Planting Pumpkins: Socialization and the Role of Local Knowledge in Rural South Africa

Abstract

It is argued that socialization is a contradictory process of continuity and transformation. In times of rapid social change and when people have limited access to resources to embrace the change, the contradictions are particularly pronounced. Such circumstances exist for parents and care-givers in rural South Africa. Drawing on the idea of local knowledge — the presuppositions used to interpret immediate experience borne out of action in the local environment — the experiences of black parents living in two different rural scenarios, white farms and rural villages, are examined. Three dilemmas facing parents, emerging from the interpretation of case studies, are identified: maintaining the home and intact family life; providing ontinuity between the past and future; and setting boundaries for children's action. Strategies followed by parents in dealing with these dilemmas are explored. Like the vine of the pumpkin, the local knowledge of parents provides the thread of continuity for bringing up a child in a changing world.