Report on Senior Honors Thesis Research in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, South Africa
Jordan Swett, Class of 2019
With the support of the Paulson Fellowship, I returned to South Africa after my FSP in August 2018 and from November to December 2018 to conduct my Senior Honors Thesis. The goal of my study was to assess the opportunities and barriers for solar development in rural villages of South Africa. Given South Africa’s growing energy demand and the Eskom power utility’s goal to increase national grid capac
ity, electricity rates for domestic consumers are increasing significantly. These rates have become too high for a majority of low-income consumers in rural villages to afford, so I aimed to understand and record rural villagers’ energy utilization challenges, their perceptions of solar, and their demand for solar technology that could potentially reduce rural households’ energy costs.
I began the study by visiting the Bushbuckridge Municipality for three weeks in August 2018 with a broad set of research questions and different channels to focus my research. After conducting informal interviews with local stakeholders, from the municipal government to wildlife reserves, I decided to fo
cus my research on rural household energy use. I returned to Bushbuckridge in November with a formal household questionnaire, which I administered to 90 households in three villages of Bushbuckridge: Tintswalo, Sigagula, and Thlavekisa.
All of my time in the field in South Africa has shown me the value of personal engagement with research. Having the opportunity to personally source stories, knowledge and data has been the most enriching and motivating aspect of my academic experience. Collecting my own data through in-person interviews has created an emotional attachment to my project. I cannot view my data as a collection of data points or statistics, but instead the individuals with whom I spent hours conversing every day for three weeks. When I read through observations in my spreadsheet,I can often picture in mymind the individual or family with whom I spoke. The data I collected from each interview brings to life their stories and their challenges. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to conduct my research in the villages of Bushbuckridge.
