). In South Africa, by contrast, the combination of constitutional protections, market-based instruments, and later state-lease models has produced slow, often elite-biased redistribution (Gumede, 2014; Kepe and Hall, 2018; Mthembu, 2019).

Kepe and Hall (2018) analyse the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy as a case where the state's retention of ownership and discretionary allocation practices reproduce paternalistic power relations, undermining beneficiaries' autonomy and entrenching the “colonial present.” Kenjio (2020) review of land tenure in Sub-Saharan Africa shows how colonial land regimes—dual systems separating statutory and customary tenure, prioritizing registered individual title, and facilitating “appropriation of wasteland”—continue to shape contemporary reforms. These analyses foreground the ways in which land reform can deracialise ownership while leaving capitalist agrarian structures and labor exploitation intact. Chipenda (2024) introduces a transformative social policy (TSP) perspective into agrarian debates. TSP conceptualizes social policy as encompassing production, reproduction, protection, redistribution, and social cohesion, and emphasizes the transformative potential of policies that enhance human capabilities and reshape social relations. Using empirical evidence from Zimbabwe, Chipenda argues that land reform can function as an agrarian welfare regime, strengthening resilience and wellbeing when beneficiaries have meaningful access to land and supportive institutions. This broadens the analysis of land reform beyond production and growth to include welfare, social protection, and reproductive labor. For this article, agrarian political economy and TSP together underpin the conceptualization of land reform as structural reconfiguration of labor and livelihoods. Land policies are read not only in terms of hectares transferred but also in terms of their effects on classes of labor, gendered divisions of work, rural–urban linkages, and agrarian welfare.

2.3 Epistemic justice and indigenous knowledge systems

The third strand centers epistemic justice and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. African indigenous knowledges constitute long-standing, trans-generational systems embedded in cultures, ecologies and livelihoods (Ayeni and Aborisade, 2021; Emeagwali, 2020). They encompass ecological management, agronomy, health, social organization and spirituality, and historically underpinned sustainable relationships with land. Colonial and postcolonial regimes devalued these knowledges, elevating Western epistemologies as universal and relegating indigenous knowledge to the realm of “tradition” or folklore (Emeagwali, 2020; Mapara, 2009). Mapara (2009) frames IKS as a movement against both colonialism and neo-colonialism, in which formerly colonized peoples assert their visibility and identity through reclaiming and developing their own knowledge systems. African IKS are presented not merely as cultural heritage but as critical resources for addressing contemporary crises such as environmental degradation and climate change, which are linked to Western extractivist practices (Ayeni and Aborisade, 2021; Mapara, 2009). Emeagwali (2020) similarly highlights the implications of IKS for curriculum, development strategies, employment generation, and endogenous growth.

In South Africa, Masenya (2022) examines the impact of policy and protocols on the protection of indigenous knowledge. Using decolonial theory and knowledge ontology frameworks, she analyses how state-led initiatives seek to protect and preserve IKS while often relying on documentation, codification and intellectual property regimes that may be misaligned with communal, oral, and relational modes of knowledge transmission. The study recommends decolonising IKS through collaborative approaches with knowledge holders and communities, emphasizing benefit-sharing, accessibility, and respect for indigenous ontologies (Masenya, 2022). The governance of land and knowledge intersects in initiatives such as NELGA, where universities and research institutions aim to strengthen land governance capacities while grappling with the disjuncture between statutory land codes and local norms (Doumbia, 2020). Doumbia shows how efforts to decolonise land governance through higher education confront the endurance of colonial legal frameworks and the marginalization of endogenous knowledge about land regulation.

In this framework, epistemic justice is not an add-on to agrarian justice but one of its constitutive conditions. Decolonial land reform must address whose knowledge counts in defining land rights, tenure forms, “productive” uses, and conservation strategies. It must also confront the risk that IKS are selectively appropriated or instrumentalised within state and market projects, rather than being recognized as autonomous knowledge systems with their own criteria of validity (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Mapara, 2009; Masenya, 2022).

2.4 Land reform as structural reconfiguration

Bringing these strands together, the article conceptualizes land reform in Southern Africa as a process of structural reconfiguration across three interrelated domains:

• Ownership and governance of land, where decoloniality and agrarian political economy illuminate how reforms redistribute or recentralise control, and how they navigate the tension between statutory and customary systems (Doumbia, 2020; Huizenga, 2018; Kenjio, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018).

• Labor and livelihoods, where agrarian political economy and TSP highlight the formation of classes of labor, agrarian welfare regimes, and the gendered organization of work and social reproduction (Chipenda, 2024; Mseba, 2018; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024).

• Knowledge and epistemic orders, where decoloniality and IKS scholarship expose how policies and institutions recognize, appropriate, or marginalize indigenous knowledges in land use, conservation, and governance (Ayeni and Aborisade, 2021; Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Emeagwali, 2020; Mapara, 2009; Masenya, 2022).

This integrated framework guides the subsequent analysis by asking, for any given trajectory of land reform in Southern Africa, not only who gains access to land, but also what kinds of work and livelihoods become possible, and which knowledge systems are authorized to define and govern that transformation.

3 Methodology

3.1 Review design

This study employed an integrative, theory-informed literature review to develop a conceptual framework linking land reform, labor regimes, livelihood systems, and knowledge/epistemic orders in Southern Africa. An integrative review design was appropriate because the evidence base spans heterogeneous forms of scholarship, including empirical studies, conceptual and theoretical works, legal and policy analyses, and selected institutional texts (Masenya, 2022). Unlike meta-analyses, which synthesize relatively homogeneous intervention studies, integrative reviews are specifically designed to combine diverse forms of evidence in order to generate conceptual insights, identify analytical tensions, and advance theory. The review was therefore structured to support conceptual synthesis and theory building while maintaining methodological transparency through a systematic search, screening, and selection process informed by the PRISMA 2020 reporting framework.

3.2 Review scope and questions

The review focused on Southern Africa, with particular attention to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Namibia. Studies from other sub-Saharan African contexts were included where they offered relevant comparative or theoretical insight into land tenure, agrarian transformation, decolonisation, Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), and epistemic justice. The review was guided by three interrelated questions: (1) How have land reform and land-tenure reforms reconfigured work and livelihoods? (2) How do these reforms intersect with knowledge systems and epistemic hierarchies? and (3) Under what conditions do redistributive reforms contribute to, or undermine, decolonial and just livelihood transitions?

3.3 Search strategy and sources

A structured literature search was conducted between January and March 2026 across Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and African Journals Online (AJOL). Search strings combined terms related to land reform, agrarian change, labor, livelihoods, decolonisation, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, epistemic justice, and conservation. Core search terms included “land reform,” “land redistribution,” “land tenure,” “agrarian reform,” “decolonisation,” “decoloniality,” “indigenous knowledge systems,” “epistemic justice,” “Southern Africa,” “South Africa,” “Zimbabwe,” “Mozambique,” “Namibia,” “livelihoods,” “labor,” “customary tenure,” and “fortress conservation.” Boolean operators and syntax were adapted to the requirements of each database. Google Scholar was used as a supplementary source because relevant African scholarship, policy analyses, and decolonial literature are not always comprehensively indexed in commercial databases. In addition to database searching, purposive retrieval was used to identify policy and legal texts, institutional publications, and studies located through backward citation tracking when these provided essential historical, legal, or conceptual context. The database search yielded 280 records, comprising Scopus (n = 86), Web of Science (n = 64), Google Scholar (n = 103), and AJOL (n = 27). Purposive searching identified an additional 15 records. In total, 295 records were identified before duplicate removal.

3.4 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Sources were eligible for inclusion if they made a substantive contribution to at least one of the review questions and were clearly relevant to the relationship between land reform, livelihoods, and knowledge systems. Eligible studies addressed land reform, land redistribution, land-tenure reform, agrarian change, customary tenure, conservation governance, or related land questions in Southern Africa or closely connected sub-Saharan African contexts. Studies were also included when they examined labor, livelihoods, social differentiation, welfare, class formation, gendered social reproduction, or rural transformation in relation to land, or when they analyzed Indigenous Knowledge Systems, decolonization, epistemic justice, customary governance, or knowledge politics relevant to land, territory, conservation, or environmental governance. The corpus included peer-reviewed journal articles, scholarly books and book chapters, legal and policy texts, and high-quality institutional reports. Sources were excluded if they were purely technical or agronomic and lacked a socio-political, livelihood, or epistemic dimension; if they addressed decolonization, IKS, or conservation without a clear relationship to land, territory, or governance; if they were opinion pieces lacking empirical, historical, legal, or conceptual rigor; or if they were methodological and research-writing texts consulted only to inform the structure of the review rather than included in the substantive synthesis.

3.5 Screening and selection

After duplicate removal, 228 unique records remained for title and abstract screening. At this stage, 162 records were excluded because they did not meet the substantive scope of the review. The remaining 66 full-text records were assessed for eligibility. Twenty-three of these were excluded because they did not contribute sufficiently to the four core analytical domains of the review: land and tenure, labor and livelihoods, knowledge and epistemic orders, and justice and transition. The final review corpus comprised 43 studies and documents included in the integrative synthesis. Because the review was theory-informed rather than statistical, inclusion decisions were based not only on topical relevance but also on each source's conceptual contribution to the emerging analytical framework. The final corpus was used to identify convergences, contradictions, and underdeveloped linkages across land reform trajectories, agrarian labor and livelihood formations, knowledge systems, conservation and planning regimes, and justice claims. The study selection process is summarized in Figure 1. The diagram reports the number of records identified, screened, assessed for eligibility, excluded, and included in the final integrative synthesis.

Figure 1

All studies cited in Table 2 and Section 6 were among the 43 records that met the eligibility criteria; they are not an additional post-screening evidence set. Purposively retrieved records were assessed against the same inclusion and exclusion criteria and, when included, were counted once in the PRISMA totals. Table 2 and Section 6 use selected corpus studies for comparative and theory-building purposes, whereas Sections 4.1-4.4 present the principal thematic synthesis.

3.6 Data extraction and analytical strategy

A structured extraction matrix was developed to capture the bibliographic details of each source, its country or regional focus, source type, methodological orientation, substantive emphasis, and contribution to the conceptual framework. Particular attention was paid to how each study addressed land and tenure arrangements, labor and livelihood dynamics, knowledge systems, and justice claims. The extraction process was iterative. Initial coding categories were derived from the review questions and theoretical framework, while subsequent rounds of coding refined categories and relationships that emerged inductively from the literature. Each included source was coded across four analytical domains. The first domain focused on land and tenure configurations, including colonial legacies, redistribution, restitution, customary tenure, statutory tenure, communal landholding, private property, and conservation-related dispossession (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Kenjio, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018; Pereira, 2023). The second addressed labor and livelihood systems, including farm labor, wage work, informal work, hybrid livelihood portfolios, gendered social reproduction, vulnerability, resilience, and agrarian welfare (Goebel, 2005; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). The third examined knowledge and epistemic orders, including Indigenous Knowledge Systems, decolonial knowledge politics, technocratic expertise, environmental knowledge, conservation knowledge, and planning epistemologies (Mapara, 2009; Masenya, 2022; Winkler, 2023). The fourth considered justice and transition dimensions, including distributive, procedural, recognitional, epistemic, ecological, and intergenerational justice, as well as the concepts of the colonial present, recolonization, and just transitions (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018). The analysis used thematic synthesis and conceptual integration rather than statistical aggregation. Analytical memos and cross-case comparisons were used to identify recurrent patterns, conceptual tensions, and underdeveloped linkages. The purpose of the synthesis was not to estimate effect sizes or rank interventions, but to develop an explanatory framework showing how land, labor, livelihoods, and knowledge systems co-constitute reform outcomes.

Where the synthesis extends beyond claims explicitly established by the included studies, the relevant passage is identified as an interpretive extension and the evidentiary limitation is stated at the point of interpretation.

3.7 Quality appraisal and bias considerations

Quality appraisal was conducted using criteria of relevance, credibility, and conceptual contribution appropriate to an interdisciplinary integrative review. Empirical studies were assessed for the clarity of their research design, the adequacy of their evidence, their contextual specificity, and the coherence between claims and findings. Conceptual and theoretical works were assessed for analytical rigor, relevance to the review questions, and contribution to the development of the framework. Policy and institutional texts were used primarily for contextual and legal interpretation and were not treated as equivalent to peer-reviewed empirical evidence. Several limitations were recognized during appraisal and synthesis. The corpus is shaped by English-language availability and uneven database indexing of African scholarship. South Africa and Zimbabwe are more strongly represented than some other Southern African contexts, while francophone and lusophone scholarship is likely underrepresented. The review also integrates sources that differ in epistemological orientation, methodological design, and evidentiary standards. To mitigate these limitations, claims were triangulated across multiple bodies of literature, and findings from single-country studies were not generalized to the region unless supported by comparative or theoretical evidence.

The geographic distribution of the corpus was uneven. Three of the 44 included sources addressed Mozambique directly or comparatively: Kenjio (2020); Hull et al. (2019); and Kachena and Spiegel (2023). All three were published in English. Kenjio and Hull et al. provide review or comparative analyses, whereas Kachena and Spiegel report primary ethnographic research in the Chimanimani transfrontier area on the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border. The Mozambique synthesis therefore relies substantially on English-language scholarship and has limited direct engagement with Portuguese-language research. Table 1 depicts the inclusion, exclusion, and analytical coding framework.

4 Results/findings

The findings are organized into four interrelated themes reflecting the code domains: (1) coloniality of land and tenure; (2) reconfigured labor and hybrid livelihoods; (3) knowledge systems and epistemic hierarchies; and (4) justice, (re)colonization, and just transitions.

4.1 Coloniality of land, tenure, and reform trajectories

Across Southern Africa, colonial land regimes established enduring patterns of racialised dispossession and hierarchical tenure that persist in “post-colonial” contexts. In South Africa, the 1913 Natives Land Act and subsequent apartheid legislation confined the Black majority to a fraction of land, a configuration only partially challenged by post-1994 reform (Tong, 2014; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Kepe and Hall (2018) argue that South Africa's post-apartheid land redistribution, particularly under the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy where the state remains nominal owner, has drifted away from decolonial aspirations and reproduces paternalistic relations reminiscent of apartheid's “colonial present.” The state's insistence on leasehold and performance-based tenure conditions produces a “recolonisation” of land governance rather than genuine democratization (Kepe and Hall, 2018).

Similar continuities are visible in broader sub-Saharan reform. Kenjio (2020) shows that contemporary land tenure regimes in SSA are deeply rooted in colonial constructs, with reforms often layering modern statutory frameworks over unaddressed colonial injustices. His Mozambique case illustrates that decolonising tenure is arduous but feasible when socio-cultural and political specificities are taken seriously and modern reforms are guided by, rather than imposed upon, existing tenure logics (Kenjio, 2020). Historical work on Portuguese colonialism demonstrates how “indigenous uses and customs” were misrepresented by political and academic elites to legitimize the appropriation of “wasteland” and to deny Africans property rights, while simultaneously deploying distorted notions of communal tenure as instruments of social control (Pereira, 2023). These misrepresentations constitute an early form of imperial knowledge production about land, embedding colonial epistemic hierarchies into law and policy.

These studies show that land reform initiatives operate within deeply sedimented colonial land and knowledge regimes. Where reforms fail to confront these foundations, they tend to “deracialise” ownership superficially while leaving core structures of control, surveillance, and dispossession intact (Kenjio, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018; Pereira, 2023; Tong, 2014; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024).

4.2 Labor regimes and hybrid livelihoods after reform

Land reform is consistently associated with complex reconfigurations of labor and livelihoods rather than straightforward transitions from wage labor to autonomous smallholder farming. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, agrarian structures have long rested on the domination of white commercial agriculture and the construction of Black rural “labor reserves” (Goebel, 2005; Tong, 2014; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Goebel (2005) shows how Zimbabwe's fast-rack land reform after 2000, widely portrayed as “radical,” entailed violent farm occupations, extensive expropriations, and deep politicization. While it disrupted white commercial dominance, it produced contradictory outcomes: severe productivity declines, food insecurity, and continued congestion in communal areas where the poorest subsistence farmers reside. Former farmworkers, in particular, were marginalized, often lacking secure access to land and becoming part of a precarious, mobile class of labor straddling farm work, informal urban livelihoods, and residual rural claims.

Recent comparative policy analysis confirms that, in both South Africa and Zimbabwe, asymmetrical land access and poor land management remain major sources of rural poverty and political instability (Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Redistribution has been slow and uneven—South Africa had transferred only about 5% of land against a 30% target by the mid-2010s—while land utilization patterns often continue to reflect large-scale commercial models with limited incorporation of smallholders (Tong, 2014; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). These patterns contribute to hybrid livelihood portfolios, in which rural households combine small-scale farming on often marginal or insecure plots, seasonal and casual wage labor, informal trade, and social grants/remittances. Evidence from Zimbabwe suggests that such hybridity is as much an expression of constraint and vulnerability as of “diversification,” given the absence of robust agrarian support, social protection, or rural employment creation.

The reviewed literature also underscores that labor and livelihoods are gendered. Although the included studies do not systematically foreground gender, they note that colonial and post-colonial land regimes frequently intersect with patriarchal tenure norms, leaving women with weaker claims to land and less secure livelihood bases (Tong, 2014; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Because gender is not systematically examined across the corpus, we treat the following as an interpretive extension rather than a finding: land reform may reproduce gendered divisions of labor and dependency when intra-household and communal power relations are ignored. This proposition requires further gender-focused empirical research.

Overall, reforms have reconfigured, but not resolved, the “agrarian question of labor.” Large segments of the rural population remain part of fragmented classes of labor and relative surplus populations that must continually stitch together insecure work, land, and social transfers to survive (Goebel, 2005; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024).

4.3 Knowledge systems, indigenous epistemologies, and epistemic hierarchies

A second major pattern concerns the ways in which land and conservation policies embed particular knowledge systems while marginalizing others. Masenya's (2022) review of IKS policy and protocols in South Africa shows that IKS is largely preserved in elders' memories and transmitted through oral traditions and practices, yet policy frameworks often treat this knowledge as an object to be “captured” or “protected” within state and intellectual property regimes. Applying decolonial theory and knowledge ontology, Masenya argues that meaningful decolonisation of IKS requires collaborative approaches that center indigenous knowledge holders and communities as co-producers and custodians, rather than mere data sources. Mapara (2009) likewise portrays IKS in Zimbabwe as a political and epistemic movement by formerly colonized peoples to reclaim identity, visibility, and authority. He insists that IKS is not a late “discovery” by Western scholars but a sustained assertion of alternative ways of knowing and living, including critiques of Western extractivism and its role in climate and environmental crises.

In conservation, Domínguez and Luoma (2020) show that “fortress” approaches, justified by global environmental discourses, often rely on colonial land and conservation ideologies that dispossess indigenous communities (e.g., Batwa, Ogiek, Endorois, Adivasis) from ancestral territories. These policies privilege technocratic, Western scientific understandings of nature and conservation while treating local knowledge as either irrelevant or suspect. The result is a double injustice: material displacement and epistemic erasure. At the level of planning and spatial governance, Winkler (2023) explores communal landholdings in Southern Africa as sites where decoloniality is enacted in praxis. Traditional leaders function as custodians of lands, cultures, languages, and nonhuman actants, and residents often engage with pre-colonial land laws. Winkler shows that these arrangements yield “radically different” political and spatial outcomes, delinked from Western planning paradigms and rooted in grounded normativity and relationality. Yet they also harbor “sobering concerns,” including ongoing poverty, inequality, and power abuses.

Overall, these studies reveal persistent epistemic hierarchies: colonial and post-colonial states, conservation NGOs, and development agencies continue to privilege Euro-modern notions of property, conservation, and expertise, while indigenous and communal knowledges are marginalized, instrumentalised, or romanticized. Where IKS and decolonial epistemologies gain traction, they open new possibilities for rethinking land, livelihood, and environmental governance (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Mapara, 2009; Masenya, 2022; Winkler, 2023).

4.4 Justice, (Re)colonization, and prospects for just transitions

The final theme concerns the justice implications of land reform and knowledge politics. Across the region, land reform was initially framed as a vehicle for redressing racial dispossession, aligning with OAU and African Charter commitments to self-determination and socio-economic development (Tong, 2014; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Yet evidence from South Africa and Zimbabwe suggests that implementation has often diverged from these decolonial aspirations.

In South Africa, Kepe and Hall (2018) argue that the current land redistribution trajectory represents a “betrayal” of land reform as decolonisation. The increasing reliance on state leasehold under patronage-ridden policies, combined with technocratic performance criteria, has produced what they term “recolonisation”: a situation where the state stands in for former colonial proprietors, maintaining hierarchical relations with beneficiaries rather than enabling democratic control and social justice. In Zimbabwe, Goebel (2005) describes how the fast-track process, while rhetorically framed as a completion of liberation, involved corruption, human rights violations, and marginalization of the poorest. This undermined both redistributive and procedural justice, while creating new forms of exclusion and vulnerability.

Conservation and environmental policies show parallel dynamics. Domínguez and Luoma (2020) document how fortress conservation, backed by global NGOs and donors, displaces indigenous peoples, criminalizes traditional practices, and erodes customary land tenure—all in the name of environmental protection. Such approaches reproduce colonial spatial and epistemic orders under green rhetoric, sidelining indigenous environmental ethics and sustainable land management practices. By contrast, Sato (2021), Kenjio (2020) and Winkler (2023) highlight pathways toward more just transitions. In Mozambique, land policy reforms that engage seriously with customary tenure can support gradual decolonisation of land systems, though the process is slow and contested. In communal lands in Southern Africa, decolonial planning practices—however fragile—foreground relational ontologies, community-based decision-making, and non-human agency (Winkler, 2023).

Collectively, the literature suggests that redistribution without structural transformation of labor and knowledge systems risks reproducing or deepening inequality. Agrarian justice and epistemic justice are mutually constitutive: efforts to secure land rights and livelihoods must be accompanied by recognition and empowerment of indigenous knowledge holders and decolonial epistemologies if they are to contribute to genuinely just transitions (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Kepe and Hall, 2018; Mapara, 2009; Masenya, 2022; Winkler, 2023; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Table 2 summarizes, in matrix form, how key studies map onto four thematic domains—coloniality of land, labor/livelihoods, knowledge systems, and justice/transition and whether they primarily highlight continuity, transformation, or contradiction in each domain.

The table makes visible where the evidence clusters (for example, strong coverage of land and labor in South Africa and Zimbabwe, but thinner integrated analyses of labor–knowledge dynamics), thereby supporting identification of research gaps and informing the subsequent analytical framework. Note: The characterisations (continuity, transformation, contradiction, hybrid) are interpretive syntheses derived from the reviewed literature. Table 2 is an illustrative cross-domain comparison of selected studies from the 43-study corpus, not an exhaustive summary of the studies discussed in Sections 4.1-4.4. Several entries are included for cross-case or theory-building comparison and are therefore not discussed individually in the thematic narrative.

5 Discussion

The review shows that land reform in Southern Africa cannot be understood as a technical exercise in asset redistribution. Across South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, reform trajectories remain deeply structured by colonial land regimes, party politics and conservative legal frameworks that constrain transformative possibilities (Kepe and Hall, 2018; Mseba, 2018; Mthembu, 2019; Tong, 2014). South Africa's Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy and emerging expropriation debates illustrate how radical rhetoric can coexist with paternalistic practices that keep the state, or agrarian elites, in control of land and decision-making (Gumede, 2014; Kepe and Hall, 2018; Mthembu, 2019).

Comparative work on Zimbabwe and South Africa underscores this ambivalence. Zimbabwe's fast-track reform dramatically altered ownership but combined redistributive justice with politicized allocation, rights violations and economic disruption (Mseba, 2018). South Africa, by contrast, has seen slow, partial redistribution within a market- and law-constrained framework, exacerbating frustrations and opening space for expropriation-without-compensation demands. Zindi and Ndhlovu (2024) argue that both contexts reveal the need to locate land reform within broader “trajectories of transformation” rather than narrow productionist or legalist frames.

A central finding is that colonial land ideologies and tenure systems remain embedded in current reforms. Domínguez and Luoma (2020) show how ideas of individualized ownership, cultivation and “fortress” conservation continue to justify exclusion of indigenous peoples from ancestral lands, with devastating consequences for livelihoods and ecological knowledge. Pereira's (2023) analysis of Portuguese colonial representations of “customary law” reveals how mischaracterisation of commons and transhumance underpinned “appropriation of wasteland,” a pattern echoed in contemporary land policies that still privilege statutory over communal tenure.

Kenjio's (2020) review of sub-Saharan land tenure reforms confirms that most regimes are direct or indirect inheritances of colonial orders. Attempts at decolonisation in Mozambique demonstrate that reform is possible but arduous, requiring careful attention to socio-cultural, economic and political specificities and a willingness to uproot discriminatory structures. Doumbia's (2020) study of Mali's Land Code and the NELGA initiative similarly shows that state legal frameworks often remain “strange and foreign” to communities, prompting resistance and demands for endogenous models of land governance.

At the same time, the literature illustrates that land reform functions as social policy and a terrain of welfare. Chipenda (2024) conceptualizes Zimbabwe's post-fast-track agrarian order as an “agrarian welfare regime” in which access to land, combined with other capitals, enhances beneficiaries' productive and reproductive capacities and resilience, particularly during shocks such as COVID-19. This aligns with transformative social policy thinking that views land as a vehicle for redistribution, social protection, and social cohesion, not solely for production (Chipenda, 2024; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024).

Crucially, knowledge and epistemic hierarchies cut across these developments. Mapara (2009), Emeagwali (2020), Ayeni and Aborisade (2021) and other IKS scholars show that African indigenous knowledges remain central to ecological management, livelihoods and alternative visions of development, yet continue to be devalued or instrumentalised. Masenya (2022) demonstrates that even well-intentioned South African policies to protect IKS rely on documentation and intellectual property frameworks that can misalign with communal, oral and relational knowledge practices. Digital initiatives, if not carefully governed, risk reproducing power imbalances while claiming to “preserve” IKS (Chirima, 2025).

Winkler (2023) and Huizenga (2018) introduce a more nuanced view of decolonial praxis. Communal landholdings in southern Africa and litigation around Aboriginal title and living customary law reveal both the potential and limits of decolonial strategies: they can open spaces for grounded relationality, indigenous authority and creative rights claims, yet they also confront internal inequalities and the structural constraints of neoliberal legal orders. These dynamics caution against romanticizing “the communal” or “the indigenous” while reinforcing the need to embed epistemic justice within agrarian reform.

The reviewed scholarship suggests that redistribution without transformation of labor regimes and knowledge orders can amount to recolonisation in practice: land may change hands, yet colonial logics of control, extraction and epistemic domination persist. Conversely, where reforms begin to realign tenure, labor and knowledge systems—by supporting agrarian welfare, recognizing communal rights, and centring indigenous epistemologies—they open pathways toward more substantive decolonisation (Chipenda, 2024; Emeagwali, 2020; Mapara, 2009; Winkler, 2023).

5.1 Theoretical implications

The findings have several implications for theory at the intersection of agrarian change, decoloniality and knowledge systems.

First, they extend agrarian political economy by foregrounding epistemic relations as part of the “structures” of agrarian capitalism and settler colonialism. Classic analyses highlight how land reform can deracialise ownership while leaving class relations, labor exploitation and accumulation patterns intact (Gumede, 2014). The reviewed work shows that similar continuities obtain in the realm of knowledge: statutory tenure codes, conservation doctrines and development models are underpinned by Eurocentric epistemologies that define legitimate land uses and users (Domínguez and Luoma, 2020; Kenjio, 2020; Pereira, 2023). This suggests that agrarian political economy must systematically incorporate “epistemic infrastructures” as part of the conditions of reproduction of agrarian orders.

Second, the literature enriches decolonial theory by demonstrating its practical articulation in land reform, conservation and governance. Kepe and Hall's (2004) diagnosis of a “colonial present” in South Africa's land policies, Doumbia's (2020) critique of foreign land codes, and Winkler's (2023) exploration of communal landholdings all show that decoloniality is not only a critique of epistemology but also a spatial, legal and institutional project. Huizenga's (2018) analysis of Aboriginal title in South Africa further complicates notions of total constraint by colonial law, highlighting how indigenous and rural actors assemble international doctrines, living customary law and rights discourses to expand their room for maneuver. This supports more relational, assemblage-based understandings of decolonisation as contested co-constitution, rather than simple resistance to a monolithic colonial structure.

Third, transformative social policy theory is broadened by viewing land as a multi-dimensional policy instrument. Chipenda (2024) demonstrates that land access can simultaneously serve production, reproduction, protection, redistribution and social cohesion, especially under crisis conditions. Zindi and Ndhlovu (2024) argue for conceptually mature land debates embedded in trajectories of transformation rather than narrow sectoral silos. Integrating these insights with IKS scholarship suggests that TSP must account not only for material and institutional variables but also for knowledge regimes: whose expertise shapes policy goals, what forms of evidence count, and how local knowledges are incorporated or sidelined (Ayeni and Aborisade, 2021; Emeagwali, 2020; Masenya, 2022).

Finally, the IKS literature challenges dominant models of “knowledge integration” that treat indigenous perspectives as inputs into pre-existing Western frameworks. Mapara (2009) and Emeagwali (2020) conceptualize IKS as movements for identity, autonomy and epistemic sovereignty, not just repositories of useful practices. Critique of South African IKS policies indicates that protective regimes can unintentionally reinscribe state and expert control. These findings invite theoretical work that rethinks concepts such as “evidence,” “expertise,” and “governance” from the standpoint of relational, communal and land-based epistemologies.

As a whole, these implications call for an integrated theory of land reform as structural reconfiguration of property, labor and knowledge. Such a framework would view agrarian and epistemic justice as mutually constitutive: neither can be achieved in isolation.

5.2 Policy and practice implications

The reviewed scholarship points to several concrete implications for policymakers, practitioners and movements in Southern Africa and beyond.

Reorient land reform toward structural and social transformation, not only deracialisation of ownership. South African and Zimbabwean experiences show that focusing primarily on transferring title, whether through market-based or expropriation mechanisms, without altering underlying class relations, tenure hierarchies and state–community dynamics leads to limited or perverse outcomes (Gumede, 2014; Kepe and Hall, 2018; Mthembu, 2019; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). Policy design should explicitly address who controls land after redistribution, how decisions are made, and how benefits are distributed within communities, with attention to gender, age and class.

Embed land reform within a transformative social policy framework. Land should be treated as a key instrument of agrarian welfare, social protection and resilience. Evidence from Zimbabwe indicates that beneficiaries with secure access to land and supportive institutions fare better in terms of welfare and crisis coping (Chipenda, 2024). Policies should therefore integrate land redistribution with support for production (inputs, markets), social infrastructure (health, education, water) and income security measures, recognizing unpaid and reproductive work.

Decolonise land tenure and governance regimes. States need to systematically review and revise statutory land codes and conservation policies that reproduce colonial logics. This includes: removing discriminatory provisions rooted in “appropriation of wasteland” narratives; replacing exclusionary fortress conservation with rights-based, community-centered models; and ensuring that reforms in countries like Mozambique and Mali genuinely recognize customary and communal systems rather than assimilating them into foreign templates.

Recognize and strengthen communal and customary landholding while addressing internal inequities. Communal tenure can embody grounded relationality and alternative ontologies of land (Winkler, 2023), and living customary law can be mobilized creatively in restitution and resource struggles. Policy frameworks should secure communal rights and support local governance institutions, while also setting clear standards for accountability, gender equity and protection against elite capture at community level.

Center Indigenous Knowledge Systems in land and environmental policy. IKS should not be treated as peripheral or symbolic. Land use planning, agricultural extension, environmental management and climate adaptation strategies must meaningfully incorporate indigenous ecological and social knowledge, through co-designed programmes, community-led monitoring, and recognition of elders and knowledge holders as experts (Ayeni and Aborisade, 2021; Emeagwali, 2020; Mapara, 2009). South African IKS policies should be strengthened by moving beyond documentation and IP-focused approaches toward collaborative governance arrangements that respect communal ownership and modes of transmission (Masenya, 2022).

Use digital technologies cautiously to support, not subsume, IKS. Digital archiving and platforms can enhance the visibility and intergenerational transmission of IKS but also risk expropriation, misrepresentation and control by external actors (Chirima, 2025). Ethical frameworks co-developed with communities are essential, addressing consent, benefit-sharing, access control and data sovereignty.

Invest in decolonial higher education and research on land. Initiatives such as NELGA illustrate the potential and pitfalls of efforts to “decolonise” land governance through capacity building. Curricula in law, planning, agriculture and social policy should be restructured to include decolonial theory, IKS, grounded research with communities, and critical engagement with colonial legal histories.

Foster cross-country learning within Southern Africa. Comparative analyses of Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique show that both radical and incremental models carry risks and opportunities. Regional platforms could be used to systematically share lessons on avoiding elite capture, supporting agrarian welfare, and embedding epistemic justice into reform.

Implementing these directions requires political will, institutional reform and sustained engagement with communities and social movements. However, without such shifts, land reform is likely to remain caught between populist promises and recolonising practices, falling short of its transformative potential.

5.3 Limitations

This study is based on an integrative review of secondary literature rather than new primary data. The corpus is constrained by the availability of English-language, peer-reviewed work and a small number of high-quality policy and legal texts. As a result, francophone and lusophone scholarship, as well as locally published materials, are likely under-represented, and some country cases beyond South Africa and Zimbabwe receive limited coverage (Kenjio, 2020; Pereira, 2023; Shiba et al., 2025; Zindi and Ndhlovu, 2024). The reliance on published research also means that certain domains—such as the everyday practices of communal land governance, gendered divisions of labor, and the micro-politics of indigenous knowledge mobilization—are only indirectly accessed through existing analyses. Heterogeneity in disciplinary approaches and methods across the reviewed texts limits the possibility of systematic comparison or quantitative synthesis. Finally, while the conceptual framework is grounded in multiple bodies of literature, it has not yet been empirically operationalised across diverse local contexts, so its transferability requires further testing.

6 Proposed conceptual framework: land reform as agrarian-epistemic reconfiguration

This article proposes a conceptual framework that reconceptualises land reform as a process of agrarian-epistemic reconfiguration. Rather than treating land reform as a discrete policy intervention concerned primarily with transferring ownership or correcting legal title, the framework understands it as a broader transformation of the institutional, economic, and epistemic foundations that shape access to land and the social relations built around it. In this perspective, land reform is not only about who acquires land, but also about how land is governed, what forms of work and livelihood it enables, whose knowledge informs decision-making, and whether the resulting arrangements advance substantive justice. The framework brings together insights from agrarian political economy, decolonial theory, critical property studies, anthropology, and transformative social policy. These literatures converge on a central proposition: land reform outcomes depend on the interaction of four mutually constitutive domains—property regimes, labor and livelihood systems, knowledge and epistemic orders, and justice outcomes. Examining these domains together makes it possible to explain why many reforms produce only partial or contradictory change and to identify the conditions under which land reform can contribute to more meaningful decolonisation and socially just transitions in postcolonial contexts (Akram-Lodhi, 2007; Chipenda, 2024; Hall, 2004; Hull et al., 2019; Mudimu et al., 2020; Peters, 2009; Roodt, 2012; Scoones, 2015).

At the center of the framework is the argument that redistribution alone is insufficient. A transfer of land may alter legal ownership while leaving intact the labor relations, governance structures, and epistemic hierarchies that historically produced exclusion. Under such conditions, land reform can generate symbolic redress without substantially improving livelihoods or redistributing power. By contrast, when reforms simultaneously transform property relations, expand dignified livelihood opportunities, and recognize diverse knowledge systems, they are more likely to generate durable gains in welfare, social cohesion, ecological sustainability, and democratic inclusion.

6.1 Property regimes and coloniality

The first domain concerns the structure of property and tenure. Property regimes encompass the formal and informal institutions that determine who can claim land, under what conditions those claims are recognized, and how secure and enforceable rights are in practice. In Southern Africa, these regimes remain deeply shaped by colonial dispossession, racialised legal systems, and the coexistence of statutory and customary tenure. The significance of this domain lies in its role as the institutional foundation of agrarian transformation. Property regimes determine not only the distribution of land but also the distribution of authority over land. They influence who can make decisions, who bears risk, and whose claims are treated as legitimate. As a result, they either reproduce dualistic agrarian structures and paternalistic control or create opportunities for more democratic and equitable forms of governance (Akram-Lodhi, 2007; Hall, 2004; Peters, 2009; Sato, 2021; Scoones, 2015).

6.2 Labor regimes and livelihood systems

Changes in property relations inevitably reshape the organization of work and social reproduction. The second domain therefore focuses on labor regimes and livelihood systems. Access to land does not automatically produce independent smallholder farming or secure rural prosperity. Instead, households often combine cultivation with wage employment, informal enterprise, migration, remittances, and social transfers. This domain captures the diverse and often precarious strategies through which people convert land access into livelihood security. It also draws attention to processes of semi-proletarianisation, differentiated accumulation, and the gendered allocation of productive and reproductive labor. In this way, the framework situates land reform within the broader political economy of work, showing how the benefits of redistribution are mediated by existing labor markets, social policy institutions, and crisis conditions such as drought, economic recession, or pandemics (Chambati, 2017; Chipenda, 2024; Mudimu et al., 2020; Scoones et al., 2014; Shonhe et al., 2021).

6.3 Knowledge systems and epistemic orders

The third domain concerns the production and authority of knowledge. Land reform is shaped by assumptions about what constitutes productive land use, legitimate tenure, sound conservation, and appropriate development. These assumptions are embedded in particular epistemic orders. In many postcolonial contexts, technocratic and Euro-modern forms of expertise continue to dominate policy and planning, while indigenous and local knowledge systems are marginalized, selectively appropriated, or treated as secondary. This domain therefore asks whose knowledge counts, who is recognized as an expert, and how alternative understandings of land, territory, and ecological stewardship are incorporated or excluded. By foregrounding these questions, the framework highlights the central role of epistemic power in structuring agrarian change (Hull et al., 2019; Keane et al., 2023; Masaka, 2019; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2020; Peters, 2009; Tarisayi and Savious, 2024).

6.4 Justice, transition, and decolonial trajectories

The fourth domain concerns the normative consequences of land reform. Rather than treating justice as a narrow distributional question, the model links agrarian justice (redistribution, recognition, participation) with epistemic justice and decolonial transition. South African and Zimbabwean land debates reveal tensions between radical rhetoric and conservative practice, producing what has been called a “colonial present” or “recolonisation” (Kepe and Hall, 2018; Xaba and Akinola, 2022). Conservation and transfrontier initiatives similarly juxtapose “win–win” or sustainable development discourse with dispossessive practices (Benjaminsen and Svarstad, 2010; Kachena and Spiegel, 2023). Decolonial theory positions these contradictions within longer histories of global coloniality and calls for politically and epistemically transformative futures (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015, 2020).

6.5 Interactions among the four domains

Although presented separately for analytical clarity, the four domains are deeply interdependent. Property regimes establish the institutional terrain within which labor and livelihood strategies are pursued. Labor systems shape the extent to which beneficiaries can convert land access into material security. Knowledge systems influence how reforms are designed, implemented, and justified. Justice outcomes emerge from the cumulative interaction of these processes. This relational perspective helps explain why redistribution can yield sharply divergent results. Where land is transferred without changes in labor relations or epistemic authority, beneficiaries may remain dependent on insecure work and externally imposed models of development. Where tenure arrangements are democratized, livelihoods are materially supported, and indigenous knowledge systems are treated as authoritative, land reform is more likely to generate meaningful improvements in autonomy, wellbeing, and ecological sustainability. In Figure 2, the framework conceptualizes land reform as the interaction of four mutually constitutive domains: property regimes and coloniality, labor regimes and livelihood systems, knowledge systems and epistemic orders, and justice outcomes. Changes in any one domain generate feedback effects across the others, shaping the extent to which land reform contributes to substantive decolonisation, livelihood security, and socially just transitions.

Figure 2

Aliber and Cousins, 2013; Chipenda, 2024; Hall, 2004; Lawry et al., 2023; Scoones, 2015).

Bidirectional arrows indicate reciprocal influence, while feedback loops demonstrate how change in one domain can either reinforce or constrain transformation in the others. For example, secure and democratically governed tenure may strengthen livelihood stability, which in turn can enhance community capacity to sustain and mobilize indigenous knowledge. Greater epistemic recognition can then reshape governance processes and deepen distributive, procedural, and recognitional justice. Conversely, technocratic control over land may marginalize local knowledge, weaken community autonomy, and undermine the transformative promise of redistribution.

The framework provides an integrated analytical tool for understanding why land reform frequently falls short of its redistributive and decolonial aspirations. By conceptualizing land reform as agrarian-epistemic reconfiguration, it shifts the focus from the transfer of land alone to the wider transformation of property relations, labor systems, knowledge hierarchies, and justice structures. The central insight is that agrarian justice and epistemic justice are inseparable. Land reform cannot be considered transformative if it redistributes land while leaving intact the institutions and knowledge orders that historically organized dispossession and exclusion. Meaningful reform requires simultaneous changes in material access, livelihood opportunities, governance arrangements, and epistemic recognition. Viewed in this way, land reform becomes not merely a mechanism of redistribution, but a broader project of restructuring social relations and reimagining more just and sustainable futures.

7 Conclusion

Land reform in Southern Africa cannot be adequately understood as a technical project of redistributing hectares or correcting formal title; it is a deeply political process that reshapes, and is shaped by, labor regimes, livelihood systems and knowledge orders. The review shows that contemporary reforms remain embedded in colonial land and conservation ideologies that continue to legitimize paternalistic state control, dualistic tenure systems and “fortress” conservation, often reproducing the very inequalities and exclusions they are meant to address. For many rural people, land reform has produced hybrid and precarious livelihoods, with fragmented classes of labor navigating insecure access to land, unstable wage work and informal economies. At the same time, the marginalization and selective incorporation of indigenous knowledge and communal ontologies within policy frameworks reveal that epistemic hierarchies remain central to the coloniality of land.

By integrating decolonial theory, agrarian political economy, transformative social policy and epistemic justice, the article proposes a framework that treats agrarian and epistemic justice as mutually constitutive. Redistributive efforts that do not simultaneously transform labor relations and knowledge regimes risk entrenching a “colonial present” under new guises. Aligning land reform with broader decolonial projects therefore requires rethinking tenure beyond narrow individualized property, supporting dignified and sustainable livelihoods, and recognizing indigenous knowledge holders as central actors in defining land use, conservation and development futures. This integrated agenda offers a route toward more substantively decolonial, socially just and ecologically grounded land reform in Southern Africa.

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