Agrarian Change and Adaptive Capacity in Rural South Africa

This article explores how agrarian change and the current prevalence of non-agrarian livelihoods in rural South Africa might be assessed using the concept of adaptive capacity. Agrarian change is often characterised as “de-agrarianisation” or “de-peasantisation,” which implies a wholesale change in the composition of agricultural areas. While some of the research on southern Africa regards these processes as linear, other studies argue that the dynamics are hybridised: large-scale agriculture is being increasingly abandoned, while smallholder agriculture remains intact or becomes even more robust. We argue that a complex non-linear deactivation process is taking place, leading to less agricultural activity and a reduction in the levels of agricultural production. Adaptive capacity and agrarian change are not necessarily related, and households’ livelihoods and health status may continuously evolve without being adversely affected by an alteration in their use of resources, particularly natural resources. Using a mixed methodological framework, including social network analysis and qualitative interviews, the article highlights the importance of considering rural people’s responses to global environmental change, and how their agrarian contexts may not align perfectly with discourses surrounding adaptive capacity.