Zimbabwean Farm Workers in Northern South Africa

Abstract

This article analyses the precarious livelihoods of Zimbabweans working on commercial farms in northern South Africa. Based on research carried out in 2004 and 2005, we examine how these Zimbabweans seek pathways of survival and, for a few, potential accumulation across space, sectors, and international boundaries. The article analyses how these Zimbabwean farm workers are situated in an ambivalent legal terrain, the neo-liberal restructuring of agriculture and the articulation of paternalistic rule into a far more authoritarian logic of rule on the farms, all of which have made the border-zone a ‘state of exception’ for them which conditions their livelihoods. The article highlights that although these processes intensify labour exploitation, they also recalibrate the survival strategies of Zimbabweans and generate varied forms of resistance.

Notes

1. Other motivations farmers and others mentioned for employing Zimbabweans include theprevention of ‘local’ populations from becoming ‘permanent occupiers’ on farm property through the Extension of Security of Tenure Act or ESTA (see also du Toit, 2003:13), the desire to undermine unionisation efforts, and to maximise profits in the short term as their own future is insecure since most of these farms are under land restitution claims (see Wegerif, 2004).

2. This restructuring process also speaks to the balance of forces within the post-apartheid socialformation. Taylor and Williams (2006:10) describes the current hegemonic bloc in South Africa as consisting of ‘elite fractions of the ANC, a developing and increasingly strident black bourgeoisie, and white business elites. The last group continue to control most of South Africa’s financial markets, their accumulation patterns are primarily export-oriented, and they are acutely sensitive to trends and developments initiated outside South Africa within the capitalist core.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Blair Rutherford

Rutherford presented some of the material in this paper at Britain Zimbabwean Society Research Day, Oxford, 17 June 2006 and at Nordic African Institute, Uppsala, 15 June 2006.