There is a noticeable improvement in the quality of the lives of women engaged in economic activities beyond the home. In a democratic South Africa, women – including those in rural areas – are being freed from their fixed gender roles. Today women are regarded as co-participants in any undertaking, whether as organisers, natural environmentalists or economists, in order to achieve sustainable development. It is for this reason that a number of laws and statutory bodies are in place to speed up the empowerment of women. Consequently, women as individuals or groups are doing their best to respond to the call of democracy in order to balance the equation which has for long remained skewed. In the study area of the Makhuduthamaga Local Municipality, women have initiated projects through mobilisation of their capabilities and available resources to sustain their personal needs, and those of their households. Hence, their well-being with regard to health, nutrition, mobility and social connectivity has improved. There is no doubt that these women are primary breadwinners for their families on a daily basis, as the majority have no other source of income or their husbands’ jobs are taken by migrant labour. The research reveals that, unless women stand up and take action to disprove what is known as ‘feminisation of poverty’, nothing good can happen. Through Participatory Rural Appraisal and Community Asset Mapping techniques, an observation of ethical considerations, participants responded willingly and exposed the realities of their lives. One remaining challenge that needs to be constantly monitored is that there should be a balance between policies and practices with men needing to be empowered to understand, accept and assist in the empowerment of women with a view to achieving sustainability in almost every undertaking. / Geography / D.Litt. et Phil. (Geography)

This is a transdisciplinary study of how ‘popular cultures of survival’ regenerate and rehumanise township residents and communities whose social fabric and intergenerational bonds have been violently torn by endemic suffering. I focus specifically on township mothers’ and daughters’ lifeworlds with the aim of recentering these marginalised lives so that they can inform us about retheorising marginality and in this way enrich our limited academic discourses on the subjectivities of poor urban African women. Located in the interdisciplinary field of popular culture studies, the study draws on and synthesises theoretical insights from a number of disciplines such as sociology, political-science, anthropology, history, literary studies, womanist and feminist studies and indigenous studies, while using a variety of methods and sources such as interviews, reports, observation, newspapers, field notes, photo-albums, academic articles and embodied expressions to create a unique theory on the lived and embodied suffering and healing experiences of township women. I have called this situated conceptual framework that is theoretically aligned to African womanism and existential phenomenology, but principally fashioned out of township mothers and daughters ways of understanding the world and their place in it--Township mothers’ and daughters’ lived and embodied ‘cultures of survival’. And in order to surface their popular cultural survival strategies I have adopted an African womanist interpretative phenomenological methodological framework. This suggested conceptual and methodological framework has allowed me to creatively explore the dialectical tensions of the everyday township philosophies, aesthetics and moralities of ‘ukuphanta’, to hustle and ‘ukuhlonipha’, to respect, and show how they create the moral-existential ground for township mothers and daughters not only to continue to survive, but to reclaim lives of dignity and sensuality amidst repeated negation and historical hardships. / Sociology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)

Text in English / This study is focused on the topical issue of female poverty in South Africa. Specifically, the study is on how poverty has single mothers households in reception area of Diepsloot informal settlements and how they have been coping with poverty while at the same time trying to change their situation. The study is premised on a qualitative approach employing the use of snowball sampling to refer other single mothers resident in the reception area. Methodologically, the results are drawn primarily on interviews held with 30 women residing in the reception area of the informal settlements. The study selects 8 out of 30 case studies which stand out from the others in circumstances, challenges and livelihood assets; challenges and coping mechanisms. What emerges from the results of all the interviews is a complex range of factors influencing and exacerbating these households' vulnerability and resilience to chronic poverty. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

This is a transdisciplinary study of how ‘popular cultures of survival’ regenerate and rehumanise township residents and communities whose social fabric and intergenerational bonds have been violently torn by endemic suffering. I focus specifically on township mothers’ and daughters’ lifeworlds with the aim of recentering these marginalised lives so that they can inform us about retheorising marginality and in this way enrich our limited academic discourses on the subjectivities of poor urban African women. Located in the interdisciplinary field of popular culture studies, the study draws on and synthesises theoretical insights from a number of disciplines such as sociology, political-science, anthropology, history, literary studies, womanist and feminist studies and indigenous studies, while using a variety of methods and sources such as interviews, reports, observation, newspapers, field notes, photo-albums, academic articles and embodied expressions to create a unique theory on the lived and embodied suffering and healing experiences of township women. I have called this situated conceptual framework that is theoretically aligned to African womanism and existential phenomenology, but principally fashioned out of township mothers and daughters ways of understanding the world and their place in it--Township mothers’ and daughters’ lived and embodied ‘cultures of survival’. And in order to surface their popular cultural survival strategies I have adopted an African womanist interpretative phenomenological methodological framework. This suggested conceptual and methodological framework has allowed me to creatively explore the dialectical tensions of the everyday township philosophies, aesthetics and moralities of ‘ukuphanta’, to hustle and ‘ukuhlonipha’, to respect, and show how they create the moral-existential ground for township mothers and daughters not only to continue to survive, but to reclaim lives of dignity and sensuality amidst repeated negation and historical hardships. / Sociology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)

Text in English / This study is focused on the topical issue of female poverty in South Africa. Specifically, the study is on how poverty has single mothers households in reception area of Diepsloot informal settlements and how they have been coping with poverty while at the same time trying to change their situation. The study is premised on a qualitative approach employing the use of snowball sampling to refer other single mothers resident in the reception area. Methodologically, the results are drawn primarily on interviews held with 30 women residing in the reception area of the informal settlements. The study selects 8 out of 30 case studies which stand out from the others in circumstances, challenges and livelihood assets; challenges and coping mechanisms. What emerges from the results of all the interviews is a complex range of factors influencing and exacerbating these households' vulnerability and resilience to chronic poverty. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)