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SOUTH AFRICAN LAND REFORM
When the ANC came to power in South Africa in 1994, it was committed to make land reform a priority. One way to do this was to strengthen the land rights of the rural poor, another way was re-distribution. The political belief was that the injustices of apartheid could only be corrected by providing the landless and the disadvantaged with an opportunity which they never had before, the ability to acquire their very own piece of land. Land reform is a powerful symbol in South African politics. Ministers of Agriculture in South Africa often begin a period in office by saying all farms will be ‘returned’ to black claimants. The latest of these announcements was given last year by Lulu Xingwana, Minister for Agriculture and land Affairs in 2006. She claimed all farms would be redistributed to black farmers by December 2008. However, the country operates under the rule of law and has a complex legal system where white farmers have been successful in beating the government in the courts. Dr Deborah James, Reader in the Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics outlines the progress of South Africa land reform in her new book Gaining Ground?: ‘Rights’ and ‘property’ in South African Land Reform.

INTIMATE LIFE
In the forties and fifties Britain had one of the most socially conservative moral codes in Europe backed by a severe legal system. Over the last 60 years there has been a dramatic change in the way intimate decisions about our lives are made. Laurie Taylor is joined by Professor Jeffrey Weeks, author of a new book entitled The World We Have Won and Lynne Segal, Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck University to discuss the transformations in people’s erotic and intimate life since 1945. What political changes have taken place for gay people and heterosexual women during that time? Has there been a ‘democratisation’ of sexuality and individual autonomy?