The Trapped ‘Promised Land’: An Interrogation of the Ga Mawela Community Land Claim, Polokwane, Limpopo
Butholezwe Mtombeni 
& Muzi Shoba
Issue: Vol.6 No.9 Article 13 pp.1932 – 1943
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20256913 | Published online 22nd August, 2025
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
There is a vast body of mainstream literature on the land question in South Africa. However, there is limited scholarly literature on the pending community land claims. This gap legitimates the study, which seeks to exhume the history of the Ga Mawela community’s land dispossession and its effects. Land dispossession, coupled with the delayed settlement of the community’s land claim, has condemned the community to landlessness and poverty. This study, therefore, utilised qualitative research, i.e. data from secondary sources and interviews (from Ga Mawela community leaders and members), to interrogate the pending Ga Mawela community land claim. The study revealed that the delayed restoration of the ancestral land has resulted in them becoming landless and in poverty. The study concludes that the restoration of their land and post-settlement support can lead to access to the mainstream agricultural economy and poverty alleviation. This study adds to existing literature on land ownership in South Africa.
Keywords: Land Dispossession, Land Alienation, Land Reform, ANC Government, Ga Mawela Community
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Butholezwe Mtombeni is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa.
Muzi Shoba is based in the Department of Development Studies at Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Mtombeni, Butholezwe, and Muzi Shoba. “The Trapped ‘Promised Land’: An Interrogation of the Ga Mawela Community Land Claim, Polokwane, Limpopo,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 6, no. 9 (2025): 1932 – 1943, https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20256913.
© 2025 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
