This research was conducted in the small rural Tsekong Village where I was born and raised. Going back to Tsekong to do fieldwork had its challenges. Firstly, distinguishing between ‘field’ and ‘home’ was an issue. I went there for data collection, not a visit. I travelled back to the Eastern Cape on the first day of July with the aim of collecting data throughout the month. The winter season was a perfect time to conduct the research because elderly people stay indoors during this time. Interviews commenced on the 18th of July and continued until the 29th of July with inevitable intervals in between discussed further as limitations.
For the first two weeks after arrival not much research could be conducted because of social matters – especially funerals which form an important part of the traditions of this village. In line with the funeral tradition, death in the village is mourned and respected. In that winter period set aside for data collection, three different households had funerals in the village involving a participant’s child, spouse and sibling respectively. As a result, some households which were part of the data collection could not be visited for the fieldwork and nor could the neighbours be visited, thus delaying progress in data collection. Another inevitable challenge to the data collection was the snowfall. It started snowing on the 24th of July 2016 and lasted
until the 28th of the month. The snowfall was an important aspect of this research even though it affected the data collection.
Challenges encountered with some of the drafted questions included participants being uncertain of the year in which events took place. Another challenging question related to what people depend on to make a living, in that elderly people were not comfortable to state their exact income or pension. Nonetheless, some of these difficulties could be overcome because in a semi-structured interview setting, the researcher was able to explain the question in different ways and have a conversation with the participant around the question that allowed for clarifications and additional information to emerge.
4.8 Conclusion
This chapter has laid out the design for this research as well as the process followed to obtain permission to conduct the research. It has also outlined the methods used to obtain accurate, precise, and relevant information for this research. Research design and use of multiple methods was described to achieve the study objectives; these cover identifying how livelihoods have changed due to perceived environmental changes and how people have adapted to change over as long a period as can be recalled. Participants were chosen based on age, with the focus on elderly people. The four sections of the questionnaire were described covering: the composition of households; the perceived environmental change in the area; how this perceived change has resulted in changes in livelihood composition; and finally, the way in which the population composition of the region has changed.
CHAPTER FIVE: ORAL HISTORIES RELATING ENVIRONMENTAL AND POPULATION CHANGE
5.1 Introduction
This chapter addresses the objective of this research: to explore using oral histories and analysis of rainfall data, the long-term environmental changes around the village of Tsekong in the Eastern Cape. The discussion in this chapter is based on narrative accounts, South African Census data 2014, as well as rainfall data from the SAWS. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in the village to ascertain villagers’ knowledge about environmental change in the area. Questions were asked regarding weather events and the changes experienced in precipitation including rain and snow, environmental change and changes in rural livelihoods. Rainfall data was obtained from the SAWS for the study area covering three locations, namely Mount Fletcher, Maclear and Matatiele. These data were analysed to indicate seasonality and identify average rainfall patterns. Changes in population composition were also assessed using South African census data.
Based on the oral accounts of the research participants, livelihood change was also identified. In this village, livelihoods are not determined by birth in the way that they were in the past. If a person is born in a rural area it does not necessarily mean they will conduct exclusively rural activities. Migration has provided people with the option to choose whether they want to be part of rural or urban livelihoods. This section discusses the demographic composition of households in the village of study based on both narrative accounts and census data. The household level is a good enabler for investigating and analysing livelihoods (Ellis, 2000). Analysing at the household level provides an understanding of each household’s social and historical context. This chapter provides a discussion of the social and historical context of the study area as depicted by different households in their narratives. Participants shed some light on how the Tsekong Village came about. Accounts that were given by participants relating to the history of the village also gave an indication of livelihood activities in the past including livestock, land ownership and land policies. Migration for work or study opportunities has shaped the population composition of the area and this has had an impact on the region. The second part of the chapter discusses the effects of environmental change, especially looking at changes in rainfall patterns as perceived by residents and the effects of this on agriculture, water sources, soil fertility, grazing land, wild fruits, and livestock.
5.2 Observed socio-demographic features of the study area
The primary research conducted for this study involved twenty participants, who were interviewed in-depth and during repeated visits. Five of these participants were males and fifteen were females. The accounts from these interviews indicate that many households consist of grandparents staying with their school-going grandchildren and some who are unemployed. The maximum number of residents in any of the households interviewed was eight inhabitants. Participants who had their grandchildren living with them indicated that their children had moved to the larger cities to look for work and education opportunities. This is similar to a study carried by Perret et al. (2005) also in rural Transkei. That study showed that pensioners are heading most households and depending on both old age and child support grant, as well as remittances sent by family members. Several other studies (Chitonge, 2013; Mandleni, 2011; Mokgope, 2000) have recorded a similar pattern in the rural Eastern Cape where elderly people depend on social grants for a living.
These above-observed patterns from narrative accounts are supported by South African statistics, which indicate that pensioners heading households are very common in rural areas of South Africa (Stats SA, 2014). The fact that Tsekong Village has more elderly women compared to old men also relates to women having a longer life expectancy than men. According to Stats SA (2014), the life expectancy at birth is approximated 59–63 years for males and females respectively.
For this study, the age of the interview participants ranged from 60–96 years of age with the oldest being a female. All participants were Black Southern Sotho speakers. The interviews included questions about the level of education achieved by participants and by other village members. Participants all agreed that women’s education was not seen as important in comparison to that of the men, particularly during the apartheid era. The education system under which older villages were educated was known as the ‘Bantu Education system’. It is evident that women’s education was not as much of a priority and the expectation for women was that they would get married and did not need employment. Of the participants in the interviews, five had not had any formal education and they were all female. Ten of the participants had achieved some level of formal primary education; three had reached secondary school. Two were qualified teachers with post-school qualifications, a male and female participant. The oldest woman participating in the research was one of the participants who had never been in a classroom. For men, when they were married it was expected that they would
leave for work on the mines in order to be able to support his new family. Additional skills that the female respondents had included knitting, making traditional grass brooms, and making special traditional costumes for the circumcision school.