Abstract
The aim of this article is exploratory: to illustrate the main trends in communication and amongst data users in the Nkonkobe Municipal Area, a municipal zone in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, now known as Chris Hani. Based on information collected in 2016 and 2017, the research project locates the use of both cellular phones and smartphones within a broader menu of communication devices and information retrieval in rural areas, including televisions, radios, newspapers and conventional interaction. It focuses particularly on the conditions and circumstances under which cellular phones and smartphones were used and the type of residents who were most likely to use them. Many analysts are of the opinion that cellular devices can increase communication in economically disadvantaged zones through the creation of a shared ‘virtual social network’ that ‘levels’ society, creating equal access to information. The results of this study reveal that although smartphones are widespread, these types of devices have not replaced communication via cellular phones or physical interaction. Realistically, smartphone usage is limited by cost and network coverage. For the majority of smartphone owners, connectivity is not always easy and compels movement towards regional urban centres, where data is cheaper and can be accessed.
Highlights
Since the end of apartheid, there has been little focus on the connections between rural residents within the former homelands
Many investments made in rural areas are sometimes undetected because they are based on smaller financial packages – such as pensions and social grants (Mishi et al 2020)
Regional information garnered from Census 2011 (Stats SA 2011) reflects that the population in the Eastern Cape is around 6.8 million, an increase of 5 million since 2001.1 Approximately 850 000 households live in rural areas, and within these, another 700 000 are found within urban or peri-urban areas
Summary
Since the end of apartheid, there has been little focus on the connections between rural residents within the former homelands. There has been little written on the changing nature of small rural towns and the role that they may play in rural development. After the Marikana massacre, as Bank (2015:1068) points out, it became clear that many migrants were still investing in rural areas. The formations of these rural investments, have changed. Widespread deagrarianisation and climate change in the Eastern Cape have increased circular migration to small towns, by the youth and within the informal sector (Connor & Mtwana 2018). Rural areas have seen increased investment into cultures of mobility and largely unseen networks that do not always require long-distance migration or actual physical movement. In rural areas symbolic mobility and investment have occurred around the home space, where construction of houses, the purchase of domestic appliances and the reliance on cellular phones have influenced levels of access to information and resources (Ruiters 2011)
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