Women in rural South Africa: a post-wage existence and the role of the state

• Pages: 392-410
• Date: 21 May 2018
• Published date: 21 May 2018
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-05-2017-0110
• Author: Michelle Williams
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity, equality, inclusion

Women in rural South Africa:

a post-wage existence and the

role of the state

Michelle Williams

Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand,

Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to consider women in rural villages of Keiskammahoekin the Eastern

Cape province of South Africa. What the author discovered is that some women are carving out a space

through a complex, triple relation to the state. The state is distributor of socialgrants, a midwife of economic

activity, and a technocratic system of governance and “service delivery.”The paper asks whether post-wage

livelihoods are simply survivalists or have emancipatory potential.

Design/methodology/approach –The paper is based on research conducted in 2013-2015 in the rural

villages of Keiskammahoek. The author spent time in the villages informally speaking to women and

conducted 39 in-depth interviews.

Findings –The author found that the women are finding ways to engender non-capitalist relations in new

and creative ways within their rural communities. The three sources of state activity (and power) –grants,

economic projects, and governance –are engaged and used in different ways, but together create an

interesting nexus of livelihoods and survival. What is interesting is the survivalist livelihoods –even if not

representing an alternative mode of production –are allowing women a degree of independence, dignity, and

self-determination.

Originality/value –The research has not been published and this argument has not been made before.

The manuscript is a new approach to understanding post-wage livelihoods.

Keywords Gender, Democracy, Development, Livelihoods, Post-wage existence

Paper type Research paper

With growing insecurity, rising unemployment, and increasing inequality, how do those

on the bottom of capitalism’s heap, that is rural women in the Global South, survive? The

political dream of full employment is but a shadow receding into the dizzying haze of

fast-paced, technology-driven, globalized, and finance-led advanced capitalism. Today we

talk of mass structural unemployment and surplus populations with little chance that the

social democratic world of breadwinners and their dependents will ever become a reality

for the growing numbers, indeed vast geographical regions, of unemployed. As this

realitysetsin,thereismuchspeculationabout the post-wage world as more and more

people around the globe are excluded from the formal wage economy and spend

significant portions of their lives “unemployed.”Yet, a paradox of our times is that most

people are still in capitalist market relations as consumers. For many, this paradox leads

to heavy debt and increased precariousness; they may be “unemployed”but they continu e

to engage in “economic”activity. In this context, how are the non-wage surplus

populations surviving? This reality increasingly challenges the idea that wage workers

(i.e. those involved in the formal economy as wage earners) are the only productive

economic actors. This is especially true in South Africa.

In this study, I consider women in rural villages of Keiskammahoek in the Eastern Cape

province of South Africa. What I discovered through spending time in the villages,

informally speaking to women, and through 39 in-depth interviews[1] is that some women

are carving out a space through a complex, triple relation to the state. The state is

distributor of social grants, a midwife of economic activity, and a technocratic system of

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 37 No. 4, 2018

pp. 392-410

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-05-2017-0110

Received 13 May 2017

Revised 27 August 2017

Accepted 15 September 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

392

EDI

37,4

governance and “service delivery.”In this context, the women are finding ways to engender

non-capitalist relations in new and creative ways within their rural communities through

their ability to realize their claims for unconditional access to the socially produced wealth of

the nation through distributive “politics of rightful shares”based on social grants

(Ferguson, 2015, p. 58)[2]. The three sources of state activity (and power) –grants, economic

projects, and governance –are used in different ways, but together create a nexus of

livelihoods and survival. What is interesting is the survivalist livelihoods –even if not

representing an alternative mode of production –are allowing women a degree of

independence, dignity, and self-determination.

Keiskammahoek: setting the context

Keiskammahoek lies in the foothills of the Amathole Mountains in the Amahlati Local

Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province[3]. Keiskammahoek consists of a number of

rural villages and a small town called Keiskammahoek, or QoboQobo, established in the

1800s as a British military outpost during frontier wars with the Xhosa[4]. The area has a

rich history of Xhosa and Khoi settlement dating back hundreds of years as well as a

history of fiercely resisting British colonial rule in a number of legendary battles. One of

the long-term effects of British colonialism has been the heavy Christian missionary

presence (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1986), with mission stations, churches, and schools

established throughout the region, evidence of which is still seen in the omnipresent

churches (Bennie and Williams, 2014).

The Keiskammahoekregion has an interesting history of mixed landownership with both

whites and blacks settling in the area[5]. From the 1960s, the South African Native Trust

decided to turn the Keiskammahoek district into an exclusively African area[6]. By the

mid-1970s,all whites had sold their propertiesto the Trust and left the area. Througha policy

of “betterment”planning –a cornerstone of aparth eid’s social engin eering –blacks were

removed from their scattered residences and farming fields and consolidated into

concentrated residential areas with demarcated areas of irrigation fields and commonage

land (Budlender et al., 2011;De Wet, 2001). As a result, today Keiskammahoek has nucleated

villages across the countryside with a combination of freehold and communal land. For

example, Rabula village consists mostly of freehold land with individual homes on

freestanding plots, whereas other villages are communal land overseen by democratically

elected community structures[7]. This varied land system allowed for some degree of class

differentiation where a small middle class emerged (Weinberg, 2010). With community

structures administering land through democratic processes within the community –instead

of a traditional leader allocating land –many women have direct access to their own land,

without having to be dependent on a male partner or family member[8].

The rural areas have long been a crucial component of the South African economy’s

minerals energy complex (Wolpe, 1972; Fine and Rustomjee, 1996), with its incessant

demands for cheap coal and cheap labor. During apartheid, Keiskammahoek was an

important labor sending area to the mines in and around Johannesburg, with most

households dependent on the wages earned by migrant workers. The migrants’remittances

gave rural inhabitants access to some form of wage income and thus played an important

role in the rural economy. In addition, the early migrant period created a disciplined labor

force knitted into rural networks in which a moral code embroiled migrants to regularly

“return home”(Bonner, 2011, p. 221-223). The classic story tells of men going to work on the

mines and women remaining in the rural areas to raise the children and care for the elderly

and returning worn-out miners (Wilson, 1972; Johnstone, 1976; Legassick, 1977; Beinart,

1994; Harries, 1994; Delius, 1996). This literature demonstrates that women played a vital

role in social reproduction and, thus, underpinned the South African economy. While the

historic role of women and rural areas in the political economy of South Africa cannot be

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in rural

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