Summary This chapter brings to a conclusion the main issues that have been raised in the book and provides some ideas on the type of policies that are needed to enhance land-based livelihoods in the Eastern Cape Province and possibly elsewhere in South Africa. In our opinion the key objective of agrarian policy should be the facilitation of a process that can be labelled as repeasantisation (chapter 1). The empirical material in this book shows that there are still remnants of a peasantry in both villages, albeit few and limited in extent. By examining these we simultaneously explored what constitutes the agrarian in contemporary rural villages such as Guquka and Koloni. The evidence presented indicates a long process of retreat of the agrarian in the rural central Eastern Cape province. Critical examination of past and contemporary interventions in these rural areas, such as betterment planning and land and agrarian reform initiatives, raises questions about the role of expert knowledge in rural and agrarian development in South Africa. There are elements of continuity in the approach being used, leading to the conclusion that alternative expert curricula in agriculture and rural development are needed.

This thesis focuses on the challenge of achieving the goal of universal primary education in a context that is characterised by wide-ranging disparities in the education prospects of different social groups. An overall history of state failure to provide for universal education, and the patterns of exclusion and deprivation that constrain the participation of large sections of Indian rural populations provide the background to recent policy efforts to address the problem of low education participation. The thesis argues that concerted effort is required on the part of households and of the state if future efforts to achieve Universal Primary Education (UPE) are to be more successful than the past. It analyses new approaches which recognise the importance of challenging inequality in access to education, the role of community organisations in the process of stimulating participation in education, and the need for the reform of the administrative apparatus of the state into a more responsive, flexible institution. The coproduction framework facilitates the analysis of the means through which different institutional actors can co-operate in the production of goods and services. Recognition of the importance of social norms and networks that aid co-operation between different actors, and of the importance of effective governance on the part of the state in constructing positive relations between different actors are the strengths of the framework. However, the framework also has limitations. The thesis principally identifies the following: the assumption of shared orientations between users about the value of the good or service concerned, and the implicit assumption of homogeneity among service users and lack of attention paid to inequality and exclusion. Further, the thesis argues that there is insufficient empirical attention to the informal relations within which processes of implementation are embedded. Evidence of limitations is provided through application to a rural district, where the interface between state, community organisations and households in relation to primary education services is studied. Centrally, the thesis argues that the analysis of norms that perpetuate the reproduction of patterns of education exclusion is essential to identify the types of production processes and relationships that are necessary for inclusive and universal education.

International labor migration has become an increasingly common livelihood strategy in rural Cambodia, in some villages becoming a defining and normative part of community life. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of one such rural community, where migration to Thailand has become a primary livelihood strategy over the past decade. Drawing on three years of fieldwork in Chanleas Dai, a commune (khum) in Northwest Cambodia, my research explores the complexities of the migration decision-making process, and the meanings of migration for rural households. This work is motivated by debates within the dialogues of migration and development, most of which seek to understand the potential for migration to promote development by focusing on the impacts of migration. My work departs from previous studies by focusing explicitly on decision-making, seeking to understand how and why families make developmentally important migration decisions. This is a critical area of inquiry, as the potential that migration has to promote or sustain development rests on a series of individual choices, for example who migrates, or how households invest remittances. Yet research tends to focus on the outcomes of these choices, neglecting a sufficient understanding of why they were made. In Chanleas Dai individuals are deeply ambivalent about migration, understanding it as both a constituent cause of insecurity and also the best path to security, mobility, and status. Whereas migration is perceived as low-risk and high-reward, village-based livelihoods are widely perceived as insufficient, impossible, or too financially risky to be meaningful. These perceptions are strongly linked to the recent history of environmental distress in the area. As a result, households often prioritize investment in further migrations, rather than using wages earned abroad for local investment or production. This is particularly true among youth, who see few potential worthwhile strategies to "make it" at home. Credit and agriculture programs theorized to curb migration, and/or promote local investment have not substantively challenged these perceptions. My conclusions discuss these findings in terms of their implications for the migration and development dialogues, definitions and understandings of development, and rural development policies both within and outside of Cambodia. / text

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This thesis investigates the effects of change and modernization on rural women’s livelihoods in northern India. Infrastructural development projects have been identified by research agencies and scholars as beneficial to people in rural areas. I reconceptualize infrastructural development – which here consists of a road, electricity, and irrigation – to act as a lens in which to define and understand the processes of change and modernization. Grounded in feminist methodology, this research is based on interviews with fifty women from six different villages in Tehri-Garwhal, India. I found that while infrastructural development did increase the quality of life for women, women did not experience empowerment. Rather, I argue that the changes brought upon by infrastructural development restructure and redefine the gender inequalities that exist in a region. Infrastructure development acts as a catalyst in a liminal space.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Springs are an important natural resource in many rural spaces which, if utilised sustainably, can be an important source of livelihoods for rural communities. In Zimbabwe, the social aspects of springs and their waterscapes remain understudied. This includes an in-depth understanding of how communities have shaped their livelihoods around springs, the extent to which they have contributed to sustainable rural livelihoods, especially in water stressed parts of the country and the institutional framework shaping their access and utilisation. Using the sustainable livelihoods framework of analysis, the goal of this study was to investigate the role that springs and their resultant waterscapes have played in securing livelihoods for rural households in the Save Catchment of Zimbabwe. Methodologically, the research adopted the socio-hydrological approach which is a new and emerging discipline that aims at understanding the interactions and feedbacks between the human and natural processes that give rise to community water sustainability challenges. The socio-hydrological approach is informed by both the qualitative and quantitative research techniques of data collection and analysis. Two rural communities (Nyanyadzi and Maturure) of the Save Catchment were randomly selected for an in-depth study. The snowball sampling technique (non-probability) was utilised in the selection of the 100 participants for the questionnaire survey. Purposive sampling was used to select nine key informant interview participants. Secondary data collection was done through a systematic review of scholarly and policy literature. Qualitative data generated from primary and secondary sources were processed and analysed using qualitative techniques such as thematic ordering, systematisation and fine grain analysis. For quantitative data, descriptive statistics, such as frequencies, were used to summarise and analyse questionnaire data. Rural communities in the Save Catchment of Zimbabwe were observed to have developed livelihood strategies that were anchored on springs and their waterscapes. In the studied communities, springs were utilised for both commercial and subsistence purposes and livelihoods constructed around springs included; gardening, tourism, livestock production, brick kilning art and craft making. In the study, springs were also shown to be a very important component of sustainable rural livelihoods. However, most of them were perceived to be declining in both water quality and quantity, imposing complex livelihood conundrums for the rural communities and threatening the sustainability of livelihood strategies that they are supporting. Practices observed to be threatening the integrity of springs were encroachment of settlements, natural environmental changes, soil erosion and population pressure. Limited environmental awareness, poverty, poor implementation and enforcement of conservation laws has resulted in the adoption of practices that degraded springs. Institutions shaping spring utilisation were observed to be ineffective to a large extent due to lack of capacities and conflicting mandates but local traditional leadership and water committees were observed to have deeper community penetration and were the most effective in influencing access and effective management of springs and their related waterscapes.

This study analyzed changes in livelihoods before and after tourism development at Khwai, Mababe and Sankoyo villages in the Okavango Delta. Specifically, it analyzed how people interacted with species like giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), sable antelope (Hippotragus niger) and thatching grass (Cymbopogon excavatus) before and after tourism development. This analysis was expected to measure the effectiveness of tourism development as a tool to improve livelihoods and conservation. The concept of social capital, sustainable livelihoods framework and the Community- Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) paradigm informed the study. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through field-based research, using tools of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and key informant interviews. Results indicate that local customs and institutions at Khwai, Mababe and Sankoyo ensured the conservation of resources in pre-colonial Botswana. However, British colonial rule (1885-1966) affected traditional institutions of resource use hence the beginning of resource decline. The British colonial rule and the first 15-20 years after Botswana’s independence from British rule saw an increase in resource degradation. Results also indicate that since CBNRM began in the 1990s, tourism development has positive and negative effects on rural livelihoods. On the positive side, tourism development in some ways is achieving its goals of improved livelihoods and conservation. Residents’ attitudes towards tourism development and conservation have also become positive compared to a decade ago when these communities were not involved in tourism development. On the negative side, tourism is emerging as the single livelihood option causing either a decline or abandonment of traditional options like hunting and gathering and agricultural production. Reliance on tourism alone as a livelihood option is risky in the event of a global social, economic and political instability especially in countries where most tourists that visit the Okavango originate or in Botswana itself. There is need, therefore, for communities to diversify into domestic tourism and small-scale enterprises. On the overall, tourism development through CBNRM indicates that it is a viable tool to achieve improved livelihoods and conservation in the Okavango Delta.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The thesis examines the processes of social differentiation amongst households living on farms transferred through South African land reform, and the degree to which the ‘commercialisation’ of the cattle economy accounts for these processes. The evidence is drawn from six farms owned by Communal Property Associations (CPAs), which are part of the Besters Land Reform Project in the Besters District of KwaZulu-Natal. Drawing on the scholarship of critical political economists, the thesis shows that social differentiation is a dynamic process that both underlies and exacerbates conflicts over the commercial production of collectively owned cattle. This finding is derived from examining the articulation of three analytically distinct processes. These are the diversification of livelihoods in response to diminishing opportunities for regular wage employment; the social stratifications arising partly from the unequal ownership of cattle; and the differential claims on and extractions made from CPA land and cattle production. The thesis shows that some households are able to accumulate agricultural capital and expand their cattle herds by securing and synchronising a range of livelihoods, including wage employment, social grants and subsidies from CPA farm production. Others, unable to synchronise livelihoods arising from social processes that often run counter to one another, find their cattle herds depleted as they draw on them to survive. When their agricultural production declines, their capacity to generate a livelihood sufficiently robust to withstand shocks is put at risk. This places the collectively owned land, income and assets of the CPAs at the centre of a politics defined by the contradiction between meeting the needs of social reproduction on the one hand, and accumulating farm capital, on the other. This is evidenced in the dynamic nature of the hybridised farm systems in which cattle farming for multiple purposes co-exists with the production of cattle as commodities. Reflecting this materiality, the politics of the CPA draws on older relationships of kinship, underpinned by ceremonial uses of cattle that both reflect and generate broader socio-economic inequalities. The outcome of this fluid and complex ‘politics of the farm’ determines whether land reform produces a small number of ‘winners’ or a greater number of households involved in agricultural petty commodity production. Social differentiation is exacerbated on farms that disband collective production, while households are both more likely to continue farming or to re-enter agricultural petty commodity production where CPA production provides capital and labour inputs. The implications of these findings are that the problems of production on many land reform farms cannot be explained simply in terms of CPAs as troubled institutions. Rather, the dynamics of differentiation constitute CPAs and their enterprises as sites of struggle that render collectively owned production unstable under current land and agrarian policy frameworks. Policy priorities that take cognizance of this politics and support farm level adjudications of member’s rights to land, capital and cash, and support agricultural capital accumulators to exit communal property arrangements could result in limited transformations of the agrarian structure.

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / Municipal commonage has the potential to make a major contribution to land redistribution in South Africa. During the Apartheid era, land under the control of local government was leased out to commercial farmers at commercial rates, which ensured an important source of income for municipalities. Post-1994, municipalities have been tasked by the Department of Land Affairs with making land available to the previously disadvantaged and thus managing and administering the commonage for purposes of poverty alleviation.

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / The contribution of common property resources to rural people's livelihoods is enormous, yet policy makers overlook it. Wild resources, grazing resources and trees provide an important buffer for most rural households. This study investigates the contribution of common property resources, in particular communal rangeland resources, to rural people's livelihoods in the Maluti District of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Looking at an array of livelihood strategies which people use, the study investigates the proportional contribution of different livelihood strategies with reference to common property resources, specifically wild resources, grazing resources and trees.