Assembling rurality in transition: a conceptual framework for understanding rural transformation in South Africa

Rural communities in South Africa and the Global South are presently undergoing a radical transformation, but traditional notions of rural–urban divides and typologies are still ill-prepared to account for the complexity of these changes. This paper critically synthesizes the literature on rurality and rural–urban transition in order to (1) re-evaluate the conceptualization and measurement of rurality as a dynamic and multidimensional phenomenon; (2) identify the major drivers of rural–urban interaction and their implications for land use, governance, and socio-economic organization in urbanizing rural regions; and (3) propose a novel conceptual framework for the governance and planning of rural–urban interfaces. Using a narrative literature review approach, based on 93 key publications identified through structured searches of Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar, we critically review the literature in the fields of geography, planning, development studies, and environmental governance. The literature review contends that rurality is less a categorical concept than a relational one, and that urbanizing rural environments, especially in South Africa, increasingly embody what we term the “village peri-urban” condition: settlements that are geographically distant from metropolitan centers but functionally urban in terms of livelihood, infrastructure, and identity. In reaction to the persistent failure of governance and definitional gaps, we propose the rural–urban transition assemblage (RUTA) framework, which privileges the inter-relations between the major drivers of change, land use dynamics, governance fragmentation, and socio-spatial transformation. Rooted in the post-apartheid spatial legacy and dual tenure systems of South Africa, but generalizable to other comparable regions of the Global South, RUTA provides researchers, planners, and policymakers with a more nuanced conceptual cartography for navigating the uneven, contested, and irreversible nature of rural transformation.