Role enactment of rural women : a sociological-exploratory study of role behaviour and its implications for rural development

Abstract
The study is concerned with the role of rural women in society. It focuses on a typically agricultural, grass-root community where the forces of traditional Zulu culture are still at work in family and clan relationships. This traditional way of life is retained and enforced through the most powerful institutions of religion and politics. Thus the authority structure and religious philosophy permeate interpersonal relationships giving them a character which is distinctively rural. Architecture, mode of dress, dietary habits and household settlement attest to the rurality of the community. This is an exploratory case study of a small section of a larger commu= nity, and which section represents the overall ~eneral character of the community. Although typically rural in terms of value and normative system, nevertheless it is already being steadily exposed to elements of an industrial society e.g. a money economy, agricultural technology, formal schooling and outmigration of male workers. We therefore see in this microcosm two forces at work - traditional as well as modern. The research population is representative of a traditional community in transition. The study focuses on role-behaviour of rural women and its implications for development. The research group is already partially exposed to the effects of rural development. To what extent their present role affords them meaningful participation and benefit from their community's changing status will be revealed with greater clarity as their particular role-behaviour,within their given environment, is analysed. With respect to rationale for choosing this particular group, we can argue that they are the most suitable respondents on whom to do research which focuses on rural behavioural patterns, on the one hand, and social change and development on the other. The population is neither totally isolated in its rural social system nor influenced by forces of modernisation to the extent that the basic cultural ~radition is effaced.
Description
Submitted to the faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 1982.
Keywords
Women in rural development--Zululand (South Africa), Rural women--Social conditions.
Citation
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