Zimbabwe's migrants and South Africa's border farms : the roots of impermanence / Maxim Bolt (University of Birmingham).

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bolt, Maxim, 1970- author.

Series:

International African library ; 50.

The International African library ; 50

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Migrant agricultural laborers--South Africa--Social conditions.

Migrant agricultural laborers.

Foreign workers, Zimbabwean--South Africa.

Foreign workers, Zimbabwean.

Farmers--South Africa.

Farmers.

Borderlands--South Africa.

Borderlands.

Borderlands--Zimbabwe.

South Africa--Race relations--21st century.

South Africa.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 246 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Zimbabwe's Migrants & South Africa's Border Farms

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Summary:

During the Zimbabwean crisis, millions crossed through the apartheid-era border fence, searching for ways to make ends meet. Maxim Bolt explores the lives of Zimbabwean migrant labourers, of settled black farm workers and their dependants, and of white farmers and managers, as they intersect on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Focusing on one farm, this book investigates the role of a hub of wage labour in a place of crisis. A close ethnographic study, it addresses the complex, shifting labour and life conditions in northern South Africa's agricultural borderlands. Underlying these challenges are the Zimbabwean political and economic crisis of the 2000s and the intensified pressures on commercial agriculture in South Africa following market liberalization and post-apartheid land reform. But, amidst uncertainty, farmers and farm workers strive for stability. The farms on South Africa's margins are centers of gravity, islands of residential labour in a sea of informal arrangements.

Contents:

Introduction : labour and fragmentation on the Limpopo River

'It's in our blood, it's in our skin' : success, failure, and self-sufficiency in border farming

Behind the mountain : core, periphery, and control in the Limpopo Valley

Producing permanence : employment and domesticity in the Black workforce

Reimagining men : middle-class farm workers and the Zimbabwean crisis

'Management' or 'paternalism'? : race and registers of labour hierarchy

Scaling up : the farms and the border economy

Conclusion : between production and fragmentation.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-316-36602-2

1-316-37202-2

1-316-37602-8

1-316-37802-0

1-316-37902-7

1-316-37702-4

1-316-37502-1

1-316-27573-6