This special issue of Development Southern Africa brings together a number of case studies that illuminate the micro-level struggles of interest groups seeking to access resources and rights, against the background of embedded poverty, discrimination and dislocation in southern Africa. As a collaborative project by sociologists, the articles avoid a restricted focus on economic understandings of basic needs or requirements for physiological survival and instead draw on what Amartya Sen suggests are the ‘beings and doings’ that people value; that is, the connectedness of social and material well-being to the exercising of political and human rights. The articles outlined below use various kinds of evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, to build selective and contemporary arguments on prevailing inequities and the limits and possibilities of state and popular interventions.
Puttergill, Bomela, Grobbelaar and Moguerane examine the livelihoods of three poverty-stricken rural communities that were denied access to land when it was appropriated by white supremacist pre-1994 South African Governments. The findings suggest that the restored land, as a development project at a time when the contribution of agricultural activities towards household livelihoods is declining, will not meet the expectations of cash based consumerism. In his focus on the creation of the ‘working poor’, Omomowo deliberates on how the sub-contracting of work in post-apartheid South Africa weakens social protection mechanisms, creates spaces for the institutionalisation of ‘cash loans’ and drives workers at the margins into extreme poverty. The discontented voices of the working poor in Omomowo's study resonate with the discourses in Naidoo's study on perceptions of ‘the poor’, people's ‘sense of inequality’ and political marginalisation in four sites in the South African province of Gauteng. The housing delivery plan and broad response to the Millennium Development Goals of the Gauteng provincial and local authorities are interrogated by Groenewald, who argues that the largely superficial strategies adopted are not likely to substantially transform the lives of people living in informal settlements.
Bezuidenhout and Jeppesen investigate the contrasting dynamics of the garment manufacturing industries of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland to assess the impact of labour codes of conduct and workers' awareness of the codes. They show that workers experience the codes variously and are able to assert their labour rights to different degrees, if at all – and in the face of considerable obstacles. Zamberia takes a comprehensive look at HIV-related stigma and how it inhibits people's access to essential health care services in Swaziland. Naidoo, Matsie and Ochse reflect on household gender relations and income-generating strategies in the aftermath of large-scale retrenchments affecting Lesotho workers and how this has affected married women's independent livelihood seeking.
Abdi examines the conflict between South Africans and Somali spaza shop owners and the various situations of migrants and refugees. By historicising violence and inequality, she presents an alternative explanation for xenophobia and local hostility towards migrants, and presents some cases of collaboration rather than conflict. Rugunanan and Smit analyse the perceptions and lived experiences of Congolese and Burundian refugees in South Africa. They pose challenges for the South African state to address, and advocate a more integrative approach by various stakeholders to ensure that refugees and asylum-seekers receive humane ‘rights-based’ social justice in the country.
Collectively, the articles in this special issue elucidate a multiplicity of problems and dilemmas facing southern African states. They show that alternative development paradigms are both necessary and urgent. At the core lies the acknowledgement that political voice and popular participation are vital for confronting inequality and building a just and progressive development project. The authors look forward to comments and feedback from readers.