Pursuing rural development whilst maintaining ruralism : a comparative study of Qunu (Empa), Eastern Cape, South Africa and Tsholotsho (Hwange National Park), Zimbabwe

M.Tech. (Operations Management)Abstract: The concept of development has, over the years, been narrowed down to the idea of massive urbanisation and commercialisation of spaces. This may be the result of the history of development having occurred through modernization. Willis (2011:2) states that for many people, ideas of development are linked to modernity. Modernization can be seen as the general mechanism by which social transformation from agricultural dominance to domination by trade and industry takes place, including the permanent continuation of this process. (Charlton & Andras, 2003:5). This is when the traditional sense and function of society is taken over by massive industrialisation, hence society abandoning traditional and primary activities of society. As seen in the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century in Europe, the abandonment of traditional, rural society led to this industrialization (and thus modernization) seen as the optimal form of socio-economic development and prosperity. The less developed countries such as those in Africa and Asia, which industrialised a little later than Europe, wanted to follow suit. In the 1950s, industrialization was seen as key to progress for the under-developed countries (Chambers, 1997:16). “They (the civil servants) want to modernise fast; they rightly observe that rich nations are non-agricultural and that their own agriculture is poor, and they wrongly conclude that rapid industrialization at the expense of agriculture can produce rapid development. They want to avoid rural administration, believing that it is more difficult to plan for thousands of small farms than for a few big urban firms, and that planning has little scope for changing rural life” (Lipton, 1978: 65). This has not only resulted in commercialisation of rural spaces and settlements, but also in great rural depopulation and rural urban migration rates. This is because development and innovation has now been centralized and concentrated within non-rural settings where people found better living conditions, with economic opportunities, employment, and access to better housing. In his book, Chambers (1983: 4) notes the extreme differences in rural livelihoods to those of urban livelihoods. He deems this..