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From:
Jannie Wessels <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Mon, 9 Oct 2017 08:43:33 +0000
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Valuation of Indigenous Land

PART I When one wanders into the waters of valuating indigenous land, you may want to first understand the critical need to look at valuations in general from a very different point of view. Indigenous property is, in the widest definition of ‘property’, so much more than just land (with or without fixtures). Indigenous property comprises elusive elements like holistic knowledge, and the expression of culture that comes with the knowledge. As a result ownership models in an indigenous environment are socially inclusive and also perpetual – it’s more about continuation and permanence that it is about individual use and short-term monetary or commercial benefit. In the normal business-like approach of objective valuation these intangible and even esoteric features are elusive and challenging – especially when one approaches the matter with normal western property rights in mind. Applying this to South Africa we need to ask some of the questions which arise from attempts to apply Western property law frameworks to indigenous cultural property and the struggle to place a value on that property within the Western archetype or paradigm. Is it necessary? The first question that needs to be asked is whether we are really introducing solutions when we even try to valuate indigenous property. Are we not perhaps, creating more problems? There is, and there should always be, a general disinclination to try and put a value on indigenous property. This hesitancy is correctly driven by an plethora of political, commercial and heritage concerns. Typically, it requires us to accept the guilt about our past colonial history, acknowledge the limitations of a Western-style valuation model and address the challenge of recognising the contribution and integral role of indigenous cultures to the collective society. This reluctance or unwillingness is motivated perhaps by the more general concern that, when commercialised, culture becomes an asset capable of compensation – a compensation able to be offered for appropriation and improvement of that property. A potential challenge of the valuation of indigenous property is that it creates the potential for dividing that which belongs together. Indigenous people as a rule practice their rights as a coherent pool of relationships, rather than an assembly of legal obligations, or even regulations. These interactions are intertwined between land, ancestors, the environment, and even tradition. The separation or dismantling of individual elements of the value system cannot only destroy the balance of everything that is valuable to a specific people, but also de-value the balance of whatever remains to such an extent that is becomes value-less. If such a thing happens then the culture is lost, the communal knowledge of the ancestors becomes obsolete, and the communal fibre of the tribe or ethnic group is dissolved. Notwithstanding all of the above, I would like to reason that valuation has a place and reason – it is important to understand how and why we do it. Without this sensitivity and open-mindedness it would be impossible to confirm and sanction the distinctiveness and authenticities and character of the indigenous property itself as well as of those ethnic groups that are the guardians and curators of the asset. By attaching a value to it, the property is judged valuable. As the property is bestowed with a value, it also gains recognition, which in turn translates into the unalienable attribute that it cannot be disregarded legally. Simply put, the valuation process is necessary to bring renewed status to indigenous properties and the people behind these properties – provided it’s done with the necessary circumspect. If there is general agreement that indigenous properties should be valued (and this is not an attempt to force anyone to agree), then it should follow that we also agree on how this should be done in order to protect the integrity of the property as it exists and attain its value in a holistic living system. Some of the elements that need to be addressed in the valuation process is (in alphabetical order): Identification: Assigning and attaching integral and diverse cultural characteristics to the property rather than resorting to assumptive deemed ‘Western’ values – the notion that traditional ownership is the consequence of familial succession within communal existence. is not the same as the process that Western property finds its way to the public domain;Origination: Determining the vibrant and fluid (holistic) nature of indigenous property and not resorting to simplistic historical innuendos – indigenous property is not stagnant and contra-historical and one should therefore display more innovative skills to interpret these traits and characteristics.Perception: Make more use of the uniqueness of indigenous properties and pursue the inclusion of aspects of its heritage and customary values – indigenous peoples’ experience of property go beyond what can be seen and touched. We must come to understand what can’t be seen and discover that “something special” that we tend to always overlook or disregard as ‘unimportant’.Possession: Critically compare and validate indigenous rights and possession as opposed to Western perceptions of proprietorship – successive group provenance and perpetual participation is a cultural right in indigenous land possession traditions, which renders collective right a significant challenge for the valuer.Sustainable succession: Incorporating indigenous concepts of continuous ownership into commercial valuations, and employ sustainable succession as a theory in resource application as well as maintaining the practice within indigenous groups and their culture – it makes provision for future usage and ownership of land. In Part II of this discussion we will try to answer the questions: It is possible to valuate indigenous land?If so, are we bold enough to do it?If so, how will we do it?

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