Frontier farm labour: A study of neoliberal restructuring and Zimbabwean migrant farm workers in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

摘要

Over the course of the past decade, commercial farms in Limpopo Province have exploited increasing flows of Zimbabwean labour in an attempt to increase profitability and adapt to the more competitive environment ushered in by sectoral restructuring. Simultaneously, economic collapse within Zimbabwe and ongoing political repression have created unprecedented migratory pressures. While this thesis explores the role of neoliberal restructuring and the Zimbabwean crisis as driving the adverse incorporation of Zimbabwean migrants on commercial farms in Limpopo's far north, it also considers the localized engagements of Zimbabwean farm workers with dominant paternalistic and class relations on particular commercial farms. Case-studies suggest, in particular, the importance of "regimes of payment" as central elements within hegemonic formations on commercial farms. Taken together, these considerations reveal some of the important intersections between the micropractices of Zimbabwean migrants and macroprocesses that surround them.