James L. Gibson
Anteprima del lilbro
Overcoming Historical Injustices is the last entry in Gibson's 'overcoming trilogy' on South Africa's transformation from apartheid to democracy. Focusing on the issue of historical land dispossessions - the taking of African land under colonialism and apartheid - this book investigates the judgements South Africans make about the fairness of their country's past. Should, for instance, land seized under apartheid be returned today to its rightful owner? Gibson's research zeroes in on group identities and attachments as the thread that connects people to the past. Even when individuals have experienced no direct harm in the past, they care about the fairness of the treatment of their group to the extent that they identify with that group. Gibson's analysis shows that land issues in contemporary South Africa are salient, volatile, and enshrouded in symbols and, most important, that interracial differences in understandings of the past and preferences for the future are profound.
• Based on interview data from a large, nationally representative sample of South Africans conducted in seven South African languages • Applies sophisticated theories of group attachments and identities to the politics of land, considering the political implications of land ownership • Employs experiments embedded within a nationally representative survey, allowing causal inferences
Contents
1. Land reconciliation and theories of justice, past and present; 2. Naming, blaming, and claiming on historical land injustices: the views of the South African people; 3. Group identities and land policy preferences; 4. Applied justice judgments: the problem of squatting; 5. Judging the past: historical versus contemporary claims to land; 6. Land reconciliation and theories of justice; References; Appendix A. A note on race in South Africa; Appendix B. The survey methodology; Appendix C. The questionnaire.
