Chapter 4 Figure 4.1
3.3 The selection of case study villages
Small roads to the major outlying villages and other adjacent places radiate from this urban area, an example of this being the road connecting Mapholaneng with places such as Malingoaneng and St. Martin Mission about 20 km and 60 km away, respectively, from the catchment and the road connecting Mapholaneng with places about 70 km outside the catchment in upper Khubelu river (Figure 3.1).
The urban area is also distinguishable from the rural villages by its relatively larger population, which has grown from the new immigrants from other villages outside the catchment who came to stay permanently in Mapholaneng for a number of reasons.
Some wanted to be closer to transport facilities for commuting and communication between home and work in the South African mines. Other households have moved into Mapholaneng so as to enable the purchase of modern household goods such as bedding, kitchen goods and modern building materials which are more easily obtained when the household is located close to road transport.
67 involvement in market practices or means their non-integration into a capitalist economy, as purported by some schools of thought (Wolpe, 1972).
3.3.1.The selection of urban case study villages.
From the list of urban areas shown in Table 3.1 Meketeng and Motete villages were selected to represent the urban area of the catchment. They were chosen basically due to their rapidly urbanizing character which is reflected by the increasing development of informal, petty commodity trade in both of them. The haphazard arrangement of small cafes and hawker shops or stalls along the main road is an example of this recent development in petty trade in the catchment and the sources of capital formation behind the development of these small business enterprises is later investigated in this study. Their selection was done in order to highlight the historical background of households' involvement with business enterprises in the catchment, to establish whether they are indigenous to the urban area or whether they belong to immigrants from somewhere else, or whether the owners of businesses are the former migrant households or non-migrants? Provision of this information is regarded as fundamental for answering this thesis's question of which group the migrant households or the non-migrant household has invested more productively in the catchment.
3.3.2 The selection of rural case study villages.
Khukhune, Makalieng and Tiping villages were chosen to represent the Rural area. In choosing these rural villages, considerations of spatial location, accessibility to the main tarred road and the different altitudes of different villages were considered. For example, Makalieng is about 2 km from the main road and lies at a relatively low altitude of 2200 m compared to the other rural villages.
Tiping is about 5 to 7 km from the main road at 2790m altitude. On the other hand, Khukhune village was chosen due to its remoteness and isolation, positioned on the foothills of the Thaba-Chitja Mountain. The village is cut off from the present societal developments such as socio-economic infrastructure of roads, improved water supply, schools and shops. It was also considered worthwhile investigating the historical role
played by the migrant labour system in changing living conditions of households in this very remote village. It was decided to investigate and to determine whether there is any correlation between the spatial location of a village and the quality of life conditions of the households or the socio-economic level of village development
3.3.3 The selection of the case study villages household's samples.
Once the villages for case studies were chosen, the next stage was to select sample households for questionnaire survey. A proportional number of the total households in each rural and urban village were selected to provide a balanced representation of both areas. This was decided upon so as to avoid area biases, which in the end, might influence the interpretation of the findings of the study. Table 3.2, shows both the total households and the sample surveyed migrant and non-migrant households in the selected urban and rural villages of Mapholaneng Catchment. All households in the case study villages were numbered after plotting their location on a sketch map during fieldwork (Fiigure:3.1 ).
Random sampling was employed to select households for answering the questionnaire survey to give a representative sample of the characteristic households in the selected case study villages. Catchment village sample sizes of households varied depending on the living characteristics of households. Where living conditions of the households were found homogeneous or leading relatively similar life styles, 20% to 30% sample sizes were drawn while where households were considered more differentiated or heterogenous, a 50% household sample was drawn.
69 Table 3.2: Total and sample surveyed case study village households in Mapholaneng catchment.
188 Total village hlholds
135 53
54 27 27
Total viUage sampled h1holds
9 8
17
Number of non-rnigrant sampled h/holds
37
18 19
Number of migrant sampled h/holds
59
Total non- migrant h/holds
16 43
37
129 92
15 25 8 13 21 40
10 5 5 3 8 15
34 61 12 7 19 95
59 91 25 23 48 150
~~
.. 10 150 62 40 102 338
--~-_.- - ' - - - - ' - -
migrant h1holds
.:..-'-_ •__o_~ ·----=-,- ~
:..:..:..:..-'-'--._.:..-...-~~~ ~~---_.-
Source: Fieldwork data gathered from the village headmen (April-June,1998)
The division of the household sample into migrant and non-migrant households is done to compare and contrast these household groups in respect to differential criteria, including analysis of the household's relations to property and productive investments so as to answer the question whether the migrant or the non-migrant households have invested more productively in the catchment.
3.4 Mapping
On the catchment map (Figure 3.1) all households in five case study villages were each numbered in relation to their physical locations in the catchment. In order to enable sampling procedures, all households in each study village and in all locations were grouped in specific household clusters. Each cluster consisted of several consecutive or neighbouring households. For example, village households numbered from one to
twenty (1-20)formed a cluster. The household clusters differed in size depending on the total households in each village. It was from these groupings or household clusters that samples for detailed study were drawn.