This report draws on livelihoods-based analysis, in order to examine rural development,
and rural development policy, within South African’s former ‘homeland’ (or ‘bantustan’)
communal areas. The report commences by describing the larger context of the former
homelands or bantustans, before defining ‘rural development’ and tracing policymakers’
efforts to facilitate and effect it within post-apartheid South Africa. This constitutes
the broad context for the research, which serves to ‘frame’ the subsequent discussion
and detailed analysis of rural livelihoods. After prefacing discussion of the policy context
of rural development, the research questions and research methodology used to
examine rural livelihoods in the communal areas are presented. This is followed with a
brief contextualising discussion of the specific research site. The report then presents an
abridged summary of household case studies derived from the qualitative data.
