Changing Livelihoods in Rural Eastern Cape, South Africa (2002-2016): Diminishing Employment and Expanding Social Protection

Despite long-standing patterns of agrarian change in South and Southern Africa, rural locales remain home to millions of people, characterised by widespread poverty and vulnerability. This is evident in South Africa's former 'homelands', the site where this study examined changes in r...

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Vydáno v:Journal of southern African studies Ročník 46; číslo 4; s. 743 - 772
Hlavní autoři: Hajdu, Flora, Neves, David, Granlund, Stefan
Médium: Journal Article
Jazyk:angličtina
Vydáno: Oxford Routledge 18.07.2020
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Témata:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Ambiguity
Changes
Division of labor
Eastern Cape
Employment
Employment schemes
Fieldwork
Fiscal transfer
Frustration
Grants
Harvest
Homelands
Horticulture
Households
Human Geography
Inequality
Kulturgeografi
Livelihood
livelihoods
Livestock
Occupations
Pondoland
Poverty
Prospects
rural
Rural areas
Social protection
Social welfare
South Africa
State role
Time use
Villages
Vulnerability
Welfare state
South Africa
ISSN:0305-7070, 1465-3893, 1465-3893
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Shrnutí:Despite long-standing patterns of agrarian change in South and Southern Africa, rural locales remain home to millions of people, characterised by widespread poverty and vulnerability. This is evident in South Africa's former 'homelands', the site where this study examined changes in rural livelihoods over a 14-year period. Detailed survey data (collected in 2002 and 2016) from two villages in the Pondoland region of Eastern Cape province, and augmented by in-depth fieldwork, are analysed to explore the drivers of contemporary livelihood change. Key livelihood activities are examined, namely paid employment, social grant receipt, horticulture and livestock production, marine-resource and firewood harvesting. So too are changes within, and between, these diverse livelihood activities over time. Both monetised (income-earning) activities, and 'unremunerated' or unmonetised activities (for example, subsistence agriculture or marine-resource harvesting) are measured, aggregated and compared, in order to consider the drivers, consequences and prospective future trajectories of livelihood change. Key findings for impoverished households in the villages are that waged work has decreased significantly, while expanding social welfare provision has prevented plunges into deeper poverty. Agriculture and marine-resource harvesting remain dynamic, albeit unevenly engaged in by villagers. Amid these larger patterns, local-level variations are evident, with discrepant employment and agricultural production patterns across villages. The role of the state is ambiguous, being both a restrictor and enabler of local livelihoods. As jobs and other livelihood opportunities diminish, the villagers express frustration with the state, but remain simultaneously heavily reliant on state fiscal transfers, through grants and public employment schemes. The findings speak not only to the dynamics of rural livelihoods in South Africa's former homelands; they also point to changes in rural dwellers' livelihoods, within contexts of agrarian change, rural dispossession, inequality and receding prospects for employment, increasingly evident across the global south.
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ISSN:0305-7070
1465-3893
1465-3893
DOI:10.1080/03057070.2020.1773721