Multiple livelihoods and social relations in the South African Lowveld, 1986–2013

ABSTRACT

Despite improvements in the last two decades, rural communal areas in South Africa remain dumping grounds, requiring multiple livelihood strategies and social adaptations. Local experience of dispossession forms the backdrop to individual and collective responses to changes in the role of land, labour and reproduction. The ethnographic research focused on a rural settlement in the former Gazankulu Bantustan in the period 1986–2013. Shifts in the mix of livelihoods were related to changing gender and generational relationships. Individual livelihood strategies aimed at diversifying sources of income and collective actions were directed at getting rid of criminals and accessing state resources.

RÉSUMÉ

Malgré les progrès de ces deux dernières décennies, les zones communales rurales en Afrique du Sud restent des lieux de décharge, nécessitant des stratégies de subsistance multiples et des adaptations sociales. L’expérience locale de la dépossession constitue la toile de fond des réponses individuelles et collectives aux changements dans le rôle de la terre, du travail et de la reproduction. La recherche ethnographique se concentre sur un village rural dans l’ancien Gazankulu Bantustan pendant la période 1986-2013. Les changements dans les combinaisons de moyens de subsistance sont liés aux relations de genre et générationnelles changeantes. Les stratégies individuelles de subsistance visant à diversifier les sources de revenus et les actions collectives ont cherché à se débarrasser des criminels et à accéder aux ressources étatiques.

KEYWORDS:

• Limpopo Province
• South Africa
• rural poverty
• Nkuna Traditional Authority
• informal economy
• multiple livelihoods

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Province de Limpopo
• Afrique du Sud
• pauvreté rurale
• Nkuna Traditional Authority
• économie informelle
• moyens de subsistance multiples

Acknowledgements

I was assisted by able research collaborators Yvonne Bodmer, Paul Erskine, Maggy Mavuso, Nicholas Mushwana, Caroline Nkhwashu, Philip Zitha and Beauty Zwane. Very useful comments were provided by Vito Laterza, John Sharp and the two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Kees van der Waal is an emeritus professor of social anthropology at Stellenbosch University with a research interest in rural development interventions, identity politics and the history of anthropology in South Africa. His recent edited volume, Winelands, Wealth and Work, focused on socio-economic changes in the Dwars River Valley near Stellenbosch and was published in 2014.

Notes

1 This area was unofficially recognised as a native reserve of the Nkuna chief and his people in the 1910s.

2 The vignettes, based on my observations during fieldwork in 2013, are referred to in the discussion.

Additional information

Funding

I appreciate the support of the Human Sciences Research Council, the University of Johannesburg, the National Research Foundation and Stellenbosch University.