AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	37. Political Economies of Displacement in Southern Africa
Paper ID	126
Author(s)	Rutherford, Blair
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	As a way to understand the cultural politics and political economies of displacement, this paper suggests that one needs to examine how livelihoods of displacees are shaped by differential abilities to traverse hegemonic boundaries and borders based, in part, on the forms of emplacement and regulatory modes in which they find themselves. To illustrate this argument, this paper examines the transnational livelihood projects of Zimbabweans working on commercial farms predominantly owned and operated by Afrikaner men in northern South Africa that are dependent on the particular possibilities and perils associated with crossing the Limpopo River, the international boundary between South Africa and Zimbabwe. Part of the wider dramatic movement of Zimbabweans who have been displaced by the politically-induced spectacular economic decline and government-initiated destruction of livelihoods and terror since 2000, the number of Zimbabweans seeking and finding work on these South African farms has increased markedly compared to the earlier history of Zimbabwean farm workers found in northern Limpopo province, South Africa. Based on three months of field research in 2004 and 2005, this paper situates some of these Zimbabwean farm workers’ livelihood projects that depend on crossing and re-crossing the border – wage labour, trading, and, for some, investments – within changes within the wider agricultural political economy of South Africa and South African state interventions concerning the legality and the governing of these migrants and the policing of the international border itself. In particular, this paper examines how Zimbabweans differentially emplaced on these farms are often involved in distinct forms of transnational economies as more established workers have both greater possibilities of accessing resources on the South African farms and wider range of networks to deploy to pursue their livelihoods. Through exploring the racialized, gendered and classed dimensions of these borderline projects and the particular gate-keepers and networks, this paper seeks to provide insights into the lives of these Zimbabwean farm workers in South Africa and, by so doing, to provide insight into the cultural politics and political economies of displacement more broadly and on-going displacement of Zimbabweans in particular.

Borderline Projects of Displacement: Zimbabwean Farm Workers, Livelihoods, and Emplacement in northern South Africa