Drawing post-Apartheid Geography in South Africa: The Constitutional Court's approach to Housing, Land, and Gender

The essay addresses the Constitutional Court’s contribution to advancing women’s rights to land, housing, and property in South Africa within the framework of post-apartheid land reforms. In the first part, the essay deals with spatial and gender inequalities during colonialism and apartheid. Then, it addresses the Constitutional Court’s approach toward women’s land, housing, and property rights by drawing attention to two landmark decisions: Daniels v. Scribante (2017) and Rahube v. Rahube (2018). The third section of the essay deepens the discussion on the implications of the spatial and gendered approach adopted by the Constitutional judges with regard to women’s land and housing rights. The aim is to highlight the Court’s capacity to “decode” apartheid geography in the post-apartheid legal system, capturing the points at which law, space, and gender intersect. Legal geography methodology and the intersectional approach to race, gender, and space successfully help the Court to uncover the reiteration of apartheid spatial construction, as well as gendered patterns of land access and ownership in apparently neutral legal provisions.