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Vulnerability to impoverishment in South African rural areas: the erosion of kinship and neighbourhood as social resources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

John S. Sharp  and
Andrew D. Spiegel
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Extract

Since 1960 several million Africans have been relocated in South Africa, mainly from the common (or ‘white’) area to the so-called ‘homelands’. This process of relocation is still under way, and precise enumeration of the numbers of people who have been and will be affected is impossible. Estimates vary according to the definition of ‘relocation’: it is apparent, for instance, that official sources define the process as narrowly as possible in order to minimize the numbers involved. There is abundant evidence, however, that relocation has taken place on a vast scale, and that the process has generally resulted in increased poverty and misery for its victims (Surplus People Project, 1983). Kane-Berman has recently argued that the South African Bantustans are, at present, not so much reservoirs of a reserve army of labour as dumping grounds ‘for people who have little chance of obtaining employment anywhere’ (1981: 29). From having been sub-subsistence dormitory areas for labour migrants, they are rapidly becoming places to which the structurally unemployed are being permanently consigned.

Résumé

Vulnérabilité à l'appauvrissement dans les régions rurales d'Afrique du Sud: l'érosion de la parenté et du voisinage en tant que ressources sociales

Les Bantustans d'Afrique du Sud et autres régions périphériques du sous-continent sont, au niveau macro d'analyse, sujets à un procédé commun de sous-developpement. Cela a souvent conduit à l'assomption que toutes ces régions sont homogènes. Cet ankle tend à explorer deux dimensions de variation à l'intérieur de la périphérie en tenant compte des facteurs au niveau micro qui rendent les gens plus ou moins vulnérables à l'appauvrissement.

En premier lieu il examine la variation selon ces données entre deux régions à l'intérieur de la périphérie. Deuxièmement il examine plusieurs des causes et résultats de variation dans ces régions. Les régions étudiées étant: Qwaqwa dans le nord-est de l'Etat Libre d'Orange et le District de Matatiele au Transkei. Nous présentons une observation de participant dans les deux régions, pour illustrer certains aspects de variation dans les deux dimensions ci-mentionnées.

Les études de cas indiquent les ressources majeures créatrices de revenu ouvertes aux membres de la classe ouvrière dans chaque région, et soulignent l'importance critique d'une source de revenu liquide garantie chez les groupes domestiques comme une soupape de sécurité contre l'appauvrissement. Pour n'importe quel groupe domestique donné d'autres ressources matérielles telles que l'agriculture et autres formes mineures de production et vente ne forment pas d'alternatives à l'accès d'une source garantie de revenu liquide. Dans le cas où d'autres ressources sont accessibles, comme dans la plupart du Matatiele jusqu'à nos jours, un revenu liquide garanti peut être utilisé pour activer les relations sociales qui mettent en service ces autres ressources. Lorsque d'autres ressources matérielles ne sont pas disponibles, comme au Qwaqwa, à cause de la relocalisation en masse et le surpeuplement, le revenu liquide ne peut être utilisé que dans le contexte de consommation directe par les bénéficiaires des groupes domestiques. Dans les deux secteurs, les groupes domestiques n'ayant pas accès à un revenu liquide garanti sont sévèrement désavantagés. Mais au Qwaqwa ils sont sévèrement vulnérables à l'appauvrissement, à la déstintégration du groupe, et même à la mort de ses membres, parce que le manque de ressources materielles genératrices de revenu menant à la redistribution sape les fondations des relations de parenté et de voisinage. Les gens n'ont pas suffisamment de moyens acceptables socialement par lesquels ils peuvent s'entraider et transférer le revenu des groupes domestiques possédant des revenus liquides garantis à ceux n'en ayant pas. Les liens de parenté et de voisinage sont en train d'être tendus, sous ces conditions au delà des limites dépassant l'expérience passé des gens.

La variété des expériences des gens est brièvement liée à la question de conscience rurale et de réponses différentielles.

Type
Labour and poverty in rural South Africa
Information
Africa , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , April 1985 , pp. 133 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1985

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