Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa-Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine.

We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925-1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them known-in-life, were removed from their graves on the farm Kruisrivier, near Sutherland in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. They were donated to the Anatomy Department at the University of Cape Town. This was done without the knowledge or permission of their families. The donor was a medical student who removed the remains from the labourers' cemetery on his family farm. Nearly 100 years later, the remains are being returned to their community, accompanied by a range of community-driven interdisciplinary historical, archaeological and analytical (osteobiographic, craniofacial, ancient DNA, stable isotope) studies to document, as far as possible, their lives and deaths. The restitution process began by contacting families living in the same area with the same surnames as the deceased. The restitution and redress process prioritises the descendant families' memories, wishes and desire to understand the situation, and learn more about their ancestors. The descendant families have described the process as helping them to reconnect with their ancestors. A richer appreciation of their ancestors' lives, gained in part from scientific analyses, culminating with reburial, is hoped to aid the descendant families and wider community in [re-]connecting with their heritage and culture, and contribute to restorative justice, reconciliation and healing while confronting a traumatic historical moment. While these nine individuals were exhumed as specimens, they will be reburied as people.

Addressing vulnerability and exclusion in the South African small-scale fisheries sector: does the current regulatory framework measure up?

Small-scale fishers and fishing communities have long suffered marginalisation and discrimination in South Africa. New laws and policies promulgated as the result of a court case brought by small-scale fishers, NGOs and academics attempt to rectify this problem. Drawing on the poverty-vulnerability-marginalisation framework, the paper considers whether this regulatory regime reduces vulnerability and marginalisation within the sector as an important precursor to poverty reduction initiatives, such as improved rights allocation. While the new regulatory regime is a step in the right direction, the paper ultimately finds that there are shortcomings in these laws, many of which have been thrown into sharp relief by the rights implementation process and COVID-19 lockdowns. These include narrow eligibility criteria for fishing rights, a lack of substantive solutions when it comes to vulnerable groups, processes insufficient to prevent elite capture, and impediments to the practice of alternative livelihoods. These shortcomings must be addressed through the appropriate expansion of access rights, consultation with fishers and more inclusive drafting, if the contribution of small-scale fisheries to development and poverty reduction in South Africa is to be realised.