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© The Author(s) 2020
A. Masinire, A. P. Ndofirepi (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume I, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57277-8_8
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Reclaiming Hope: De-normalising Rural
in terms of their proximity to cities to define rurality (Mbabazi 2015), while others conceptualise the term demographically by focusing on vari- ables which include the population size of an area, household income, proximity to healthcare and other amenities (Ebersohn and Ferreira 2012; Mukeredzi 2013). Although various authors present different per- spectives about what rurality means, of concern is that the majority of authors tend to point to negative aspects of rural life, which Moletsane (2012) refers to as the ‘deficit paradigm of rurality’.
Moletsane’s (2012) contention is that researchers should desist from adopting a deficiency-based paradigm characterised by being narrowly conservative, disadvantaged and isolated from the metropolitan life, and adopt a strength-based (also referred to as assert-based) paradigm of rurality. Despite the view of rurality that a researcher adopts, it is essential to note that rurality is dynamic and complex and needs to be understood from various perspectives. Another way to desist from the deficiency- based paradigm is acknowledging that rural constituencies are mere objects to their contexts, but “make use of time, space and resources dif- ferently to transform an environment”—alluding to the strength-based paradigm of rurality (Balfour 2012, p. 2). Thus, the current chapter adopts a strength-based paradigm to demystify how some rural schools survive against all odd to provide ‘quality’ education to their learners.
One of the conceptualisations of rurality that resonates with the strength-based paradigm is offered by Balfour, Mitchell and Moletsane (2008) in their work on the generative theory of rurality. Balfour et al.
(2008) provide a framework for conceptualising rurality, theorising the dynamic nature of rural contexts and the multifaceted nature of rural constituencies’ lived experiences. The authors suggest two reasons why the generative theory of rurality could be useful. Firstly, Balfour et al.
(2008) propose that the theory could be useful in allowing researchers who research within rural contexts with rural constituencies to unearth and interpret the findings of their inquiries. Secondly, the generative the- ory can enable rural constituencies to act as subjects and agents of change within their environments. The first reason is mainly important for this chapter because it demonstrates that teachers, learners, families, commu- nity members and other stakeholders such as local businesses have to play an active role in advancing the standard of rural education.
In addition to the above discussion, Balfour et al. (2008) identify three facets of rurality based on their contention that rural areas are generative and dynamic: forces, agencies and resources. The conceptualisation of rurality by Balfour et al. (2008) moves away from the traditional tenden- cies of viewing rurality in terms of its contradistinctions to cosmopolitan areas, but focuses on the three above-mentioned aspects which concen- trate on rural areas as unique and independent spaces. This resonates with Masinire, Maringe and Nkambule’s (2014) definition of a rural setting as
“a space that sustains human existence and development outside the jurisdiction of metropolitan town authority” (p. 148).
Firstly, Balfour et al. (2008) refer to forces as being both “centripetal and centrifugal” comprising “the movement of labour and production from the rural to the urban and back again” (2008, p.). This means that forces focus on the manner in which rural life is a product of time and space, considering that rural constituents often seek work elsewhere out- side their immediate contexts, however they return to their contexts with alternate forms of knowledge and skills. As such, time is considered to be an important proponent of forces since it takes time for rural constituents to travel from one place to another, to access amenities such as healthcare due to isolation within rural contexts. Balfour et al. (2008) posit that:
... space not only is an enculturated and organizational concept in any discussion of rurality but also the one feature that changes or elongates time. This elongation of time in turn affects identities, since these are mostly constituted in relation to communities that exist in relative isola- tion in space and time from each other, and in greater isolation from urban centres.
Secondly, Balfour et al. (2008) identify agency as one of the aspects of the generative theory of rurality. Agency is important as it allows for an understanding that within rural areas there are individuals who are active agents in the communities. That is, rural inhabitants are not only prod- ucts of the environments in which they live, but exercise their agency to change their communities for the better. In Balfour et al.’s (2008) view, rural residents are either agents that are passive and allow change to take place through compliance or they are active participants in advancing
their communities. To exemplify agencies, Balfour et al. (2008) refer to entities such as tribal authorities, families, religious authorities and indi- viduals within a specific rural context and posit that understanding the dynamics of relations of power and systems in rural areas is essential for research located in those contexts.
Thirdly, Balfour et al. (2008) identify resources as another facet of rurality. Using this facet to conceptualise rurality is helpful for researchers as it allows us to pay special attention to the resources that the commu- nity already has, alluding to the strength-base paradigm of rurality. The view of limited resources desists from the conceptualisation of rurality from a deficiency-based paradigm in which rural contexts are viewed as places of need and want.
Notwithstanding the foregoing discussion, as I posited elsewhere (Mbhiza 2017), the major difficulty in conceptualise rurality and rural school is “having to make mental ‘imagination’ to focus on the non- described aspects of rural areas which are assumed to be ‘flips’ of what is described in urban definitions” (p. 15). In terms of the non-described aspects of rural contexts, Atchoarena and Gasperini (2003) postulated that in view of the problematic and contentious nature of defining rural- ity “one is tempted to adopt J. Robinson’s attitude by saying that even if we cannot define what an elephant is we are able to tell when we see one”
(p. 36). While this could be interpreted to be true, rural researchers must be careful not to homogenise all rural areas, especially considering that rural areas differ in terms of distinguishing features and nature of life from one area to another (Hlalele 2012). Thus, we cannot overlook that within different rural contexts there are different inhabitants who interact in different ways that are context-dependent and time-bound to sustain themselves and their environments. Accordingly, a rural area in this chap- ter refers to a space in which human existence, daily activities individuals engage in, which includes learning and teaching and community devel- opment, are sustained independently of urban authority (Masinire et al. 2014).