ABSTRACT
Vast deserts, forests, and savannah lands populated by wild animals and farmers with rudimentary technology of the hoe or plough is the image conjured up by the mention of Sub-Saharan Africa. This chapter defines de-agrarianisation and cites official statistics demonstrating that a process of de-agrarianisation is currently under way in Africa and has been on-going for several decades. De-agrarianisation is defined as a long-term process of: occupational adjustment, income-earning reorientation, social identification, and spatial relocation of rural dwellers away from strictly peasant modes of livelihood. Middle-aged rural dwellers involved in occupational change are less likely to project a new social identity based on occupational grounds and may even attempt to mask their non-agrarian activities. The chapter utilizes the term ‘non-agricultural rural employment’ to emphasise the ‘non-agricultural’ character of the diversified activities and to distinguish the de-agrarianisation approach from other terminologies with different analytical objectives.
