Thebe, Vusilizwe2025-02-182025-02-182025-042024-10*A2025http://hdl.handle.net/2263/101034Thesis (PhD (Development Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2024.Following the decline of the formal South African labour market, rural development policy in former migrant labour societies like Lesotho has placed rural transformation at the centre of the development agenda, portraying a picture of livelihood in crisis in terms of migrant labour shocks and agricultural marginality. The development community has therefore promoted agricultural development with the assumption that rural communities are relying on the productivity of the land they occupy. While the concerns are valid, they are recycling the outdated narrative of small rural farm households widely tailored for households that had access to arable land and overlook the environmental realities of the Highlands region that is characterised by land scarcity. This often ignores and underestimates the new trends in labour migration and livelihood activities, which are the basis of the human economy of the region. The study contended that the analysis of rural households' livelihoods should go further than the simplistic livelihood in crisis narrative and focus on their responses to the changes they are confronted with. Using an ethnographic case study approach of thirty rural households this thesis analyses the livelihood impacts, dynamics of production and livelihood responses to the changes in the socioeconomic and natural environment in Mokhotlong District in north-eastern Lesotho. This type of investigation underscores the unique situation of a former migrant labour society. Using the Bourdieu theory of practice and the human economy approach, the analysis adopts a broad understanding of the background of rural households’ livelihoods, their experiences, the challenges they face, and how they navigate them. The approach adopted for the analysis is grounded on rural household accounts including those of key informants to comprehend the livelihood dynamics fully. The analysis revealed that households responded to changes by diversifying their livelihoods and developing new trends in labour migration, which although different in form and structure, still mirrored the old system. The thesis, therefore, provides evidence in the contestation of the narrative of the end of a migrant labour economy by demonstrating that migrant labour has remained central to the human economy of the region. While the current livelihoods have their own vulnerabilities, the thesis stresses the significance of agency and navigation. By focusing on the new forms of livelihoods, and particularly the aspect of navigation, the thesis provides a different perspective to the literature but also argues for the understanding of livelihoods and situation of households within broader debates on former migrant labour societies, and the significance of migrant labour as an embedded culture that is hard to eliminate. The thesis, therefore, suggests that any attempt to understand rural households in Lesotho outside the migrant labour system misses a key facet in the country’s history and that any policy that ignores this undisputed reality, is tantamount to social engineering. The thesis therefore argues for rethinking questions of transformation in rural development policy that emphasises social reality and the importance of informing policy based on the realities of societies in which labour migration has been embedded in the culture of communities. The thesis therefore advocates for a new development narrative that focuses on building livelihoods that are relevant and reflect the realities of communities and, thus, form the very human economy.  en© 2023 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.UCTDLivelihoodsHuman economyRural householdsSocioeconomic and environmental changesMokhotlongThesisu18292179https://researchdata.up.ac.za/account/items/28436246/edit