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This paper examines social, political and economic processes within the former KaNgwane bantustan to understand the changing relationships between society and space in the post-apartheid era. Research on rural development and reconstruction in South Africa attest to the spatial legacy of apartheid while suggesting that dynamic transformations are occurring within the former bantustans. A central concern of this paper is the ways the apartheid government constructed and presented KaNgwane as a development project in order to justify racial segregation and control. While the bantustans have been effectively erased from the popular imagination, these spaces continue to be framed developmentally in ways that provide limited attention to local context and change. In order to consider the shifts in environment and development discourses within these territories, a case study is employed to evaluate livelihood production systems, environmental change, and governance institutions. It is argued that these patterns reveal the simultaneously static and dynamic nature of the bantustans while demonstrating that their reincorporation will remain an ongoing process in the post-apartheid era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]