Class, gender and the household: the developmental cycle in Southern Africa
Murray, C.
Development and Change 18(2): 235-249
1986
ISSN/ISBN: 0012-155X DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.1987.tb00271.xDocument Number: 352237
A brief review is made of the concept of the developmental cycle of domestic groups, with a view to understanding process of household formation and dissolution in the rural periphery of Southern Africa. The periphery in this sense refers to those areas which depend for a livelihood, to a greater or lesser extent, on the export of migrant wage earners to the industrial "core" areas of South Africa. The periphery thus embraces both the black reserve areas (Bantustans) of South Africa and the independent black states in the Southern African economic region. Discussion, is confined to Lesotho, Botswana and the Bantustans. The following propositions are put forward: (1) the developmental cycle is a concept with the analytical capacity to reconstruct observations of the complexity and variety of everyday life within a temporal frame. (2) The primary test of its continuing analytical relevance must be its capacity to situate cyclical changes within a historical understanding of particular trends and divergences. (3) It must be sensitive to the changing structural determinants of the "total situation" of rural households, such as much higher levels of structural unemployment, the further tightening of influx controls by the South African state, and the continuing upheavals of forced relocation.