With a legacy of sociopolitical and economic exclusion, ethnic conflicts, and an extremely arid climate, the Turkana people struggle to meet the two most basic necessities of life – food and water. One perennial river flowing from Uganda replenishes the groundwater on which the survival and growth of Lodwar depends. Lodwar’s water utility ranks poorly across national regulation metrics delivering an average of 24 litres per person per day to half of the town’s residents. Violent flash floods are known to wash away homes, people and animals almost every year. Relocating to safer grounds in peri-urban areas means losing income opportunities, education and healthcare services, and most importantly, water. A vibrant informal market has emerged, with tanker trucks and motorbikes selling water from the utility’s boreholes at high costs. For those who cannot afford vended water, scooping out dry riverbeds is the only option. With the discovery of crude oil and untapped groundwater reserves, coupled with construction of regional transport links, there is optimism for economic development in this marginalised county. Yet unless there is action to address the fundamental lack of capacity or coordination among multiple stakeholders, Lodwar’s water woes are likely to limit human and economic development.

This chapter explores land reform and redistributive justice from the vantage point of the Karoo, a large, sparsely populated and marginalised area that constitutes some 40 per cent of South Africa’s commercial farmland, where major land-use changes are recalibrating the significance of this land both locally and nationally. Underpinning the discussion is a concern with the narrow framing of contemporary land debates in terms of land as redistributive justice, rather than one plank in a larger framework for social justice. The argument is not that the Karoo is typical of the country as a whole, or that the time for land reform is past. Rather, thinking through social–ecological changes here pushes one to scale down expectations of land reform while foregrounding other issues of concern. Five cross-cutting themes are highlighted: the scale of the Karoo; its challenging environment; current land-use changes; the small-town character of the region; and its multi-layered history. The chapter draws on recent research on land-use change and sustainable development in the region, concluding with a case study of land restitution and renewable energy in the small town of Loeriesfontein.

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed eighteen-year-old African American man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, following a violent altercation on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. With many of the crucial facts surrounding Brown’s death under dispute – in particular, whether Wilson’s stop of Brown was justified, whether Wilson or Brown initiated the confrontation, whether Brown surrendered or resisted arrest – many residents in the majority African American community took to the streets to protest what they viewed as an emblematic instance of police brutality, as well as general indifference among community leaders toward the concerns of black and brown residents. In response, Ferguson police – and eventually the Missouri National Guard – mustered an intimidating show of force in an effort to contain the protests. The presence of large numbers of heavily armed police and guardsmen exacerbated an already tense situation, leading to charged and sometimes violent encounters between protestors and law enforcement officials. Wilson’s killing of Brown, the heated and sometimes violent protests, and the extraordinary heavy-handedness of the police response made the events in Ferguson national news, riveting public attention and forcing conversations about police brutality and the over-policing of communities of color.