Examining livelihoods and reconsidering rural development in the former homelands of South Africa
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Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape
Abstract
Persistent poverty and under-development in South Africa’s
former homeland communal areas have been little changed by
post-apartheid ‘rural development’ policy. Rural development
policy has often been characterised by impulses towards topdown
planning, a default assumption that agriculture ought
to drive rural development, a reliance on resource-intensive
income generation projects, and general inattention to the larger
economy (including the role of urban linkages, employment
and markets). Contested rural governance and weak public
administration further inhibit rural development in the
communal areas. Against this backdrop, livelihoods-orientated
enquiry amongst impoverished rural households contributes to
reassessing and rethinking rural development policy.
This policy brief draws on qualitative and quantitative enquiry
undertaken in a former ‘homeland’ or ‘bantustan’, in the rural
Eastern Cape (Neves, 2017). The research combined in-depth
household interviews with longitudinal (across time) NIDS
(National Income Dynamics Study) and area-based Census
2011 data. Integrating these enables the depth and specificity
of household qualitative inquiry to be contextualised in relation
to larger (quantitative) dynamics.
Description
Keywords
Livelihoods, Rural development, Homelands, South Africa, Post-apartheid
Citation
Neves, D. (2017). Examining livelihoods and reconsidering rural development in the former homelands of South Africa. Policy Brief 49, Bellville: Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape