Cattle after migrant labour: emerging markets and changing regimes of value in rural South Africa

Abstract

The publication Poverty Trends in South Africa: An Examination of Absolute Poverty between 2006 and 2015 by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA 2017) revealed that more than 30 million people in South Africa were living below the unemployment benefit poverty line, representing a sharp increase of 3.1 million people since 2011. One of the high-level findings of the report was that rural poverty had intensified over this period, particularly in rural areas in Limpopo Province, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Overall, the report showed that the poverty gap between urban and rural areas was increasing as conditions improved in urban areas while they deteriorated in rural settlements despite the massive roll-out of welfare grants in those areas.