During the December holidays hundreds of thousands of black South Africans would have moved out of Gauteng, for example, and gone “home” — a broad concept that captures the place where one was born, one’s parents live (or lived) or where one’s grandparents grew up, died and are buried.
This concept of home, which creates an identity rooted in both urban and rural settings, dates back to before colonisation, when people would leave home (where they grew up) to start their own homesteads, and continues for a variety of reasons, including cultural.
It was further reinforced by colonisation and apartheid laws such as influx control, which forced black people to sojourn in the economic nodes (which grew into cities) to supply labour to the white economy and then return to their rural areas — home.
But even people who grew up in the black townships have “home”, a place where they grew up during the dark days of racially segregated residential areas. When the barriers fell away and they acquired the financial means, they moved to the northern suburbs. However, they have retained a foot at “home”, going there for cultural ceremonies or to escape the northern suburban blues.
This is why there have been several court cases in which relatives are fighting over ownership of four-roomed township houses. These cases have set up a clash between black culture and the country’s laws, specifically as they apply to who owns what. SA laws make no provision for a “family home”.
This urban-rural duality challenges the urban transition model, which was developed out of the European experience. There, people left rural areas to come to the cities, drawn in by prospects for higher incomes and better standards of living.
Studies of urbanisation in SA and other developing countries often focus on its potential socioeconomic benefits, leaving out the implications of rural-urban linkages. That’s why urban planner and researcher Warren Smit’s 1998 article sheds some light. As he pointed out, “circular migration” in the South (developing countries) often includes “oscillatory movement between urban and rural homes and, in some cases, constant on-migration”.
“In addition to economic reasons for circular migration, there are also cultural aspects,” Smit wrote in an article, “The rural linkages of urban households in Durban, SA”. It was based on the findings of a survey by the Built Environment Support Group during 1995-97 in three low-income residential areas in the greater Durban area.
“The survey found that for many people in low-income areas of Durban, the urban area is only a temporary place to stay and the rural home is regarded as their real home. Many urban households are thus loose units with only temporary urban bases, but which are part of an extended family with a permanent rural base.”
There are differences though, between straightforward migrants, who tend to be on the low end of the income scale, and black professionals who own property in the cities and have “a decent house” back “home”. An interesting study would be one on black professionals with one foot in the city and another in a rural area, specifically looking at what this duality means for their identity and attitudes to the city and the rural area.
This duality has political implications too, because people with a foot in the city and a rural area live under modern governance in the city and a traditional authority in the rural area. This is most pronounced in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, the provinces with the most traditional authorities.
This endowment of history and culture has undoubtedly left post-apartheid SA with some challenges. Going home — whether in December, over the long Easter weekend or monthly — clogs up national and provincial roads. The December and Easter peaks in vehicle accidents tend to happen during the drive to or from “home”.
But these rural connections come with benefits too. Many of the country’s rural areas have seen enormous housing upgrades because of the investments people made at home. What were once backward villages during apartheid have become sites of homes — some palatial — that would sell for millions in the cities. These homes don’t feature in the country’s measurements of development.
Such housing developments in rural areas create an opportunity for rural and small-town municipalities to build a funding base through property taxes.
• Sikhakhane, a former spokesperson for the finance minister, Treasury and SA Reserve Bank, is editor of The Conversation Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
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