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The sub-Saharan cities are growing and changing due to immigration and modernization. One of the consequences of the current urbanization is that an increasing number of families residing in peri-urban areas of small rural towns lack access to basic municipal and ecosystem services. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the impacts of peri-urban expansion on municipal services provided by the governments and on ecosystems services through a case study of a small rural town called Makhado Biaba in Limpopo Province of South Africa. Makhado Biaba has been experiencing incessant rapid physical expansion over the years. Such spatial expansion into the peri-urban zone impacts the provision of municipal services such as water, electricity, sewerage, and refuse collection. In 2020, an exploratory mixed-methods study of some anthropocentric and ecosystem changes in Makhado Biaba Local Municipality in northeast South Africa was executed. Land use was mapped for the time period of 1990–2020, data were gathered through a household questionnaire in six villages, and interviews were held with municipal officials. Among others, the study showed that several municipal services are available in the peri-urban villages of Makhado Biaba Town despite the distant locations outside the urban core. However, services are not uniformly distributed due to that new peri-urban developments that are leapfrogging into vacant land without supporting infrastructure. The pace of the municipality in providing the necessary municipal services such as water and energy supply, as well as sanitation and refuse removal, is lagging behind the development of new and unplanned housing areas. The findings bring about information about the suburban livelihoods and how the administration of the peri-urban areas can respond to the needs of the inhabitants as well as to future challenges. For instance, to facilitate local development, recurrent and well-structured citizen dialogs with local groups to identify delivery failures are strongly recommended. In addition, the impact on ecosystem services by the city development and land use change stresses the need for guided urban development and expansion and also settlement upgrading programs in peri-urban zones to limit the bad effect on ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public libraries are established to promote literacy, cultural heritage, and the dissemination of information. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, public libraries across the globe had to close their physical spaces and change their service models. This qualitative study investigated information provision by a public library in the Limpopo Province, South Africa, during the national public health restrictions to determine what means were applied to sustain service provision. The paper reports on ways used by the library to provide information to users at the time. Data were collected from the chief librarian and four librarians using face-to-face interviews and one focus group. The data were thematically analysed. Findings indicated that no services were offered to users during the time of the Covid-19 restrictions. The paper recommends the digital literacy training of users, the use of free databases, and the introduction of online library services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's major cities are periodically wracked by large-scale xenophobic violence directed at migrants and refugees from other countries. Informal sector businesses and their migrant owners and employees are particularly vulnerable targets during these attacks. Migrant-owned businesses are also targeted on a regular basis in smaller-scale looting and destruction of property. There is now a large literature on the characteristics and causes of xenophobic violence and attitudes in South Africa, most of it based on quantitative and qualitative research in the country's major metropolitan areas. One of the consequences of big-city xenophobia has been a search for alternative markets and safer spaces by migrants, including relocating to the country's many smaller urban centres. The question addressed in this paper is whether they are welcomed in these cities and towns or subject to the same kinds of victimization as in large cities. This paper is the first to systematically examine this question by focusing on a group of towns in Limpopo Province and the experiences of migrants in the informal sector there. Through survey evidence and in-depth interviews and focus groups with migrant and South African vendors, the paper demonstrates that xenophobia is also pervasive in these smaller centres, in ways that both echo and differ from that in the large cities. The findings in this paper have broader significance for other countries attempting to deal with the rise of xenophobia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon hence it requires a multipronged approach in terms of analysis and solutions. This paper investigated the drivers of multidimensional poverty among households in rural Limpopo province, South Africa. Primary data were collected from a random sample of 407 households in Sekhukhune and Capricorn District Municipality of rural Limpopo Province, South Africa. The sampling methods used included purposive and simple random sampling. While descriptive statistics was used to profile households' socioeconomic characteristics, the Alkire-Foster methodology was employed to analyse multidimensional poverty. The logistic regression model was also used to analyse the drivers of multidimensional poverty in the study area. The results of data analysis revealed that the incidence of multidimensional poverty was high among the households. The results also indicated that employment, sanitation type, type of fuel for heat and cooking, and years of schooling contributed to the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) in the study area. The results further revealed that the gender of the household head, years of schooling, association and cooperative membership, access to grants, and income influence the incidence of multidimensional poverty. The paper concluded that multidimensional poverty spread across both the income poor and non-income poor as the majority of them were deprived of sanitation, the type of fuel used for heating, and asset ownership. Improved sanitation system and electricity subsidies especially in the winter to access clean fuel for heat, could minimise multidimensional poverty in the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to global climate change, droughts are likely to become more frequent and more severe in many regions such as in South Africa. In Limpopo, observed high climate variability and projected future climate change will likely increase future maize production risks. This paper evaluates drought patterns in Limpopo at two representative sites. We studied how drought patterns are projected to change under future climatic conditions as an important step in identifying adaptation measures (e.g., breeding maize ideotypes resilient to future conditions). Thirty-year time horizons were analyzed, considering three emission scenarios and five global climate models. We applied the WOFOST crop model to simulate maize crop growth and yield formation over South Africa's summer season. We considered three different crop emergence dates. Drought indices indicated that mainly in the scenario SSP5-8.5 (2051–2080), Univen and Syferkuil will experience worsened drought conditions (DC) in the future. Maize yield tends to decline and future changes in the emergence date seem to impact yield significantly. A possible alternative is to delay sowing date to November or December to reduce the potential yield losses. The grain filling period tends to decrease in the future, and a decrease in the duration of the growth cycle is very likely. Combinations of changed sowing time with more drought tolerant maize cultivars having a longer post-anthesis phase will likely reduce the potential negative impact of climate change on maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African agrarian policy aims to integrate smallholder tree‐crop farmers into high‐end value chains with growth and employment potential, generally neglecting socio‐economic differentiation amongst them. This paper aims to analyse socio‐economic differentiation amongst tree‐crop farmers in Vhembe District, Limpopo, using a class‐based analysis based on livelihood diversification and accumulation. Cluster analysis of survey data and semi‐structured interviews reveals that most tree‐crop farmers engage in petty commodity production, internally differentiated by their combination of income sources and livelihood strategies. Farmers' ability to engage in accumulation and upward class mobility is generally severely constrained by limited access to capital. Agricultural diversification offers livelihood potential but limited possibility for accumulation, whereas salaried nonfarm work offers more promising prospects for accumulation but limited livelihood opportunities. A minority demonstrated characteristics of small‐scale capitalist farmers, internally differentiated by their reliance on salaried employment or agricultural production. The findings challenge the notion of an undifferentiated class of market‐oriented smallholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa have pursued redistributive land reform as a means to address rural poverty. The Livelihoods after Land Reform ( LaLR) study was carried out between 2007 and 2009, to understand the livelihood and poverty reduction outcomes of land reform in each of the three countries. The South African component focused on Limpopo province, and investigated land reform processes, trajectories of change and outcomes in thirteen detailed case studies. This paper summarizes some of the main findings from the South African study, and briefly compares them with findings from Namibia and Zimbabwe. The paper argues that a fundamental problem affecting land reform in both South Africa and Namibia is the uncritical application of the Large- Scale Commercial Farming ( LSCF) model, which has led to unworkable project design and/or projects that are irrelevant to the circumstances of the rural poor. Nevertheless, some 'beneficiaries' have experienced modest improvements in their livelihoods, often through abandoning or amending official project plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In 1854 Chief Mugombane and members of his Kekana Ndebele chiefdom took refuge in what is now known as Historic Cave, in the Makapan Valley, South Africa. The chiefdom retreated into the cave following an attack on a party of Trekboers. The subsequent siege of the cave, which lasted just under a month, ended in the death and surrender of its occupants and their dispersal among the Trekboers and their African auxiliaries. However, the number of people and the composition of the group that hid in the cave, as well as factors that led to the demise of the Kekana became blurred in the various renderings of the historical event. During the 1980s researchers began to cast doubt on the original Trekboer documents and the magnitude of the event when it became apparent that the Kekana oral histories remained silent on the matter. Between 2001 and 2007 the material remains of the siege were excavated to provide new data from which to judge the scale and impact of the siege event. Human remains, the primary focus of this paper, afford this perspective. This paper provides the result of the analysis of the human remains excavated from the cave, as well as an account of those remains that have been recorded or are housed in collections. The study of two naturally mummified individuals removed from the caves and stored in collections is also presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores the architecture and sculpture of Jackson Hlungwani's New Jerusalem site at Mbhokota in the Limpopo Province in South Africa, against the background of the theology, architecture, and art of the African independent churches in South Africa. The paper examines Hlungwani's idiosyncratic approach to Christianity and its manifestation in a reworking of ancient stone ruins and the production of an entirely individual body of sculpture. It demonstrates how Hlungwani marries aspects of his Tsonga tradition with biblical imagery, and suggests that it was this marriage that enabled Hlungwani to reconcile the sale of his sculpture with his religious beliefs. The paper also establishes that Hlungwani's iconography is completely independent of orthodox Christian dogmas and is created in the context of an awareness of "art." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the less studied legacies of settler colonialism and agrarian dualism in South Africa is the substantial population of people living and working on (still mostly) white-owned commercial farms - a feature distinct from most other countries in Southern Africa. Many farm workers and farm dwellers in South Africa experience precarious tenure, and poor housing and labour conditions. This paper explores what is happening to farm labour and to agricultural capital in Limpopo province. Findings from field research on four horticultural and livestock/game farms illustrate how economic pressures, combined with land restitution and labour migration, have produced new and contested trajectories of agrarian change - largely cementing a historical shift from independent land tenure to wage labour but also prompting diversification of livelihoods. We explore the ways in which actors on farms - workers, dwellers, owners and managers - have responded with regard to three spheres of contestation: ownership, production and employment; tenure and livelihoods; and family, gender and children. We argue that, contrary to official visions of reform, long-term processes of agrarian change predating political transition - proletarianization, casualization and the externalization of farm labour - are being accelerated. These processes, and the ways in which they are producing new contours of social differentiation, are illustrated at farm level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Soutpansberg Geomorphic Province, as defined by Partridge et al. (2010), incorporates three distinct orographic features, namely Soutpansberg, Blouberg and Makgabeng. These three orographic features are so different in their 'gestalt' and drainage evolution that it only is a logical step to describe them as separate geomorphic provinces. As a result of their distinctive geomorphological setting these three regions also support a unique phytogeographic assemblage. This paper redefines the Soutpansberg Geomorphic Province, limiting its extent to Soutpansberg sensu stricto, and then defines two additional geomorphic provinces, namely Blouberg and Makgabeng. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between cultural orientation and home- brewed alcohol use among adolescents in a rural setting. The study involved 1263 students from 30 high schools in Mankweng District in Limpopo Province of South Africa. Boys formed 48 % of the sample. Means ages were 16.7 and 16.0 years for boys and girls respectively. A 16 item scale focusing on language, mass media and music preferences was constructed to measure cultural orientations. There was an integration of western and traditional/local activities by respondents who reported having used home-brewed alcohol in the past 12 months. In some respects the sample had western tendencies i.e. English newspapers were read more than no-English newspapers and funky music tended to be preferred to traditional South African music, while in others the reverse was true i.e. Radio Thobela (a radio station that uses vernacular languages) was listened to more than Radio Metro (a radio station that uses English language only). There were significant differences between boys and girls in the use of western media. Older adolescents (18 years or older) used more home brewed alcohol than the younger ones. The concept of culture and its associations with alcohol use invites a critical view on cultural values among adolescents. The positive association with home-brewed alcohol use among secondary school students in our sample has been demonstrated for an orientation towards external cultural influence. Educators and learners need to increase their consciousness on the problematic side of cultural import. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]