Chiefs of the Plantation: Authority and Contestation on the South Africa-Zimbabwe Border 9780773559530

Table of contents :
Cover
CHIEFS OF THE PLANTATION
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Border Plantation Labour Regime
2 Spatial Struggles: Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates
3 “Their Heart Is Not in the Farm”: Middle Managers as Sources of Instability
4 “The Babies Are Dying!”: The Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Narratives of Infant Death
5 War with the Devil: The Rise and Fall of the Interdenominational Worship Group
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

chiefs of the plantation

Chiefs of the Plantation Authority and Contestation on the South Africa–Zimbabwe Border

lincoln addison

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2019 ISB N ISB N ISB N ISB N

978-0-7735-5856-4 978-0-7735-5857-1 978-0-7735-5953-0 978-0-7735-5954-7

(cloth) (paper) (eP df) (eP UB)

Legal deposit third quarter 2019 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Funding was also received from the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Chiefs of the plantation : authority and contestation on the South Africa– Zimbabwe border / Lincoln Addison. Names: Addison, Lincoln, 1980– author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190104007 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190104058 | isb n 9780773558564 (cloth) | is bn 9780773558571 (paper) | i sb n 9780773559530 (eP DF ) | is bn 9780773559547 (eP U B ) Subjects: l cs h: Agricultural laborers—South Africa—Limpopo—Social conditions. | lc sh: Agricultural laborers—South Africa—Limpopo—Economic conditions. | lc sh: Plantations—South Africa—Limpopo. | l c sh : Industrial relations—South Africa—Limpopo. | l cs h: Agriculture—South Africa—Limpopo. Classification: l cc h d 1538.s6 a43 2019 | ddc 331.7/630968—dc23

This book was typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Janice and Credence Musungwa.

Contents Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction

3

1 The Border Plantation Labour Regime 2 Spatial Struggles: Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

31 64

3 “Their Heart Is Not in the Farm”: Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

93

4 “The Babies Are Dying!”: The Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Narratives of Infant Death 115 5 War with the Devil: The Rise and Fall of the Interdenominational Worship Group 136 Conclusion Notes

165

References Index

158

167

179

Figures

I.1 Map of northeastern Limpopo Province, South Africa. Map created by David Mercer. 5 1.1 Photo of the compound: “new houses” 51 1.2 Photo of the compound: mud huts 51 1.3 Hand-drawn map of the compound by male farm worker 1.4 Photo of people being hired

58

2.1 Photo of a worker consulting a notebook 70 2.2 Photo of rotting tomatoes in the compound 75 2.3 Photo of Clayton addressing the strikers 5.1 Photo of Zion service 5.2 Photo of Inter-D service

142 152

90

52

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of a long journey, and consequently there are many people to thank for its completion. First and foremost, I thank all the plantation workers, managers, and owners in South Africa who participated in my research. Certain people on the plantation I call “Mopane Estates” deserve particular thanks, even if their true identities remain hidden through pseudonyms. My research assistant, Blessing, enabled me to dig much deeper with my fieldwork than otherwise would have been possible. I thank him for helping to recruit participants, conduct interviews, transcribe texts, and for doing much to dispel suspicions in the community concerning my research. I thank Arthur and Emmanuel for allowing me to stay with them in the compound for most of my fieldwork. Having only known me for a few days, they welcomed me into their room in the “new houses” and into the family of their Pentecostal worship group. Despite all the friction between myself and Philip, the plantation owner, I must thank him for tolerating my presence – at least most of the time – on his property. Given how sensitive the land question is in South Africa, he deserves credit for opening his plantation to the research process. I am grateful to the other white managers I call Heinrik, Logan, and Dolores, who welcomed me into their homes and shared their perspectives on whatever I asked. I also thank my initial research assistant, Albert, who helped me understand social life on the plantation, particularly among the minority Venda population. Other individuals and institutions in Southern Africa deserve thanks. Jacob Matakanye of the Musina Legal Advice Office provided me with accommodation and office space in Musina when I

xii

Acknowledgments

was off the plantation. I thank the Musina offices of Doctors Without Borders, the International Organization for Migration (iom), the Legal Resources Centre (lrc), the Nkuzi Development Association, and the South African Departments of Labour and Agriculture for allowing me to interview representatives and have access to reports. I thank Shirhami Shirinda of the lrc for important help throughout my research. I also thank the Department of Economic History and the Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe, the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of Witwatersrand, the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of Western Cape, and the Department of Sociology at Rhodes University, all of which have provided support for my research or hosted me at various times. At these institutions, Joe Mtisi, Emmanuel Chabata, Vupenyu Dzingirai, Lloyd Sachikonye, Jo Vearey, Ben Cousins, and Lalitha Naidoo deserve particular thanks. I received excellent feedback on my writing from Andries du Toit and Peter Gibbon at a labour conference in Cape Town. Bill Derman provided valuable guidance both during and after my fieldwork. This book would not have been written without the assistance of many other mentors and colleagues. At Carleton University, I thank Blair Rutherford for having inspired this project back in 2005 as my MA adviser. He has been an invaluable source of guidance ever since. Linda Freeman significantly shaped my thinking and improved my writing ability. At Rutgers University, I thank my PhD committee members David Hughes, Dorothy Hodgson, Richard Schroeder, and Angelique Haugerud. As my PhD adviser, David Hughes has been a perennial source of support and foundational to my growth. At Dalhousie University, Matthew Schnurr has been an outstanding mentor and friend. At Memorial University, I have benefited from conversations with numerous colleagues and friends. Dean Bavington, Jeremy Citrome, Reade Davis, Jillian Gould, Sarah Martin, Robin Whitaker, and Mark Tate have been particularly insightful and supportive. My fieldwork would not have been possible without a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I received additional funds from the Nordic Africa Institute and, at Rutgers University, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Human Ecology, the Center for African Studies, and the Institute for Research on Women. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation for

Acknowledgments

xiii

the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This book includes some previously published material. I thank Wiley for granting permission for me to use sections from two of my previously published journal articles: “The Sexual Economy, Gender Relations and Narratives of Infant Death on a Tomato Farm in Northern South Africa” in the Journal of Agrarian Change 14, no. 1: 74–93, and “Delegated Despotism: Frontiers of Agrarian Labour on a South African Border Farm” in the Journal of Agrarian Change 14, no. 2: 286–304. I thank Weaver Press for granting me permission to use sections from my previously published book chapter: “Factions in the Field: Social Divisions and Gendered Survival Strategies on a South African Border Farm,” in In the Shadow of a Conflict: Crisis in Zimbabwe and Its Effects in Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia, edited by Bill Derman and Randi Kaarhus (2013). I thank Jonathan Crago, and the rest of the editorial and production team at McGill-Queen’s University Press, for facilitating the publication of this book. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers, whose critical feedback has greatly improved the manuscript. For his support in creating a map, I thank David Mercer at Memorial University. I also thank Shannon Fraser for creating the index. I thank family and friends who have contributed indirectly to this book. My parents, on both the Addison and Doonan sides, provided encouragement, love, economic support, and countless hours of babysitting. My brothers Marc, Peter, and John-Luke were there when I needed to connect. Ben Pauli and Vivian Kao provided companionship and valuable insights when we lived together at Rutgers. John Adlington, Aniket Bhushan, and Matthew Garden deserve thanks for friendship stretching back to the earliest stages of this project. Paul Matthews deserves special thanks for keeping in especially close contact. He has always been willing to act as a sounding board for my ideas no matter how half-baked. I am grateful to Trinity United Methodist Church and Gower Street United Church for providing spiritual homes over the life of this project. My deepest thanks are reserved for the love of my life, Christina Doonan. Since the project’s inception, her contributions have been immeasurable. Conversations with her illuminated every dark corner of its development. Her presence on Mopane Estates for several months helped stabilize my position on the plantation, and ensured

xiv

Acknowledgments

that my fieldwork continued. I am blessed to have as a partner someone who is prodigiously gifted as a writer. Her talents have been enlisted on many occasions to edit drafts. She has also been the primary caregiver for our two children, Naomi and Samuel, who have been born and raised in the shadow of this book. I am profoundly grateful for all her efforts, and for continuing to share the journey with me.

chiefs of the plantation

Introduction

Despite popular imaginings of the Limpopo River as a place of untouched nature and frontier adventure, the river sustains a growing epicentre of agro-industrial development. Interspersed with conservation parks and game ranches, scores of fruit and vegetable plantations run alongside the river for more than 100 km east and west of the town of Musina. These “border farms,” as they are called locally, blend relatively seamlessly into the dry landscape. Viewed from the roadside, their picturesque citrus trees and tomato fields offer reprieve from the relentless forests of mopane and baobab, only slightly compromising the impression of a vast wilderness. Notwithstanding the occasional giant packing facility or roaring transport truck, border farmers limit the imprint of their operations on Limpopo’s landscape, as though invested in its mythological representation. Yet, more is at stake than border farmers’ aesthetic preferences, for these operations have something to hide. Far from the border road, tucked behind trees and hillsides, are compounds where primarily Zimbabwean workers responsible for Limpopo’s recent boom in agricultural production reside. Here one finds veritable beehives of mud huts and other structures cleverly assembled from found objects. Chunks of wood add stability to mud walls. Maize sacks patch holes and form wind barriers around fire pits. Broken drainage pipes and sheets of corrugated iron act as roofs. Most compounds contain single-storey, brick barrack-style buildings, where up to six people share a roughly eight-by-sevenfoot room, and occasionally small cement houses reserved for the most senior foremen and managers. Abject accommodations are equalled by oppressive working conditions, including sub-minimum

4

Chiefs of the Plantation

wages, extortion, physical violence, and sexual exploitation. Yet, the oppression of compound inhabitants is matched by their resilience and diverse social practices that shape the contours of life on the plantations. But since border farmers generally block access to their compounds to journalists, researchers, and “outsiders” in general, little is known about these practices and their effects. This book is located within a long tradition of scholarship and activism that exposes the often hidden labour practices of commercial agriculture in South Africa and elsewhere (McWilliams 1939; First 1959; Marcus 1989; Mitchell 1996; Rutherford 2001). Like these works, the aim is not merely to expose but to understand how labour relations are constituted in changing historical circumstances. Since the early 1990s, rapid social change has taken place in South African agriculture, with dramatic consequences for labour relations long characterized by racialized paternalism. Historically, paternalism constructed farm communities as “families” under the centralized authority of white farmers (Du Toit 1993). Yet, neoliberal economic reforms, new quality and ethical standards by retailers, post-apartheid labour legislation, new management practices, and greater efforts by trade unions and ngos to improve conditions for agricultural workers have disrupted apartheid-era paternalism. Amidst these challenges, paternalism does not disappear, but a novel articulation of class, gender, and race emerges. Border plantations, where the casualization, segmentation, and feminization of labour are marked, serve as uniquely diagnostic settings for investigating how authority is constituted and contested in industrial agriculture. Although I have visited many large-scale farms in this border zone, I focus on my experience living on one plantation for a year from 2009 to 2010, a place I call Mopane Estates.1 Mopane is one of the largest tomato producers in Limpopo province, and employs nearly 700 people during the picking season – all of whom come from Zimbabwe. My focus on this single case allows me to address an imbalance in scholarship. While labour relations are an important theme in recent ethnographies of farm and plantation workers (Benson 2011; Binford 2012; Gray 2013; Besky 2013; Holmes 2013; Hartnack 2016; Sen 2017), most work is multi-sited in the sense that it examines circumstances across many farms and plantations (even if in a single region or country), and often follows workers or the commodities they produce through diverse settings. Only rarely in recent work is there a fine-grained, long-term analysis of

Introduction

5

Figure I.1 Map of northeastern Limpopo Province, South Africa

interpersonal relationships between workers and employers, carried out in a single community (e.g., Bolt 2015; Rutherford 2016). The latter approach is arguably more difficult because the ethnographer must negotiate the polarized relationship between workers and employers, and sustain this positionality over a long period of time in one location. Partly as a consequence of this methodological imbalance, we lack an intimate understanding of the dialectic between management strategies of labour control and worker efforts to reduce their exploitation on contemporary farms and plantations. My central contention in this book is that Mopane Estates has adapted to the restructuring of agriculture and the post-apartheid era through a delegation of authority to black intermediaries. These intermediaries serve as the interface between white management and the mass of mostly casual black workers, with whom whites have little connection. While this labour regime enables the plantation

6

Chiefs of the Plantation

to produce and sell a high volume of tomatoes, it gives rise to a fragile moral economy in which perceptions of what constitutes tolerable exploitation frequently clash. Workers subvert official rules and seek to defend or expand their entitlements. Transactional sex and Christian worship emerge as important terrains of gendered and spiritual contestation, whereby women and low-ranking workers maintain resilience in the face of unequal power relations. I use the word “chief” to describe the leading intermediaries on Mopane Estates. I do this in part to signal how the power of these figures outstrips their portrayals in past accounts, where they have been called bossboys, induna, overseers, or head foremen, among other terms (Moodie 1994; Rutherford 2001; Bolt 2015). These days, many white plantation owners call such intermediaries “black managers” or “top structures” (Ewert and Du Toit 2005). Such latter terms convey the expansion of their responsibilities I seek to register. But “manager” also suggests an attempt by owners to place a modernist or progressive gloss over a historical pattern of dependence on such intermediaries, and obscure how seemingly anachronistic forms of labour control remain relevant into the present. The leading intermediaries are not chiefs in the literal sense – they have no royal lineage and are not recognized as customary authorities in their places of origin. Their authority is largely confined to the plantation. Yet, their role is similar to that of traditional authorities during colonial rule in Africa. In a seminal study, Mamdani (1996) characterizes the indirect rule of Europeans during the colonial period as “decentralized despotism.” For Mamdani, the native authority – while ultimately appointed by and accountable to European officials – was highly autonomous. It presided over native reserves, which were segregated from towns and subject to customary law. Designed to be self-sustaining, the native authority combined judicial, administrative, and treasury functions into a single chief. Summarizing the objective of decentralized despotism, Mamdani states: “Its point was to create a dependent but autonomous system of rule, one that combined accountability to superiors with a flexible response to the subject population, a capacity to implement central directives with one to absorb local shocks” (56). Through the delegation of rule, plantation owners also seek to strike this balance between the accountability of intermediaries and the capacity for a “flexible response” to the subject population. Yet, there are important differences in the plantation context. The

Introduction

7

geographic distance that separated most European officials from native authorities in the reserves tends to be minimized on border plantations. White owners, managers, and black intermediaries all live within the confines of the plantation. They each inhabit spaces separated by strong symbolic boundaries (for example, the compound versus the white owner’s home), yet there is more physical proximity than the colonial model allowed for. More fundamentally, plantation chiefs do not combine administrative, economic, and judicial functions to the same extent as colonial chiefs. The former play important roles in recruiting and disciplining workers, and sometimes become involved in settling disputes, but many administrative, economic, and judicial matters are shared with whites in the office. When workers fight with one another in the fields or in the compound, they are often sent to the office for adjudication. Additionally, workers sometimes ignore the formal hierarchy and appeal directly to white owners with their problems and concerns. There remain, in other words, significant paternalistic legacies that – in combination with new forms of regulation, labour sourcing, and changing management practices – produce a peculiar form of indirect rule distinct from decentralized despotism. My use of the term delegation (rather than “decentralization”) denotes how power is increasingly channelled through black intermediaries, while nevertheless firmly linked to the farmer at the pinnacle of the occupational hierarchy. I also intentionally call these spaces of agrarian capitalism “plantations,” rather than the more locally familiar term “farm.” In the era of globalized agriculture, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain an analytical distinction between industrial farms and plantations. The typical characteristics associated with plantations, such as export-oriented production, mono-crop specialization, on-site processing facilities, large land holdings, and numerically large, low-waged, resident labour forces, also characterize many so-called industrial or commercial farms (Gibbon 2011). A perhaps more useful distinguishing criterion is identified by Jain and Reddock (1998, 8): production units referred to as “farms” often deploy factors of production not strictly for capital accumulation, but for owners’ status needs or aesthetic aspirations. For instance in Southern Africa, white owners often set aside land for conservation purposes or invest significant resources in making their farms “picturesque,” often for tourism purposes but also for aesthetic ideals

8

Chiefs of the Plantation

(Hughes 2010). Similar concern over the representation of agricultural landscapes holds in California (Mitchell 1996). However, if investment in “representation” and aesthetic ideals make a production unit a “farm,” is not the term itself implicated in this process of representation? That is, the term “farm” may itself perpetuate a rural ideal – what Julie Guthman (2004) calls an “agrarian imaginary” – that disguises or depoliticizes the highly unequal labour relations that are connoted by the term “plantation.” The latter is therefore a potentially subversive concept that foregrounds the exploitation and conflict employers seek to hide.2 A second motivation for using the term “plantation” is to encourage readers to think about South African agriculture in a more globally comparative context. The term “commercial farm,” prevalent in much of the local literature, can reinforce what some call “South African exceptionalism” (Seidman 1999; Kynoch 2008): the idea that South Africa is qualitatively different from other postcolonial states owing to its particularly deep and long-lasting experience of apartheid, such that it cannot be meaningfully compared with other societies. Perhaps a reflection of this tendency towards exceptionalism, much scholarship on South African agriculture is centred on the concept of paternalism, and how it waxes or wanes under the pressure of economic restructuring. My book builds on this literature but also introduces theoretical tools not typically deployed in studies of South African agriculture, the concepts of labour regime and moral economy.

r e s t ru c t u r in g paternali s m A rich literature in South Africa explores the paternalistic modes of rule that long characterized commercial agriculture in South Africa. In this body of work, paternalism refers to the symbolic construction of plantations as families, in which white landowners take on the roles of father figures, and so-called “coloured” and black workers are cast as children (van Onselen 1992; Du Toit 1993; Kritzinger and Vorster 1996; Waldman 1996; Orton, Barrientos, and McClenaghan 2001). Paternalism in South Africa can be traced to seventeenthcentury master-slave relationships, and the Master and Servant Act of 1856 that followed the abolition of slavery in 1833 (Scully 1997). Following the abolition of slavery, the Masters and Servants Act legally defined all labourers as servants and white landowners as

Introduction

9

masters, and made provisions for farmers to punish workers who violated labour contracts. Missing work without permission or otherwise disobeying the master’s command could result in beatings and prison sentences. The almost total authority of white owners over their workers became further entrenched after 1948 with the election of the National Party. Pass laws under apartheid kept many workers legally bound to plantations, and the state helped whites address labour shortages through the use of prison labour (Marcus 1989). Yet, coercion existed in tension with benevolence. White owners could terrorize labour – as the infamous case of Bethal in the 1940s and 1950s indicated (First 1959; Bradford; 1993) – but also frequently subsidized their workers through “free” accommodation, food, or grazing rights. While relations varied across the countryside, most white landowners and workers lived in tightly woven communities, often tied together through intergenerational linkages. Heavily racist and illiberal, many owners felt a fatherly obligation towards their workers, and took an active interest in their moral uplift (Crapanzano 1985). South African scholarship traces how paternalism was challenged in the 1980s by the rise of a “farm management movement” launched by the Rural Foundation (Mayson 1990). The Rural Foundation was an organization established by white farmers in the early 1980s and funded partly by the apartheid government (Ewert and Hamman 1996, 149). Reflecting attempts by white owners to recast their international image as abusive employers, the Foundation was tasked with improving conditions and labour relations on commercial farms. In accordance with its prescriptions, farm owners throughout South Africa adopted so-called “participative management” strategies. As Du Toit notes in regard to the Rural Foundation’s influence: “Above all, it led to an emphasis on farm management, the idea that what farmers must do is not to farm but to manage [both land and people] … The procedures by which judgement operates, the criteria by which it happens, the consequences with which it is invested – all became objects of intensified concern” (1993, 320; emphasis in original). Participative management brought more layers of bureaucracy, incorporated black workers into supervisory and management positions, and introduced profit-sharing schemes. While farm owners resisted unionization, committees were established on farms in order to give expression to workers’ interests through regular meetings with management. By the end of the 1980s, these reforms improved

10

Chiefs of the Plantation

living and working conditions, but they did little to undermine the private and absolute authority owners held over their workers (ibid.). The reforms were given added impetus by wider political-economic shifts in the 1980s and 1990s. As the African National Congress (anc) assumed power in 1994, state subsidies for white owners were withdrawn, while land tenure security and minimum wage legislation were introduced to support agricultural workers and residents (Ewert and Hamman 1999, 205–06). Throughout the agricultural sector, commercial farms became consolidated among fewer yet larger entities, while thousands of farm dwellers were retrenched or evicted (Mather and Greenberg 2003). Farm owners who had been kept on the land by apartheid-era subsidies were no longer viable in the deregulated environment, causing many to leave farming or to shift from cropping to less volatile game farming and ranching (Spierenburg and Brooks 2014). Since 1992, over 250,000 farm workers have been retrenched, even as part-time and migrant employment in agriculture has increased over the same period (Bernstein 2013). As part of their efforts to lower labour costs and avoid land claims and unionization of workers, farm owners have employed a growing proportion of casual and seasonal labour, often drawn from neighbouring countries, the former homelands or nearby townships (Du Toit and Ally 2003; Johnston 2007; Visser and Ferrer 2015). Taken together, the rise of participative management, the removal of agricultural subsidies, new forms of labour market regulation, and shifts in workforce composition encouraged changes in longstanding paternalistic labour practices. Du Toit (1993) and others (Atkinson 2007; Jackson 2013) emphasize that paternalism has not disappeared as owners have embraced, to varying degrees, the management ethos articulated above. Formerly paternalistic benefits have been privatized, as many of the informal gifts and favours such as housing, food, and electricity (on more developed farms) are now commonly deducted from workers’ pay. Similar to commercial agriculture in Latin America and elsewhere (Bain 2010; Ortiz and Aparicio 2010; Li 2017), there is greater segmentation and inequality within workforces (Ewert and Du Toit 2005). A general trend that most if not all South African plantation owners have followed is the externalization and casualization of labour. Externalization refers to owners’ use of thirdparty contractors or labour brokers to – depending on the nature of the contractor – supply, oversee, and pay temporary workers.

Introduction

11

Casualization refers to growing employment of part-time and seasonal workers, by and large residing off plantations, and employed without the use of a third party. In the case of externalization, the moral contract of paternalism is “severed” as contractors come between temporary workers and the landowner (Du Toit and Ally 2003, 51). Similarly, casualization produces growing social distance – if not a total “severing” – because temporary workers do not reside in housing provided by the landowner, considered the “lynchpin” of traditional paternalism. Scholars consider the combination of these processes to render paternalism increasingly uneven and exclusionary. Owners channel benefits, incentives, and their personal attention to the relatively few permanent and skilled workers, while the majority of workers – seasonal, part-time, migrant – are left outside of the paternalistic contract and fend for themselves through largely informal, off-farm survival strategies. In the Western Cape, where most studies have been conducted, the synergy between skilled, long-term coloured workers and plantation owners is thought to produce an “ethnic corporatism,” according to which these core workers align themselves more with the white owner than casual or seasonal workers (Ewert and Hamman 1996). Helpful as this analysis is, two sets of questions receive less attention: first, what sort of labour relations enmesh temporary workers who live most of the year in plantation compounds? Existing literature tends to restrict this category to the wives of permanent workers, but it includes more people than that. Such temporary workers may or may not gain employment through a third-party contractor, but their sustained presence on farms suggests that their relationship with owners is perhaps not totally severed. Bolt’s ethnography (2015) is highly instructive in this respect. He argues that such temporary workers are situated by a “mediated paternalism” in which permanent and senior black employees serve as key nodes of incorporation for temporary and seasonal workers, while white employers remain highly distant. Yet, how has the enlarged influence of senior black intermediaries been established and sustained? What are the sources of their authority and legitimacy – both in the eyes of white employers, to whom they are ultimately accountable, and among lower- and middle-ranking workers, whom they must control? Moreover, what accounts for the ongoing relevance of paternalism to the ways in which white employers and managers understand themselves? While whites have divested from the in-kind

12

Chiefs of the Plantation

provisioning of the past, they often remain emotionally connected to their labour force – albeit in uneven ways. How does paternalistic self-identity coexist with practices of divestment and detachment, and with what consequences for labour relations? A second line of questioning relates to contestation. How do agricultural workers in South Africa challenge authority or seek to shape the circumstances of their employment? Beginning in August 2012, an unprecedented wave of farm worker strikes and protests in the Western Cape brought agricultural labour relations to international headlines. While this provincial uprising garnered much attention, Visser and Ferrer (2015) also report a general rise in labour disputes and strike activity across the country. These strikes are often explained as resulting from two processes: first, that many workers reside off-farm, and are thereby less subject to the direct control and supervision of management; second, that by residing off-farm, these workers are more easily connected with and supported by unions and social movements (Webb 2017; Wilderman 2017). Yet, the causes of social unrest among temporary workers who reside most of the year in farm compounds are less understood. More broadly, despite the sense of widespread contestation in South African agriculture, there are few studies that go beyond a focus on strikes, offering thick descriptions of what social conflict in the sector looks like, and directing attention to the more “everyday forms of resistance” (Scott 1985). To engage these questions, I adopt a labour regime and moral economy perspective.

l a b o u r r e g im e a n d m oral economy My theoretical approach to the plantation is to understand it as a labour regime. Following Henry Bernstein (2010, 31–2), labour regimes represent “different methods of recruiting labour and their connections with how labour is organized in production (labour process) and how it secures its subsistence.” In addition to the dynamics of recruitment, control, and subsistence of labour, I also incorporate into my understanding of labour regime the institutional context that governs employer-worker relations (Burawoy 1985; Selwyn 2014; Li 2017). Of particular relevance on Mopane Estates are state laws regarding minimum wages and conditions of employment for noncitizens, as well as retailer certification programs. A labour regime analysis enables us to recognize how the question of worker “consent”

Introduction

13

– how and why workers acquiesce to their exploitation – depends on the articulation of localized and regulatory processes. Yet, the consent achieved through these processes is never finished or total – it must be continually reworked or renewed in response to worker contestation or changing external circumstances (Hart 2002). In thinking about contestation, I build on more recent scholarship that underscores the importance of the work–residence nexus to labour regimes (Ngai and Smith 2007; Mezzadri 2016; Campbell 2018). As employers have sought out ever more precarious forms of labour in order to facilitate flexible production at the lowest cost, they often accommodate workers at the job site. The implication is that labour regime analysis must account for processes nominally “offwork,” often in the sphere of social reproduction, and consider these as primary to production relations. I extend analyses of the work– residence nexus by incorporating three key domains of contestation into my analysis of the plantation labour regime: spatial, sexual, and spiritual. As labour geographers have long emphasized, space is not a mere backdrop for the capitalist labour process. Rather, capitalism actively produces and reconstructs space, as part of ongoing efforts to resolve limitations in the accumulation process (Harvey 1982). Yet, this tendency for capital to seek a “spatial fix” to the problems of accumulation generates new openings that labour can exploit. As Herod (1997, 9) explains: “Herein lies a source of contradiction and (potential) struggle, for workers may have very different geographical visions with regard to how the economic landscape should look and function than do capitalists, and may need very different types of landscapes in order to facilitate their own social and biological reproduction on a daily, generational, or any other basis.” Alongside this spatial contestation, the sexual economy of the plantation facilitates struggle within gender relations. Through transactional sex, many women reverse the formal distribution of wages on the plantation, and thus counter their economic subordination within the formal plantation hierarchy. Similarly, spiritual life on the plantation emerges as a terrain of struggle within the workforce. While white and black managers use Christianity to enforce labour discipline, lower- and middle-ranking workers develop a separate church that implicitly challenges the plantation hierarchy. A labour regime approach thus allows us to conceptualize the structural conditions under which people work, and helps identify potential domains of contestation – especially as these manifest

14

Chiefs of the Plantation

across the work–residence nexus. But it tells us less about the norms, values, and implicit understandings that motivate action or inaction. In this respect, I find it useful to incorporate the concept of “moral economy.” Originally formulated by E. P. Thompson (1971) to interpret eighteenth-century riots over the price of bread in England, the moral economy refers to how people define entitlements and appropriate conduct among those in power. He demonstrates that riots were caused not by hunger alone, but by particular notions of economic responsibility and a popular understanding of what constituted legitimate protest and direct action. James Scott (1976) builds on this analysis in his study of peasant rebellions in Southeast Asia to define the moral economy as a “working definition of exploitation” or “subsistence ethic.” Peasants rebel or engage in less dramatic resistance – such as “foot dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson and sabotage” (Scott 1985, xvi) – when they feel their entitlement to subsistence is violated. It is important to emphasize that for both Thompson and Scott the concept of moral economy is not incompatible with the Gramscian concept of hegemony – that is, the process through which a dominant group secures its rule through a combination of consent and coercion among the governed (cf. Crehan 2002). But both authors favour a more limited understanding of hegemony, one that emphasizes its fragility and constant need for renewal (Scott 1985, 284; Thompson 1991, 344–5). The mostly hidden, underground efforts by subalterns to set limits on their exploitation and defend entitlements in terms of prevailing moral economies are best viewed not as reactive attempts to maintain a status quo, but rather as “future oriented” efforts to actively rework social relations in more advantageous ways (Edelman 2012, 56). My usage of moral economy is thus closely tied to Thompson and Scott’s formulations, in that I am attuned to the everyday negotiation of class relations on the plantation. This use of moral economy represents a departure from how it is often used in anthropology and other disciplines; that is, as a suppository of “anti-market” values or “solidarity economies,” that operate seemingly outside of processes of commodification (Redfield 2008; Prince 2012; Horton 2015). Rather, I follow Palomera and Vetta’s (2016, 419) observation that “all economies are moral economies.” The task, in their view, is to understand how moral economies are integral to contemporary forms of flexible capitalism. As they explain: “Moral

Introduction

15

economy, above all, is about understanding the inner workings of capitalism and the qualities of social reproduction at particular historical times and spaces. It is an approach that advocates an anthropological understanding of class … bringing under the same analytical framework different regimes of value and pointing to the complex ways they are entangled” (ibid., 428). This entanglement of different regimes of value within a system of domination can contribute not only to acquiescence or ambiguity, but also to potential misunderstanding or discordance in the relations between dominant and subordinate groups. On Mopane Estates, the moral economy is characterized by the coexistence of two broad, and often conflicting, value orientations. The first, shared among the white owner and white managers, is a sense of paternalistic self-identity, belief in racial hierarchy, and detachment from the everyday lives of workers. This sensibility expresses a view of the plantation as a collective enterprise, one that offers Zimbabwean migrants relatively low wages, yet combined with the provision of food and housing represents overall fair remuneration. This general disposition is not unassailable. Whites sometimes disagree with each other around what constitutes proper forms of relating to the black workforce. But a broad sense of the plantation as a just institution remains relatively stable. In contrast to this sensibility, most black Zimbabweans have a fundamentally different orientation, one anchored to supporting rural homesteads at home, encapsulated in the idiom kuvaka musha, which means “to build a rural homestead.” On the surface, these two orientations appear compatible. A commitment to one’s homestead translates into a willingness to work hard and accept difficult conditions – as scholarship on migrant labour to South Africa’s mines demonstrates (Moodie 1994). And yet the same orientation towards the homestead can become a norm that propels disagreement and subversion – particularly when people feel that their ability to support relatives and others back home is threatened. There is an uneven moral geography in which some blacks relate more strongly to the plantation and white community than others. A minority Venda-speaking population, representing roughly 10 per cent of the workforce, has a deep historical connection with the land the plantation cultivates. These Venda originate from villages nearby on the Zimbabwean side of the Limpopo, and have connections with white landowners along the border going back generations. Some

16

Chiefs of the Plantation

are among the original people employed by the white owner, when he bought land along the border and founded the plantation in 1995. The three elite chiefs of the plantation also have deep historical ties with the owner. The chiefs relate more strongly to the sense of a plantation as a common project, as they have been part of it from its very birth and contributed greatly to its success over the years. But for the majority Shona-speaking population, a general sense of dissonance pervades. Many workers are itinerant – they reside on the plantation for only a few months or a single season, using it as a “stepping stone” for obtaining employment somewhere else in South Africa. But there is also a significant cadre of more established workers, some of whom occupy “middle management” positions – that is, above the lowest ranking worker, but below the top structure chiefs – who voice grievances avidly. Many of them have worked on the plantation for several consecutive years and received promotions, but feel stuck at low-wage positions relative to the more lucratively remunerated chiefs. This divided community served as my home for a year of fieldwork from 2009 to 2010. Some explanation of how I gained access to the plantation and took up residence in the compound deserves further explanation, as my fieldwork was carried out under particularly difficult and sometimes violent conditions.

r e s e a rc h m e t h o d s o n a plantati on Plantations in South Africa are spaces of anxiety in which the possibility of doing ethnographic fieldwork is slim. They are tightly guarded properties, with security guards posted throughout and fences usually surrounding the space. Security is meant to protect whites from so-called farm “attacks” or “invasions” – highly publicized incidents in which white landowners or managers have been assaulted or murdered during robberies. Farm invasions are closely related to another source of anxiety: occupations by black South Africans covetous of land, similar to that of Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform since 2000. While plantation security may provide some assurance from these external threats, it is also meant to counter internal threats on the plantation, whether in terms of stealing or violence from aggrieved workers. The security presence underscores plantations as private spaces, in which life is deliberately hidden from the view of labour inspectors, unionists, journalists, and researchers. Owners are highly

Introduction

17

conscious of their public image, aware of how media most often portrays them in a negative light as abusive employers and representatives of apartheid. Consequently, they are often skeptical towards outsiders attempting to learn about their business. Anxiety extends beyond the white community and is found among workers as well. As we shall see, the plantation is characterized by a lack of trust between workers and their employer. Because access to the plantation is closely tied to the white owner’s approval, workers tend to perceive any “visitor” as supporting the employer’s interests, particularly if the visitor is white. Plantations remain highly racialized: for instance, white employees typically receive higher wages than blacks, regardless of rank and responsibilities. Workers question the motives of any outsider, but their suspicion is heightened when the visitor is white. As a white outsider, I was seen as suspicious both to the white owner and managers and among the black workforce. Although I ultimately made significant strides in finding acceptance with the workers, even after twelve months of living on the plantation I was not able to completely dispel suspicions that I had a hidden agenda, whether it was in support of the owner or some other interest. Given these suspicions, I struggled throughout my research to find a plantation that would accept my ethnographic project. Out of approximately twenty plantations that I visited in the Limpopo Valley, I found most owners willing to talk with me, but skeptical of the idea of me interviewing their workers. If they did consent to this practice, they usually appointed the workers themselves and remained in the room or within listening distance as I talked with them. Whenever I raised the possibility of my living on their property, let alone with the workers, owners reacted coldly. Another problem was that the few white owners open to research had already had their plantations studied in detail by academics, including myself (Addison 2006; Zamchiya 2008; Rutherford 2008; Hall et al. 2013; Bolt 2015). One owner of a large citrus plantation threatened to have me arrested when I visited his property, because of my involvement in a strike on his property in 2005 during research for my master’s thesis (Addison 2006). These bleak prospects for an ethnographic study of a white-owned plantation almost led me to focus on the so-called “emerging” Venda commercial farmers in the Nwanedi area of the Limpopo Valley. In fact, it was on one of my visits to this district in July 2009 that I serendipitously discovered Mopane Estates, a large tomato plantation on the eastern border.

18

Chiefs of the Plantation

Philip, the white owner, was already in the office seated at his desk when I stepped in and introduced myself. He seemed intrigued as I described myself as an anthropology student interested in the social organization and culture of this farm. He nodded as I spoke, saying, “Yes, the culture of Africans is fascinating.” He offered to help and immediately radioed one his black managers, Clayton, and asked him to report to the office. When Clayton arrived, we sat at one of the office tables, and they proceeded to answer my preliminary questions. At one point, Philip stopped himself in mid-sentence and, as though struck by a sudden disturbing thought, asked me, “Where are you going with this information?” I reminded him that I was a student and that I was not using any real names in my research. Reassured, the conversation eventually concluded on warm terms, as we shook hands. I was invited to return the following morning so that Philip could introduce me to the entire workforce. When I arrived the next day, over 600 workers stood around in small groups waiting for the morning roll call to commence. Following a brief prayer by one Zimbabwean worker, Philip stepped up to the podium and invited me to stand beside him. He spoke to the crowd in English, allowing Clayton to translate his words into Shona: This man is from Canada. He is a learned man. He is training to get his PhD and then he will be a professor. He is interested in the culture of the Shona and Venda people, and he is doing a study of the farms in the area … He is here to be with us. And he will be spending time with you in the compound and at work. He is interested in the history, culture, and social activities that you do. If you are going to catch fish, maybe he will come with you and catch fish. And he is not going to anyone else with this information, not to labour or government or anyone; it is only for his studies. You should feel open with him. One day he may put this information in a book, and perhaps we will get a copy of it. Perhaps your grandchildren will read that book. And he is not here to look for women. He is a married man. His final point about my possible involvement with women on the plantation brought forth uproarious laughter from the crowd. He had in fact asked me during our initial meeting if I was going to be “chasing after ladies.” As I later learned, Philip had recently fired a white manager for having sexual relations with black women on the

Introduction

19

plantation. I used the break to address the workers myself in Shona. I told the crowd where I was from and what I was hoping to learn from them. Clearly appreciating my use of Shona, everyone clapped when I was finished. As people left the space of the roll call towards their places of work, Philip took me aside and issued a warning: “Now, it’s okay if you go and publish articles overseas, but we don’t want anything here getting out to the government or newspapers.” I explained to Philip that while my writing would be publically available and hence I would have no control over whether government or the media would read my work, I would disguise the identity of the plantation. Philip permitted me to continue with my research, and over a year of fieldwork began on that day. It remains a puzzle for me as to why Philip accepted my research and how I sustained myself on the plantation for so long. A number of factors worked to my advantage. As I came to appreciate, Philip had something of an erratic and unpredictable temperament. It was fortuitous that in my first encounter with him he was in something of a good mood and receptive to a visitor. More generally, I benefitted from his understanding of culture as the supposed focus of my research. Like many whites who came of age in the apartheid era, Philip had a very apolitical understanding of culture, associating the term with African customs and habits, such as rituals, dance, and folklore. This antiquated notion of culture premised on a clear disassociation with anything remotely “political,” a notion anthropologists so often lament, actually worked in my favour. Since my project was all about “culture” as he understood it, I was removed from the threatening categories of journalist, organizer, or human rights campaigner, who are invariably interested in the politics of the plantation. Since I was a white person, I fit the category of an “acceptable” visitor. Although white plantation owners are beset by multiple anxieties, they are often isolated and have few occasions to interact with other people of their race, let alone a white person from another country. It is possible that Philip hoped for a meaningful friendship or at least acquaintance with someone from overseas. Perhaps most important was my identification as a Christian. It became apparent to me, early on, that if my place on the plantation was to be secure I needed some kind of social role or purpose. Historically, as David Hughes (2006) observes, only certain long-term social roles have been open to whites in rural southern Africa, such as farmer, government official, or missionary. The identity of “researcher” by itself

20

Chiefs of the Plantation

was too opaque to workers or threatening to Philip. Research on South African farms tends historically to be antagonistic to whites. Other possible roles included development worker, trade union organizer, or employee. There was not much scope for “development worker,” because the only ngo that interacted with the plantation was Doctors Without Borders, and they visited the plantation once a month. “Trade union organizer” would have resulted in my immediate eviction from the plantation. Finally, becoming employed at the plantation would have posed its own difficulties in terms of ethics and time for research. I therefore increasingly settled into the public identity of “missionary.” As I describe below, I became very active in the workers’ churches and frequently led the morning prayers and at roll call. Responding to a request by the workers, I also had over fifty Bibles sent from the United States to the plantation. These activities helped me gain a measure of trust and respect with Philip, who himself was a “born again” Pentecostal Christian. Despite this cordial beginning with Philip, he made efforts to regulate and set the terms of my research. In the main, this regulation took the form of a Venda “guide” who he assigned to me during the first month of my research. He did not force me to accept this guide, but politely suggested that I would benefit from having an interpreter and someone to “show me around.” Significantly, Philip said, “He is someone that I trust.” Not wanting his first impression of me to be coloured by disagreement, I consented to his suggestion. He advised me to work with Albert, a Venda man with whom Philip shared a close association. In the first weeks of my research, Albert seemed indispensable. On my commute from Musina to the plantation – before I managed to obtain residence in the compound – I picked him up at his home in Nwanedi and brought him with me to the plantation. His knowledge, not only of the particular dynamics of Mopane Estates but of the surrounding area and its history, helped initiate important themes in my research. For instance, he was the first person to alert me to the high degree of sexual promiscuity, the practices of managers in securing bribes, and the different forms of Christianity on the plantation. Moreover, many of my initial interviews were conducted with his help, especially with Venda informants. He also introduced me to my eventual hosts in the compound, Arthur and Emmanuel. During the first weeks of my research, we all shared meals and even attended a few church services together. Yet, eventually Arthur

Introduction

21

and Emmanuel alerted me to a major problem in my relationship with Albert. As Emmanuel stated one afternoon, in a moment of transparency when Albert was absent: “Lincoln, some of the important things about the farm we can’t share with you, because of Albert. The things we say he will pass on to Philip.” He also explained that many people on the farm viewed him as a spy for Philip. Following this revelation, I distanced myself from Albert. I stopped bringing him with me. For the remainder of my fieldwork, I occasionally visited him at his homestead, but I essentially cut him off from my research at Mopane Estates. Distancing myself from Albert created new problems. Albert had served as a kind of buffer that helped secure my position on the plantation. Although he never stated it explicitly, Philip’s acceptance of me was in some sense conditional on having the surveillance and oversight of someone he “trusted,” like Albert. It was not so much that he did not trust Arthur and Emmanuel, whose sphere of influence I increasingly became part of, and who were enmeshed in their own paternalistic relationships with Philip. Albert was brought onto the plantation, in this instance, for the express purpose of serving as my guide, interpreter, and research assistant. The loss of this figure, this channel through which Philip maintained a sense of oversight over my research, meant that Philip had less control over and knowledge of my activities on the plantation. I became enmeshed in the life of the compound, a space where – I came to understand only too well – whites rarely go. In various ways, I tried to bridge the widening gulf between Philip and myself. When I saw Philip at morning roll calls, I made a point of greeting him, often shaking his hand and trying to engage him in conversation. Yet, our conversations were awkward in that I could only tell him so much about my activities and what I was learning about his plantation. I did not want to disturb his impression of my research as an apolitical study of “culture.” My efforts to befriend Philip did not counter my growing sense that my presence in the compound not only offended his racialized sensibilities, but also somehow threatened the social order of the plantation. From Philip’s perspective, I did not fit in. By residing in the compound, I was separated from the white community. But within the compound, I did not fall under the supervision or control of one of his delegated chiefs, largely because I was white and had significant resources on my own, symbolized perhaps most strongly by my personal car.

22

Chiefs of the Plantation

In mid-November, after I had been living in the compound for three months, Philip made a conspicuous effort to bring me back within his optic. We had been enjoying an exceptionally friendly conversation in which I was telling him about growing up in Canada. The conversation arose from a random encounter in which I had been standing around near the workshop when Philip drove up to give instructions to the security guard. Perhaps because it was the end of the workday, Philip was more relaxed and inclined to talk with me informally. He leaned casually out the window of his truck, and I stood alongside the vehicle. It was a moment of personal connection – I told him about my family history and a story about meeting my wife. Yet, as the conversation ended and I motioned to walk back towards the compound, the connection broke down. As I walked away, Philip beeped the horn of his pickup truck, beckoning me to come back to him. He spoke excitedly: “You know Lincoln, I just had this thought. We have that house over there” – he pointed to small, unoccupied house up the hill from the workshop. “You are welcome to stay there until we hire another [white] manager. There is a geyser and electricity.” I thanked him for the generous offer, but told him that “I was really benefitting” from being “close” to the workers in the compound. He replied, his voice trailing off, “Oh … okay.” My rejection of Philip’s beneficence further alienated me from the white community. Several weeks passed in which I did not see Philip. In part, this was because he was frequently away from the plantation on business. But I also began to avoid him because I had a mounting fear that he would kick me off the plantation. I was told by a key informant that some of the chiefs were “speaking against me” to Philip. Apparently, the senior figures were telling Philip that I was a journalist and planning to report illegal issues to state authorities. My key informants speculated that the black chiefs felt threatened by my presence, because I was going “directly to the people” to do interviews and talk with them, rather than going through them first. Arthur and Emmanuel reported that Philip asked about me in their meetings. On one occasion he asked, “Is Lincoln really a Christian?” and another time he probed, “You don’t think he is a journalist?” The brothers did their best, they assured me, to explain that I was not a journalist, and that I was actively participating in their church services. Yet, I felt a growing sense of insecurity. My tactics increasingly involved avoidance and hiding from Philip. I spent whole days without leaving the compound, gathering data from people who were not

Introduction

23

working. Following this tactic of avoidance, I thought Philip would forget about me, and I could carry on my research activities without interference. When I did encounter Philip in January and February, I could barely contain a dreadful feeling that he would tell me to leave. Perhaps my research could have persisted on these terms, had not everything unravelled unexpectedly in March. As I detail in chapter 2, my roommate Emmanuel was caught stealing chemicals from the plantation. In response, Philip physically beat him and four other workers, and had all of them arrested. This event led Arthur to confront Philip and finally desert the plantation. Although Philip did not accuse me of stealing, he felt that my close association with Arthur and Emmanuel made my presence on his property too problematic. In a meeting in in mid-March, he ordered me to leave permanently. Fortunately, Dolores, the white office manager, intervened on my behalf. She pointed out to Philip that she had already promised to host my wife, Christina, when she was to join me in South Africa in May. At this point, Philip changed his mind and reduced my sentence to a temporary suspension; I was permitted to return to the plantation when Christina arrived. The period between May and August marked a significant shift in my positionality, in which Christina and I resided with Dolores’ family and with another white manager, Heinrik. Christina’s presence on the plantation greatly assisted my research. Had she not come, I would not have been permitted to return. Our friendship with white managers brought stability to my research and created a protective buffer between myself and Philip that lasted until the end of my fieldwork. My position on the plantation was also shaped significantly by Blessing, a plantation worker who greatly enriched my research. Blessing, who was in his late 20s, was the perfect candidate for a research assistant. When I met him through Pentecostal worship on the plantation, he had recently graduated from a Zimbabwean university with a degree in anthropology. When I learned of his background, I employed him in many research activities. He became a “note taker” during church services at the plantation, recording and translating into English what was being said and sung. He also maintained journals in which he recorded his own observations of events on the plantation. My association with Blessing lent credibility to my research activities among workers. Unlike Albert, who was perceived as a “sellout” connected to Philip, Blessing was known by most workers because his family lived in the resettlement areas

24

Chiefs of the Plantation

near Mberengwa in Zimbabwe, where the majority of workers originate (as I detail in chapter 1). Indeed, one of his aunts was married to Moses, the loading supervisor on the plantation and brother of Clayton. Yet, employed as an ordinary worker in the pack shed, Blessing was not perceived as a management figure. He attended primary and secondary school with many of the young men and women on the plantation. Blessing often introduced me to workers and reassured people that they should feel “free” to speak with me. He served as an interpreter during interviews. Although my Shona language skills were strong enough to gather basic information, I benefitted greatly from the assistance of Blessing when the subject matter became more complicated. We formed a lasting friendship and collaboration that persists to the present day. My fieldwork comprised a variety of methods and techniques for gathering data. Most fundamentally, there were my own observations as a resident of the plantation. While living in the compound, I was witness to domestic routines, relaxation activities, conversation, gossip, and other forms of everyday social interaction among workers. When Christina and I lived in the homes of white staff, we were party to numerous casual conversations over meal times that revealed a great deal about race, gender, and labour relations on the plantation. We participated in a weekly prayer group with the white managers, and Christina frequently prepared meals, becoming the regular cook when we were hosted by Heinrik. We overheard communication through plantation radios – there was no cell phone reception in the vicinity – that offered a glimpse into the decision-making process, and how whites attempted to control and supervise what was happening on the plantation. Throughout my fieldwork, I attended the “morning roll call,” a daily ritual held near the workshop where attendance is taken, prayers and announcements are made, and orders for the day are given. Walking around the property on a daily basis provided opportunity for observing work processes and migration practices – I often watched how people crossed the Limpopo River back and forth from Zimbabwe and encountered migrants on their way to destinations further south. I was also an active participant in the work and social life of the plantation. At different stages of my research, I worked as a picker, loader, and in weeding groups. Initially, it was my intention to join one of these work groups permanently, but I discovered obstacles to complete integration. The jobs were physically demanding. As a

Introduction

25

picker, I was required to fill large plastic crates with tomatoes that, when full, weigh 45 kg. Most of the time I was bent over, reaching through bushes on the ground for appropriately coloured tomatoes. The “case,” as it is called, is then hoisted onto the shoulder and carried to a road for pick up. Working at my hardest, I could manage five crates in a two-hour period. Loading required travelling around the plantation in groups of five or ten workers on a flatbed truck or trailer pulled by a tractor, and collecting the cases of tomatoes for delivery to the pack shed. One is constantly lifting and stacking full crates of tomatoes. I could sustain this work for an hour or two, but beyond that I became slow and tired, getting the sense that I was burdening the work group by being in the way of faster, more efficient workers. Weeding did not require lifting, but nevertheless involved being bent over almost the entire time, pulling weeds out of the ground with bare hands. Like picking and loading, it was a job conducted in the full heat of the day, with limited access to drinking water or shade. These jobs brought one in close proximity to pesticides applied to tomatoes, and at times chemicals were being sprayed in fields close by. The physicality of these jobs, in combination with extreme sun exposure and my concerns about pesticides, limited my ability to become a “regular” worker. When I attempted to work in any of these positions for several days in a row, my body broke down. My exhaustion after working these jobs prevented me from conducting interviews and writing field notes in the evening. In addition to physical obstacles, I feared that whites were offended by my direct involvement in manual labour. I have already discussed how I felt insecure and typically avoided Philip; this fact alone restricted my efforts to get involved in plantation work. But in a more general sense, like living in the compound, I transgressed racial boundaries by performing work usually reserved for black people. On one occasion a white manager, Heinrik, noticed me working in the loading team. Pulling up near me in his truck, he beckoned me to come close. “Lincoln, you don’t need to hurt yourself. Let the blacks do the work.” His comment showed concern for my health, but perhaps also the suggestion that I was “out of place” by working with blacks. Yet, my efforts to join work groups afforded opportunities to gain rapport with black workers and meet people whom I could later interview. I struck a balance by working only occasionally and for short periods. I became a more prominent participant-observer among church groups in the compound. Being present in the churches provided

26

Chiefs of the Plantation

the opportunity to listen to people preaching and praying, giving testimonies, and singing songs that conveyed some of their hopes and anxieties. I participated in two churches, a Pentecostal group known as the “Inter-D” and a more dominant church known locally as “Zion.” Yet, my prominent role in the Inter-D and Zion precluded other kinds of activities. As I became known as a sort of missionary on the plantation, some activities were potentially discrediting. My acceptance and friendship with Arthur and Emmanuel was, in a sense, conditional on my rigid abstinence from alcohol and smoking. Since they had taken me into their room, I did not want to undermine the example of “pure living” they were trying to set in the community. While sexually abstinent living posed no problems, I was unable to deepen my connections with other men by drinking with them, as I have done on other plantations. Because my time on Sunday was preoccupied with church attendance, I was unable to join the plantation’s official soccer team, which played games against other plantations on Sunday afternoon. Although I occasionally played soccer during the week and got to know many of the players, a deeper involvement in this social practice was sacrificed in favour of church. I also spent significant amounts of time preparing sermons for the services I was scheduled to preach – energies that could have been directed into other research activities. Yet, my participation in the Inter-D and Zion was crucial to my acceptance in the community of the compound. My willingness to sing, dance, and preach in these contexts won me a great deal of support and compliments from Zimbabwean workers. I was told several times that people had “never seen a white person” joining them in church, and that it brought them great joy. Philip occasionally preached at the morning roll call, but my participation in the churches of the compound was a revelation. Pastors frequently interpreted my participation as divine intervention. I found that after participating in church, people were more willing to do interviews with me. I conducted over 200 semi-structured and unstructured interviews with workers and managers. Most of the respondents were people who I first came to know through socializing or participating in activities at the plantation, such as work, soccer, and church. Without this initial familiarity, I found workers to be reluctant or suspicious of my intentions when I requested interviews. In general, women were less likely to agree to be interviewed. Women who cohabited with men were sometimes difficult to interview, as their

Introduction

27

partner would answer questions on their behalf, or they were too preoccupied with cooking, washing, or cleaning after work. I had more success interviewing such women when their partners were absent. However, to give an example of the pitfalls of this approach, I once interviewed a woman whose husband was in town for the day. We conducted the interview in her hut. The man came back drunk and found us talking in the relative privacy of his mud hut, at which point he became angry, started shouting at me and tried to beat me. Fortunately, his wife was able to hold him back while I retreated back to my own residence. The following day he apologized to me. Yet, my relations with him were permanently coloured by the incident; he asked his wife never to speak to me again without his permission and he himself declined to be interviewed. Some workers told me that they heard gossip stating that I slept with the woman, a rumour that persisted until the end of my fieldwork. While my unstructured interviews usually focused on the respondent’s view of some current event on the plantation, such as a strike, a suicide, or infant deaths, the semi-structured interviews drew upon a comprehensive list of questions. These questions covered, among other themes, basic demographic information (e.g. age, education, place of origin), migration and life history, involvement in recreational activities on the plantation, spending and saving patterns, and the interviewee’s own analysis and perspective of life on the plantation. I frequently departed from the script by asking respondents to elaborate or provide more details when unexpected topics of interest came up. Some of my questions were problematic. For instance, in the beginning I asked people how much they earned each month. However, I came to learn that this question fed the impression that I was a journalist or government agent, so I stopped posing it.3 My questions also shifted because, as my fieldwork progressed, I became more interested in gender relations and the sexual economy, by which I mean different forms of non-marital transactional sex. From the very beginning of my fieldwork when Philip introduced me to the workforce – and announced that “he is not here to chase after ladies” to everyone’s great amusement – the sexual economy was a perpetual theme. It became clear to me over time that gossip and speculation about sexual relationships were central to plantation life, and virtually no one was immune from the rumour mill. While men frequently accused women of being prostitutes, the promiscuity of black chiefs was commonly discussed. My friends in the Pentecostal

28

Chiefs of the Plantation

church focused on the sexual economy in their prayers, preaching, and reflections, as something to be resisted and distanced from. The sexual economy thus seemed to be an essential aspect of the community, but how could it be studied? Following the advice of my key informants and research assistant, asking people directly about how many partners they have and how their relationships operate would be inappropriate and perhaps offensive. Therefore, I approached the topic by asking people to define, in general terms, what I understood to be the different categories or types of relationships in the sexual economy, and how these relationships on the plantation differed from those in Zimbabwe. This turned out to be a fruitful method because it gave informants a sense of anonymity and distance from the topic at hand, even as they likely drew upon personal experiences in their reflections with me. Some informants, specifically a few men, discussed their involvement in transactional sex quite openly, perhaps because they were proud. But in general, I learned about this aspect of the plantation from third-person accounts, as well as stories and gossip people told about other people. Finally, while this book draws primarily on my experiences over 2009 to 2010 at Mopane, I also rely at times on my experiences and observations at numerous other plantations in the Limpopo Valley that I have visited in various research trips since 2005. I have also kept up with news on Mopane through ongoing contact with white managers and workers still employed there, with whom I have maintained lasting friendships.

o r g a n iz at io n o f the book Chapter 1 provides a history and outline of the labour regime on Mopane Estates. I define the labour regime according to four processes: first, a shifting composition of labour, involving the expanded employment of Zimbabwean migrants on a part-time or seasonal basis. Second, new forms of private and public regulation, involving third-party inspections by retailers and efforts by the post-apartheid state to improve conditions for plantation workers. Third, the provisioning of housing and other means of subsistence to migrant workers. Fourth, a delegation of rule to black managers, personified in the role of Clayton, the highest-ranking chief on Mopane Estates. This fourth process constitutes the foundational bedrock of the labour regime, enabling the other dimensions to articulate productively. Overall,

Introduction

29

the labour regime reproduces the authoritarian legacies of racialized paternalism, while minimizing the potential for benevolence. Having analyzed the structural context of the plantation, the remainder of the book addresses how the labour regime gives rise to a fragile moral economy and diverse forms of contestation. Chapter 2 examines how the owner’s constant attempts to roll back entitlements and curtail the mobility of the workforce give rise to struggles over tomatoes, cigarette smuggling, and piece rates. The struggles reveal divergent moral understandings around what constitutes fair terms of employment. These examples of contestation also demonstrate how lower-ranking workers use the spatial context of the plantation, as well as the owner’s extreme dependency on chiefs, to rework the labour regime to their advantage. Chapter 3 shifts the focus to relations between middle-ranking workers and white owners. In this chapter, and the ones that follow, the narrative remains close to the experiences of my roommates in the compound, Arthur and Emmanuel. In this chapter, I examine how the brothers, as middle managers on the plantation, represent particular sources of instability. They are incorporated just enough to have access to valuable resources and information, but not to the extent that they are precluded from lying to Philip or stealing pesticides. And unlike the transgressions of chiefs, which Philip seems to tolerate, Emmanuel and others’ stealing of chemicals provokes a violent reaction from Philip, and their expulsion from the plantation. The instability of middle managers comes to envelop my fieldwork, as my close association with the brothers leads in the aftermath of beatings and arrests to my own temporary eviction from the plantation. While these earlier chapters address how low- and middle-ranking workers contest white authority on the plantation, the remainder of the book shifts the focus to how conflict unfolds within the workforce itself. Through a discursive analysis of narratives surrounding infant deaths on the plantation, chapter 4 discusses how the labour regime alters the sexual economy and gender relations among workers. Instead of relatively stable worker-households living more or less permanently on the plantation, the labour regime has encouraged the employment of more independent and often unmarried Zimbabwean workers, including unprecedented numbers of women. The manner in which the labour regime empowers black intermediaries allows them to exploit women for sex. Although women

30

Chiefs of the Plantation

appear to be the most exploited workers, through the sexual economy they demand cash and in-kind payments from men. While the sexual economy presents opportunities for women to increase their income, it also exposes them to the risks of hiv/aids and unwanted pregnancies, resulting in contradictory implications for the status of women on plantations. Chapter 5 considers how Christianity emerges as a site of struggle within the workforce. On one level, the labour regime of the plantation minimizes the space for religious practice, by demanding so much labour from its resident workforce. Yet despite this constraining context, two churches vie for influence on the plantation. The first church, Zion, is led by top-structure figures on the plantation. In many ways this church uses spiritual practice to enforce norms related to labour discipline. The second church, the Inter-D, is led by Arthur, Emmanuel, and other lower- or middle-ranking workers. The competition between these two churches illustrates how contestation unfolds on a spiritual plane. Yet, the chapter also traces how the Inter-D’s emphasis on individual morality creates its own undoing. The “fall” into different kinds of sin by church leaders precipitates the church’s collapse. Before addressing how migrant workers contest authority, one must first understand the context of their employment. Therefore, we begin our analysis at the broad level of the plantation labour regime.

1 The Border Plantation Labour Regime

The circumstances of my first night in the compound of Mopane Estates gave insight into how labour relations are shifting in South African agriculture. In preceding weeks, I had been travelling to the plantation each day from the nearest town of Musina. In the course of these visits, I began to develop friendships with a few workers, notably the two Zimbabwean brothers, Arthur and Emmanuel. These brothers stayed together in one of the rooms of the “new houses”: long, single-storey brick buildings in which foremen, long-term, and semi-skilled workers found accommodation. The immediate rationale for staying overnight was an evening church service on the plantation, held by a Pentecostal church group that Arthur and Emmanuel helped organize. Eager to facilitate my participation in the service, they suggested that I spend the night with them. I gratefully accepted their offer, but I proposed that we contact the plantation owner Philip to gain permission; I knew how unprecedented it was for a white person to sleep in the compound. Moreover, during our first meeting, when I expressed interest in taking up residence in the workers’ compound, Philip responded coldly that “all our rooms are occupied.” To my surprise, the brothers stated that contacting Philip was not necessary. “We will tell him tomorrow at the roll call,” Arthur stated. “For now, we must go and speak with the manager, Clayton, to let him know you will be staying with us.” As we walked up the hill to Clayton’s house, Emmanuel elaborated on why Clayton, rather than Philip, should be informed. “Philip is not much interested in things inside the compound. But with Clayton, he is like the chief of this place … it is important to be friends with him and to create good relations.” When we reached the zenith of

32

Chiefs of the Plantation

the hill, Clayton’s modest three-roomed house stood before us, his white Isuzu pickup parked outside – a “bonus” Clayton received from Philip for a particularly successful season a few years ago. His house, outfitted with electricity, running water, and satellite television, made a stark contrast to housing in the compound below. Compared to the ramshackle rooms of the new houses, or the innumerable mud huts clustered beside them, the house and vehicle marked Clayton as a figure of extreme wealth and power. And yet, these signifiers of wealth were in some sense not entirely “his,” even if, in the case of the pickup truck, he had formal ownership. They were gifts and privileges from the true owner of the plantation, Philip, who could perhaps take them all away. After we sat on his front porch for a few minutes, Clayton emerged from his house and greeted us warmly; his eyes were bloodshot and he staggered slightly, suggesting that he had likely been drinking. Emmanuel, speaking in Shona, notified him that I would be staying in the compound and participating in the church event. Clayton did not object and, putting his arm around me, slurred in English: “So you want to stay with the blacks? There is no problem, my friend. You are welcome.” Then, in a grandiose gesture, he ordered two bottles of Coke and chicken pieces brought out from his freezer by one of the young men hanging around his house, which he gave us to bring back to our room in the compound. “Pray for us!” Clayton yelled, his voice trailing off as we walked back down the hill. At first glance, my seeking permission from Clayton, rather than Philip, seems consistent with South African labour history: white employers have often relied on such black intermediaries to govern life in mines and plantation compounds (van Onselen 1992; Moodie 1994; Murray 1997). Yet Clayton’s responsibilities go far beyond his governance of the compound. He oversees practically all aspects of plantation production and recruits Zimbabwean labour; in many ways he is the face of the plantation, even while Philip is the true owner. Placed within the larger context of social change in commercial agriculture – the greater participation of professional managers in decision making, the shifting composition of labour, and forms of both deregulation and reregulation enacted by government and private sector retailers – the encounter sketched above registers a decisive reworking of the paternalism that long characterized whiteowned farms. How this reworking takes place, and the consequences it holds for the advocacy and organization of plantation workers, remain central questions for studies of agrarian labour.

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

33

In this chapter, I first provide a brief history of Mopane Estates and the border territory it spans. This history sketches how apartheidera paternalism was sustained until the 1980s and 1990s, until economic reform and the incorporation of Zimbabwean workers began to unravel this labour regime. I then outline how a new regime takes shape on Mopane Estates, focusing on four key trends centred around the empowerment of black intermediaries: 1) a shifting composition of labour, 2) a new regulative architecture, 3) the provision of accommodation and other means of subsistence, and 4) a delegation of rule. These processes both disrupt and reproduce the circuits of paternalistic power. Taken together, they reinforce the authoritarian legacies of apartheid-era paternalism, while minimizing the potential for benevolence.

h is to ry o f m o pa ne estates and t h e e as t e r n border Mopane Estates is one of many fruit and vegetable plantations located along the Limpopo River in the vast bushveld between Musina and Kruger National Park. It forms part of a distinct geographical area, which I refer to as the “eastern border.”1 Historically, the land along the eastern border has not been conducive to large-scale commercial farming. During the 1980s, the border was inhabited by dozens of small-scale white farmers, some of whom lived there for several decades, yet they practically disappeared when apartheid-era subsidies were withdrawn. Most of the large fruit and vegetable plantations in this area, including Mopane, are relatively new, established in the post-apartheid era. The hot climate, water source, and good soil near the Limpopo have made these plantations among the largest winter tomato producers in the country. Yet the owners mention another decisive reason for their success: the unprecedented supply of cheap labour from Zimbabwe. In the following section, I trace the local history of the land occupied by Mopane, focusing on the sourcing of labour as it has shifted over time.2 According to long-term Venda-speaking residents in the area, the original inhabitants of the land were Venda agriculturalists living under the authority of Chief Manenzhe. The inhabitants of this territory appear to have maintained a high degree of autonomy from the colonial state and white farmers well into the twentieth century.3 Interaction with hunters, ivory traders, and other African

34

Chiefs of the Plantation

migrants crossing the Limpopo in the early 1900s did not displace Venda from the land or undermine local headmen’s authority. Venda inhabitants ignored or refused to pay taxes required for living on “crown land.” Likewise, the sale of much the eastern border as part of the huge “Scrutton’s Lease” for mineral prospecting appears to have had little effect on their lives (Mulaudzi 2000, 67–8).4 There appear to have been no white settlers actually living in permanent settlement along the Limpopo until the 1930s at the earliest; most land was owned by absentee-owners engaged in speculating over land prices (ibid., 161). One elderly Venda woman explained to me that the “first whites” to live on the land near Mopane Estates were involved in hunting and cattle grazing, not agriculture: “they were only staying here, not farming.” In her account, white settlers did not establish fruit and vegetable farms along the eastern border until the 1940s. These white landowners ordered Venda inhabitants to work as labour tenants. According to the woman and some of her relatives, this demand made many Venda leave the lands, with only a minority remaining as tenants. The meaning of “tenancy” was variable and shifted over time. One descendant of the original Venda group explained that when the first whites came, people were required to work three months without pay, in exchange for grazing rights and staying on the land. Yet, another Venda informant claimed that during the same period (roughly 1940 onwards) some people stayed on the land without working. Farm labour in this period was subject to negotiation and conflict between Venda inhabitants and white landowners. As Mulaudzi (ibid., 250) suggests, many Venda subverted labour demands from whites even as they remained on the land. Although whites technically owned the land, they lacked enforcement mechanisms, especially given their distance from town and the lack of decent roads. They needed a cheap source of labour near their farms, and there were few other options. It is unclear if and to what extent white farmers in the study area made efforts to recruit labour using recruiting agents, as was done by white farmers in the Tshipise/Nzhelele area and others around the Zoutpansberg. Positioned along the border, they were well positioned to “intercept” migrants who were crossing the river en route to the mines near Johannesburg, much like what is done at Mopane Estates today. However, most migrants would have avoided the farms, given their poor wages. Whites depended mainly on Venda living on the farms or migrants from nearby villages across

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

35

the Limpopo. Some form of labour tenancy thus persisted along the eastern border up to the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1970s, however, many of the remaining descendants of the original Venda inhabitants were evicted or vacated the land occupied by whites. Although they moved away from the border farms, many settled across the river in then Rhodesia and continued working on the farms as seasonal labourers. One former Venda farm worker explained to me that his family moved across the Limpopo because the “laws on the farm became too difficult.” In particular, he claimed that the white landowner at the time stopped allowing people to graze cattle, leading many people to vacate the white-owned properties and join small settlements across the river under the authority of Venda headmen on the Rhodesian side of the Limpopo River. Other Venda informants told me that they moved to other, larger-scale commercial farms in Limpopo, such as in Tshipise and Nwanedi, while others relocated within the newly formed Venda homeland. As was occurring throughout South African farms during the period of forced removals, it seems likely that the border farmers – with the support of the apartheid state – also evicted tenants in order to maximize their own land use (Marcus 1989, 1–7). While border farmers recruited some labour from the homelands or across the Limpopo, the main source of labour remained Venda who lived “permanently” on the farm. These workers were deeply enmeshed in paternalistic relations with the farm owner. A former worker on the border farms said, “in those days the farmer was the master … they could just shoot blacks, there was no one to stop them.” But another former worker suggested, “some were not bad … on Christmas we were given so much clothes, food, and drums of beer … enough to throw away.” These statements exhibit how, under paternalism, benevolence and violence existed in tension. Farm workers could expect certain entitlements, such as the provision of food and housing, yet they remained at the mercy of the farmer, who presided over them as an authoritarian father figure. Labour relations were premised on a discourse of “belonging to the farmer” (Rutherford 2008), in which acceptance depended on being in good favour with the white farmer. Black workers lived in tightly woven communities, often characterized by intergenerational ties and shared language. Whites often spoke fluent Venda, and many blacks spoke Afrikaans. Identification with the white farmer may have, for some black workers, overridden attachments to territory

36

Chiefs of the Plantation

around the eastern border. “In those days,” a Venda man reflected, “we [blacks and whites] would play together as children … if the white man sold the farm, he sometimes took his blacks with him to his new place. At least they remained employed.” By constructing farms as families, paternalism helped stabilize highly unequal and racialized labour relations. From the onset of white agriculture in the 1950s extending up to the 1980s, paternalism flourished along the eastern border, in large part because the farms themselves were relatively small. Long-term landowners in the region state that, at its peak in the mid-1980s, the white farming community along the eastern border represented between thirty and forty individual farmers. The largest of these farmers could have employed, at most, 100 workers during harvest season, but most employed less than twenty. This paternalistic world was bolstered by state subsidies that assisted border farmers. During the 1980s, border farmers received monthly stipends, military training, and equipment from the government (in addition to other forms of state support available to all white farmers during apartheid) as part of state efforts to clamp down on anti-apartheid resistance. These “incentives” were intended to attract white people to live and farm along the border, thereby acting as a buffer zone in which invading guerrillas could be detected and intercepted. I was told by landowners and former workers that border farmers had the authority to shoot anyone they found crossing the Limpopo River during the 1980s. Roads along the border were tarred (west of Musina) and soldiers regularly camped at the farm during the 1980s (Davis 1987). By the end of the 1980s, and especially after 1994 when the anc came to power in South Africa, farmers faced financial difficulty, with successive farmers selling their land to banks. It was in the environment of liberalization and the end of apartheid that the current owner of Mopane Estates, Philip, began acquiring land along the eastern border. He started Mopane Estates in 1995 on a 540-hectare plot, but now owns at least 3,000-hectares of contiguous land near the Limpopo River, though only 200 or 300 are planted in a given season. Philip narrates the loss of an older “farming lifestyle” in favour of large-scale plantation farming: This area has been inhabited by struggler farmers for years, before we came here, really guys that had been struggling. They were small farms, there was a community, but they were known

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

37

as strugglers. They were just using the wrong technology and they could not experience economies of scale … the way farming is going now, which is sad in a way, the old farming lifestyle is being pushed out, unfortunately. Farming is becoming more and more of a business. When I was in university in 1990, they told us farming in this country was going to be taken over by conglomerates, that fewer and fewer farming entities will be operating on larger and larger pieces of land. When we came here there was [sic] ten people farming in our immediate vicinity, and they have all disappeared. Despite Philip’s nostalgia, his plantation, Mopane Estates, represents this shift in South African agriculture. In 1995, Mopane Estates employed roughly fifty people. By 2010, the plantation employed over six hundred. The changing political landscape and the removal of apartheid-era subsidies in the early 1990s undermined the “socially thick” (Ferguson 2006, 36) paternalism on the eastern border. Most border farmers became economically unviable and were absorbed by larger operations such as Mopane Estates. Yet, the fact that farming is “more of a business” does not imply more “formalized,” or less authoritarian, labour relations. The sense of plantations as exceptional spaces, subject to the private rule of white owners, somehow still lives on – despite a new regulative architecture in the post-apartheid context. Before outlining these new forms of regulation, I discuss how Zimbabweans have been incorporated at Mopane Estates as seasonal migrant workers.

s h if t in g c o m p o s iti on of labour Consideration of how Zimbabweans were first employed at the plantation is necessary to understand their present circumstances. Today, almost all workers at Mopane Estates are Shona-speaking Zimbabweans, but this was not always the case. When Philip first acquired land along the border in 1995, he “borrowed” workers from a relative’s property elsewhere in the Limpopo Valley. Many of this initial group of workers stayed on with Philip and over the years gained seniority. By 2010, only three workers from that original group remain: Clayton, Nephias, and Vahove – the three most senior chiefs of the plantation. From 1995 to 1997, the plantation supplemented its labour force with South African Venda workers recruited from nearby

38

Chiefs of the Plantation

rural settlements. People were hired for month-long contracts at the plantation. As in the past, some Venda workers also came from neighbouring villages just across the Limpopo in Zimbabwe. But in 1997, a major change took place in the sourcing of labour. This change is encapsulated in the statement of one long-term worker: “I worked on the farm in 1995, and it was all Venda. Then I went to Joburg [Johannesburg] for some years. When I came back in 1998, it was mostly Shona. I don’t know what happened.” The employment of Zimbabwean migrants in South African agriculture is related to a combination of push and pull factors (Addison 2006). Since the late 1990s, Zimbabwe has undergone a steep economic decline, particularly in the aftermath of the fast-track land reform program in 2000. Political violence, rising unemployment, periods of hyperinflation, and lack of economic opportunity have compelled millions of Zimbabweans to seek work in South Africa.5 But shifts within South Africa are also important, particularly the restructuring of agriculture (Rutherford and Addison 2007, 627–30). The introduction of farm labour and tenure security legislation in the 1990s, alongside the removal of farm subsidies, precipitated mass evictions and reductions of South African farm workers across the country (Wegerif, Russell, and Grundling 2005). In their place, many farm owners employed migrant workers, who were less able to claim protection under the law or unionize (Johnston 2007). How Shona-speaking Zimbabweans came to predominate at Mopane Estates is a matter of local controversy. Interviews with other long-term workers suggest that Philip told his three black chiefs to recruit workers in their home areas. Whereas Nephias and Vahove came from Venda communities in Zimbabwe, Clayton originated from further afield in Mberengwa, Zimbabwe. As it happened, Clayton was the only chief to attract large numbers of workers. According to Clayton, he did not aggressively recruit people from Mberengwa: “What happened is that these Venda didn’t want to work … he [Philip] told me to come with people, so I did.” He likely benefitted from the gathering economic crisis in Zimbabwe that, by 2000, was leaving young people in rural areas with few options but to migrate to South Africa. People who knew of his position came to him looking for work. Many of these people were his relatives, including his four brothers – who eventually became supervisors and tractor drivers – several nephews, and one aunt. Beyond his direct relatives, hundreds

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

39

of people from his home area gained employment as pickers and field labourers through their connections with him. This method of labour procurement, according to which high-ranking managers are ordered to recruit people in their home areas, deviates from historical patterns of recruitment in Africa. In contrast to a figure such as Clayton, who has no customary authority in his home village, traditional authorities and private recruiting agencies have historically served as the primary intermediaries through which employers and colonial states accessed labour (Jeeves 1985; Brown 2003; Mark-Thiesen 2012). The practice at Mopane Estates more closely resembles the nineteenth-century kangani system in Southeast Asia through which Indian migrants were channelled to plantations in Malaya and elsewhere. The kangani were plantation workers commissioned to recruit people from villages in India, for which they received “head money” for each day their recruits worked (Kaur 2004, 63). While Clayton did not and does not receive any direct compensation from Philip for bringing workers to Mopane Estates, he has been progressively recognized by Philip as the most senior black person on the plantation. Interviews with former Venda workers tell a different story about how Shona-speaking Zimbabweans came to dominate the plantation. One former worker in the nearby village told me that by the end of the harvest in 1997, Philip ordered Clayton to lay off all the people who are foreigners, “those without South African IDs” as he put it. But instead, Clayton laid off all those with IDs. According to the informant, who was among those laid off, Philip did nothing about this contravention of his orders. “He [Philip] is bewitched by Clayton,” the informant claimed. “Clayton is not a human being … he caused things to be like this. Philip wanted to hire local people but Clayton said no. That farm is now a place for Shonas.” While the informant’s comments convey his resentment that Venda people were squeezed out of the labour force, they are probably misleading as an explanation of why Philip employed more Shona-speaking people. According to the man’s narrative, Philip wanted to continue employing South Africans, but was somehow tricked or manipulated by Clayton into employing Zimbabweans instead. It seems more likely that Philip simply wanted a more docile labour force. Philip himself gave the following rationale for employing Zimbabweans: “The Zimbabwean labour is very important to our farm. They are intelligent, better educated, better mannered, and

40

Chiefs of the Plantation

have better hygiene. You can have a conversation with them. The South Africans say, ‘we do what we want, we have the government behind us.’” He praises their higher skill level and education, but his main emphasis seems to be on the greater docility of Zimbabwean labour: they are less likely to claim protection from the government and/or unionize. I provide further details on the overall composition of the workforce below. The plantation’s workforce fluctuates according to the seasonal rhythms of production. Mopane Estates – like other large-scale growers in northern Limpopo – harvests its crop during the winter season. The warm climate provides the plantations with a comparative advantage against other producers in South Africa, which are restricted to a summer growing season. The plantation has three major buyers for its tomatoes and other crops: the highest quality fruit is packed and shipped to Freshmark, a major fruit and vegetable distributor, supplying grocery stores in South Africa such as Pick and Pay. The middle-grade tomatoes are sold to Indian and African merchants, who send large trucks to the plantation an almost daily basis during harvest season. These merchants deliver the tomatoes to markets in Durban but also Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The lowest-quality tomatoes are sent to factories in Limpopo for canning by other companies. During the picking season (roughly from April to November), the plantation employs nearly 700 people in the fields and in the pack shed. The main areas of employment during this period are tomato picking, weeding, baboon scouting, loading, packing, spraying, and tractor driving. As the picking season closes in late October, most workers return to Zimbabwe for planting at their own rural homesteads. During November and December the plantation employs fewer than 200 people, mostly employed in digging irrigation trenches and preparing the land for replanting, and from Christmas until the New Year the plantation is closed. After the New Year, people start returning to the plantation, in search of jobs. From January until March, the plantation gradually expands its workforce, until reaching the picking season once again. The physical properties of tomatoes are implicated in these patterns of labour migration as well as the labour process itself. Growth cycles for tomatoes are staggered throughout the winter picking season, so there are different varieties of ripening tomatoes available for harvest at all times. Different buyers demand tomatoes of varying quality and degrees of ripeness, so each day, picking

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

41

teams receive different instructions about the type of tomatoes they are harvesting. Pickers usually prefer harvesting lower-quality tomatoes, as they can pick faster and be less discerning about what goes into their crates – an important consideration given that their wage is based on a piece rate. The majority of tomatoes are grown on the ground, with weeds and small bushes often growing overtop the fruit. When picking or weeding, workers are constantly bent over as they reach for tomatoes and fill crates or pull up weeds. Occasionally, workers are stung by scorpions or encounter snakes in the tomato rows. Higher-quality tomatoes are grown above ground level, attached to ropes connected to poles. These aboveground tomatoes necessitate a group of “rope tiers” – invariably women because of a belief in their “nimble fingers” – who attach the ropes to the poles during the planting season. Tomatoes are more fragile than most other fruit and vegetables. When picking from the ground or along the ropes, pickers must be gentle with the tomatoes or risk having their filled crates rejected by foremen. In the relatively low-rainfall area of the Limpopo Valley, large tomato growers like Mopane require elaborate irrigation systems to water the crop. Mopane Estates pumps water from the Limpopo River, which is then applied to the crop through innumerable small hoses running alongside each of row of tomatoes. A team of irrigation workers maintains the pumps and hoses. During the night, and occasionally during the day, crops are sprayed with multiple pesticides to prevent pests and diseases on the crop. The rationale for spraying at night is so that workers in the fields avoid exposure to the chemicals, but the workers’ compound is adjacent to tomato fields, so some exposure is inevitable. Anecdotally, I was told by Dolores, one of the white managers based in the office, that doctors found dangerously high levels of the chemicals in her blood stream. If Dolores, who spends most of her time relatively far away from the fields in the office and in her home, has such high levels of chemicals in her blood, it must be even greater for workers who are much closer to the spraying. Apart from the seasonal fluctuations of the workforce, many people reside in or pass through the plantation throughout the year. Being situated along the border, Mopane Estates has a greater geographical significance that makes it a destination for Zimbabweans who are not working there. As a plantation it is relatively “open,” – there are gates at the main entrance off the main road but the

42

Chiefs of the Plantation

fields, river, and compound are unfenced. At any time the population is much higher than those actually employed by Philip. This includes migrants passing through, staying for a night or two, cigarette smugglers across the river who have girlfriends in the compound, or traders who flock to the compound during pay weekends. In addition, women account for about 40 per cent of the workforce, but when accounting for the overall population on the plantation, the proportion is closer to 50 per cent. This is because many wives or girlfriends of male employees accompany them to the plantation, staying with them in the compound (see chapter 4). All workers come from Zimbabwe. The vast majority of workers live in rural areas, with only a few workers coming from Harare or other urban areas and towns. More than 50 per cent of the workforce comes from Clayton’s village in southern Mberengwa. Approximately 10 per cent of workers are from Chivi, and another 10 per cent are from Venda areas across the Limpopo, especially Diti and Beitbridge. The remainder of the workforce is from places such as Shurugwi, Zvishavane, Mwenezi, and Maranda. At any given time, approximately 60 per cent of the workforce is composed of people who have worked on the plantation in previous years. The other 40 per cent are people residing at the plantation for the first time. Most of this latter group works only for a short time, typically a few months, before moving further south. The plantation workforce is thus in a constant state of flux, losing and hiring new workers. With the exception of the few workers based in urban areas, every worker is engaged in smallholder agricultural production at their rural homes in Zimbabwe. There are generally two categories of people who use the plantation for different purposes, often corresponding to their background. First, there are long-term workers, who have worked for three or more seasons, and who plan to continue working on the plantation in the future. They typically stay on the farm for at least nine months out of the year. These workers frequently come from rural areas, such as southern Mberengwa or Venda villages near the border. They tend to have only obtained “grade seven” (primary level) education, and rarely have work experience outside of the agricultural sector. Second, there are people who once held urban-based or skilled jobs in Zimbabwe, such as teachers, waiters, taxi drivers, retail workers, and people employed in other industries. They have generally obtained their “O level” (secondary school) education. These people

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

43

sometimes stay at the plantation only for a brief period, enough time for one month’s pay or even shorter. They generally do not plan on working at the plantation over the long-term. Women workers, who are mostly divorced or widowed, are in both categories.

p u b l ic a n d p r ivat e regulati on Agricultural restructuring since the early 1990s has entailed not only deregulation, as in the removal of apartheid-era subsidies for white farmers, but also new forms of regulation. This regulation comprises different forms of state intervention, such as labour laws, and also private-sector regulation, such as Global Gap standards, which govern the quality of produce as well as the wellbeing of workers. An overview of the plantation suggests that, when it comes to the welfare of workers, Mopane Estates complies with these regulations only selectively and on a superficial level. The plantation maintains documentation that creates an impression of full compliance, but in actuality it deviates substantially from the standards set by regulators. This strategy works because both the Department of Labour and Global Gap base their assessments largely on documentary evidence, rather than observations of actual labour practices. Admittedly, the plantation does comply partially with these regulations; for instance, the introduction of minimum wages by the South African government for farm workers has increased wages for migrant workers at Mopane. Yet, the impact of this regulation only extends so far. This section examines how existing regulations are dodged or absorbed by the plantation. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the anc-led government has introduced a range of legislation intended to support farm workers. The Basic Conditions of Employment Act (bcea) grants collective bargaining rights and improved health and safety standards for workers. The Extension of Security of Tenure Act (esta) enhances farm dwellers’ land rights by making it more difficult for white farmers to evict them. The Sectoral Determination of wages for farm workers introduces minimum wages for farm workers. While these reforms have improved conditions for some workers, they are not widely enforced and, as evidenced by Mopane Estates, they apply only partially to migrant workers. Zimbabwean migrant farm workers are subject not only to these regulations from the Department of Labour, but also the

44

Chiefs of the Plantation

shifting immigration policies of South Africa. On Mopane, most Zimbabweans possess corporate worker permits issued by the Department of Home Affairs. These permits are valid for twelve months from the date of issuance. The permits are acquired by the plantation itself every three months or so, when Philip sends a truckload of workers to the office in Musina for processing. New arrivals at the plantation are frequently undocumented until they have the opportunity to be included in this process. In the meantime, they are vulnerable to occasional police raids, which can result in undocumented people being taken to temporary detention centres in Musina. Until 2009, undocumented farm workers would be deported from these centres back to Zimbabwe, but in that year a moratorium on Zimbabwean deportations was introduced by the South African government. Undocumented Zimbabweans seized at farms were not deported, but taken to Home Affairs where they were granted temporary “asylum permits,” which remained active until early 2011, when deportations of Zimbabweans resumed. Mopane itself classifies all Zimbabwean workers as temporary “seasonal workers.” All workers (apart from white managers) are hired for one-month contracts that are continually renewed. On the twentieth of every month, a new roster of plantation employees is created, replacing the previous one. This system grants the plantation considerable flexibility in terms of laying off workers. It also prevents workers from being classified as “permanent,” which happens automatically if someone works longer than three months. As a permanent worker, one is entitled under South African law to vacation and pension payouts. According to everyone I spoke to, this arrangement has never been challenged by any government official or external agency. While the collective bargaining rights accorded by the bcea theoretically include migrant workers, unions are reluctant to become involved with migrant workers, making the legislation minimally relevant for Zimbabweans. In my conversations with organizers from the Food and Agricultural Workers Union (fawu) in Limpopo province, the union representatives complained that the high turnover and fluctuation in plantation populations prohibits them from unionizing these workforces. However, it must also be said that farm workers in general in South Africa, including citizens, are rarely unionized (Addison 2008). Similarly, the provisions of esta do not apply to non-citizens who cannot claim permanent residence

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

45

or occupancy on farms. As of March 2010, the minimum wage was R 1,316.69 per month, but wages at the plantation were often much lower than this. Tomato pickers were paid according to a piece rate, at R 1.70 per crate. The highest paid picker could receive R 1,500 per month, but the average wage was around R 900, fluctuating according to ability. Most other positions received a daily wage of R 36, or between R 800 and R 950 monthly. Foremen and tractor drivers were slightly higher paid, with most receiving around R 1,500 per month. The three chiefs on the plantation received between R 3,000 and R 5,000 per month. What is most striking about the pay rates is that apart from Clayton and other chiefs, everyone received between R 850 and R 1,500, reflecting an equal wage across almost all the positions. As we will see, the inequality in wages between “top structures” and everyone else reflects the peculiar authority structure at Mopane Estates. Most workers’ wages thus fall below the required standard. Yet, according to Dolores, who is responsible for managing the Global Gap file on the plantation, if government inspectors ever challenged Philip on this, Philip could retroactively charge workers for perks he ordinarily provides for free: “If the Department of Labour comes here, we would be in shit … but I know what Philip would do. He would say, okay, here is thirty-six rand per person [the daily wage for most workers], but we have deductions for accommodation, water, for drives to town, for protective clothing … I just know that’s what he’ll do.” Apparently, in an instant, erstwhile benefits could be transformed into wage deductions (or “costs”) to achieve formal compliance with minimum wage laws, should the need arise. Workers might be compensated if they are injured, but this is entirely at the discretion of Philip. For example, during my fieldwork a driver was severely cut when he fell from a tractor. He was off work for thirty days but the plantation still paid his regular monthly wage. In another case, a worker broke his wrist after falling from a bicycle. Yet Philip refused to pay any compensation because the injury happened on a Sunday “outside of working hours.” The worker had to return to Zimbabwe for several months until he felt strong enough to come back. Similarly, workers would often be bitten by scorpions in the compound, sometimes causing them to miss work for multiple days. Workers on the spray team sometimes missed work due to sickness they felt was induced by exposure to toxic chemicals. Yet, in these cases Philip never paid people for their missed time under

46

Chiefs of the Plantation

his logic of “no work, no pay.” Most workers with whom I spoke were not confident they would receive adequate compensation if they were hurt on the job. If labour laws have been in different ways ignored or incorporated into the plantation cost structure, it is much the same for the worker welfare requirements of Global Gap. Global Gap arose out of efforts by large European retailers to demonstrate “corporate social responsibility” in 2001. To achieve Global Gap certification, growers must meet an array of standards for food safety, quality, environmental protection, and worker welfare. Growers are assessed on each of these criteria by an independent auditor. Not only has Global Gap certification become “the standard” for growers wanting to export to Europe (Bain 2010), but increasingly high-end retailers in the Global South also require these standards (as in South Africa). The effort to bring in this private sector regulation is part of improving the image of white farmers in South Africa, long blemished due to their central symbolic place during apartheid. As Bain argues (2010), the standards of Global Gap are premised on “technoscientific values.” She argues that, by appealing to value-neutral science, Global Gap distinguishes itself from public-sector regulation implicitly cast as biased. Assessment criteria are divided between “major musts” that require 100 per cent compliance and “minor musts” that require 95 per cent compliance. Mopane Estates has been certified under Global Gap since the mid2000s, when the plantation began selling tomatoes to the distributor Freshmark for supply to grocery chains in South Africa. During my fieldwork, I obtained a copy of the original audit conducted by Global Gap. In the area of worker welfare, it identified two “major must” areas that Mopane Estates had to correct in order to receive their certification. The first was in regard to the lack of both a transparent complaint procedure and a trail of documentation indicating that complaints were being recorded and addressed. To resolve this problem, Dolores drafted a document titled “Complaint procedure,” which spelled out the steps to be taken for complaints. The document outlines the steps to be taken over the period of three days, beginning with “recording the complaint into the complaint document” and ending with “management to contact complainant and give feedback to resolve complaint.” The document suggests that on day two, management “phone the complainant and inform them that their complaint has been received.” Yet on the plantation, workers do

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

47

not have access to personal landlines and there is limited cell phone reception. The Global Gap regulations are supposed to encourage a transparent, equitable grievance system. In actuality, a different grievance system operates on the plantation. Commenting on how the plantation falls short of Global Gap requirements, Dolores described the “real” grievance procedure on the plantation, with a hint of criticism towards Philip: “For complaints, workers go to the supervisor, supervisors go to Clayton, then Clayton goes to Philip. That’s the grievance procedure. The supervisor is the so-called shop steward … if someone has a gripe, they just sit on the bench outside [of the farm office], and he [Philip] can just walk past without saying anything at all.” Dolores’ admission of how the actual grievance procedure works, in which Clayton and other head managers play a central role in mediating disputes, goes unmentioned in the documentation submitted to Global Gap. The second “major must” identified in the audit was the lack of documented procedures for hygiene during the harvesting process. In response to this non-compliance, Dolores drafted another document titled “Hygiene/Produce handling policy,” which spells out a series of rules for handling fruit. Yet, in my observations during fieldwork, most of the rules in the policy document are in practice ignored or unenforced. For instance, the rules call for hand washing with soap and a “single use, disposable towel.” Yet, there are no handwashing facilities near the fields, not to mention soap or disposable towels. The rules call for preventing contamination of food by “controlling perspiration” and preventing people with communicable diseases from working in the fields. On many days in the fields, people were covered with sweat as they tried to make as much money as they could under the piece rate system. Many people on the plantation were sick, including with common colds, flu, and chronic diseases like hiv/aids. Yet, I never heard of any people being told they could not pick due to sickness. Dolores also mentioned that during one “tour” of the plantation given to the auditor, Philip put up a small empty building in the fields, which he claimed was a toilet and hand washing station, although it was empty. Apart from these “major musts,” which the plantation responded to by drafting new policy documents – although they did not necessarily follow through with the policy – another change dealing with labour relations is worth mentioning. I was told that as Philip prepared the plantation for its first certification, he announced one

48

Chiefs of the Plantation

day during a roll call that the plantation would establish a workers’ committee that would hold monthly meetings and bring forward the grievances of workers to management. A committee of this nature and regular meetings are required by Global Gap. Yet, the man appointed to chair this committee was, I was told, a “drunkard” and was fired at the end of the season for beating his wife “too often,” despite several warnings. I have been told his name continues to be written as the chairperson, though he has not been employed for several years. The committee meetings were never held. During an interview, Philip described why he does not support the idea of a workers’ committee: “In principle it is a good idea. The only thing is that it could turn out to be an ‘I want’ committee … where this committee is established and they just place demands, that they need this to be done and this and this and that. So you must be realistic about what you can provide and what you can’t.” Philip thus perceived the workers’ committee as an intrusive and disruptive influence, through which workers might level unrealistic demands on the plantation. The very idea of a democratically elected committee threatens the established plantation hierarchy, and represents a potentially alternative channel for workers to express their concerns and act collectively. While Mopane Estates does not comply fully with the worker welfare provisions of Global Gap or the government’s minimum wage laws, these forms of regulation still matter. Wage levels would be much lower and working conditions more hazardous in the absence of the bcea and minimum wage laws. While Global Gap provisions do little to enhance worker welfare, certification improves the quality of fruit and reduces environmental degradation caused by the plantation. For instance, Mopane Estates must document that it practices crop rotation – not planting the same land more than three years in row – in order to preserve soil fertility. Global Gap requires the plantation to engage in “minimal preventive spraying” when it comes to the use of pesticides, and to document all applications of fertilizer and pesticide. As part of its certification, Mopane Estates limits its water usage – the plantation employs drip lines for irrigation, which use less water than other methods. The plantation also has a “wildlife and conservation plan” that bans hunting and limits deforestation. Both sources of regulation, public and private, raise the cost of production for Mopane Estates, even as they enable connection with

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

49

more lucrative markets – as in the Freshmark contract. The plantation partly offsets the financial cost of regulation by providing only the bare means of subsistence for migrant workers.

p rov is io n o f ac c o mmodati on and m e a n s o f s u b s i s tence The plantation subsidizes the subsistence of workers by providing them with key resources at no charge. Residents do not pay rent for residing in the compound. They have access to running water from showers and three taps. They are permitted to take limited tomatoes from the fields, catch fish in the Limpopo River, and collect wood for fires – which is important, as there is no electricity. Employees are provided transportation to town once a month in a large truck. A crèche located in the centre of the compound serves as a space for plantation-provided child care during work hours. The provision of these “benefits” gives the impression of benevolent paternalism. Indeed, they appear to go against the wider trend in South African agriculture in which plantation owners have either eliminated or monetized such perks, often via deductions from workers’ pay (Visser and Ferrer 2015). Yet, upon closer examination, these services are of low cost to the plantation, are frequently under threat of being withdrawn, and – in the case of accommodation – entrench social divisions within the community. The benefits themselves are quite thin. Workers stay in the compound free of charge, but the accommodations are of poor quality. People sleep on the concrete floors in small rooms or on the ground in mud huts. Huts and rooms are built so close together that there is little privacy. No one is allowed to grow gardens or keep animals – except for Clayton and the white managers. Philip allows workers to take wood from his property, but they must walk several kilometres to collect it. Whether it is building a hut, gathering firewood, or catching fish, workers must do the labour themselves and on their own time (i.e. on Sunday or after working hours). Most of this reproductive labour is carried out by women on the plantation – particularly cooking, cleaning, and gathering firewood – but they often receive payments from male partners in exchange (see chapter 4). Philip frequently seeks to withdraw or reduce these “entitlements.” His tendency to do so reflects the costs of post-apartheid regulation discussed above. Yet, as I explore in more detail in chapter 2,

50

Chiefs of the Plantation

workers often push back and reassert their claim to the resources. Free accommodation, tomatoes, firewood, water, and even less tangible privileges – such as unhindered movement across Mopane Estates’ portion of the border – constitute crucial aspects of the plantation moral economy. Revealingly, when Philip attempts to roll back these benefits, he does not threaten to charge workers for the service in question, but rather to change the terms of access. His reluctance to monetize the services likely reflects a recognition that he already pays below minimum wages for most workers, and were he to deduct further, he could drive away a significant portion of his labour force. Plantations that charge for accommodation generally have higher quality housing. For instance, the nearest plantation to Mopane charges workers for accommodation, but they are all housed in concrete buildings with beds and electricity. Patterns of residence on the plantation reinforce divisions within the workforce. Philip and white staff reside in houses located more than a kilometre from the compound. Although their houses lack security fences, strong racial boundaries persist. With the exception of domestic workers (maids) and gardeners, black people hardly ever go to these properties. In contrast, Clayton’s house overlooks the compound from a nearby hill, and is frequently visited by workers of all ranks – often to purchase food and drinks or watch television. The compound is divided into two sections. The first area, known as the “new houses,” comprises eight rows of single-storey brick buildings with concrete floors, divided into sixty-four small rooms. These rooms are reserved for returnees, foremen, and skilled workers. With the exception of four senior women (recognized as “owners” of their own rooms by management), the rooms are occupied by men, sometimes living with their wives or girlfriends, who may or may not be working at the plantation. Philip has a policy that only married couples can live in the new houses, but this is not enforced. In contrast to the straight lines of the new houses, the second section constitutes hundreds of mud huts clustered together, resembling a giant beehive. This area, referred to by workers as Madongini (“place of donkeys”), is where the remainder of the workforce finds accommodation. The majority of single, divorced, and widowed women occupy huts in Madongini, with roughly half living as sole residents and the remainder cohabiting with men. A map of the compound (figure 1.3), sketched by a low-ranking male worker, suggests strong contrasts between the two types of

Figure 1.1 New houses in the compound, Mopane Estates. Notice the male farm worker cooking his own food in front of his room.

Figure 1.2 Edge of the compound, Mopane Estates, showing mud huts

Figure 1.3 Drawing of the compound by a male farm worker, Mopane Estates

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

53

housing (see figures 1.1 and 1.2). The new houses are magnified in size and drawn with precise straight lines, whereas the mud huts are diminished, only gestured at by the artist with far less detail than the brick blocks. When I asked the drawer why he did not draw the huts with precision, I was told “there are too many of them,” and “they are too ugly.” These comments reflect a wider sentiment, prevalent among the Shona-speaking majority on the plantation, of general disdain for the mud huts. Many male workers associated the mud huts with prostitution – that residing in the mud huts or even visiting the area suggests one is “chasing after ladies.” Other workers called the Madongini section of the compound a “squatter camp.” Philip and other white managers view the mud huts as problematic, describing them as “unsanitary” and “fire hazards.” Yet, this distaste of the mud huts coexists with a certain acceptance, in that they feel the mud huts reflect “African culture” – that the conditions of compound housing approximate how black workers live when they are at home, away from the plantation. For instance, I once asked Dolores why the workers are not provided with beds. “This is just how they live in Africa,” she replied. “They don’t like beds.” (Workers I spoke to vehemently disagreed, saying they do use beds at home.) Nevertheless, despite their seeming acceptance of the mud huts, both Philip and Dolores expressed a desire to “bulldoze” the huts in the future. However, this demolition never occurred. There were simply not enough rooms in the new houses (sixty-four in total), so the mud huts remained demographically necessary. Others relate to the mud huts more positively. The long-term Vendaspeaking workers on the plantation view the mud huts as enabling them to a have distinct community, separate from the Shona-speaking majority. Their huts tend to be concentrated on the upper reaches of a hill within the compound. This section is called Tshikwarani, Venda for “mountain,” a kind of signal to all residents that the place belongs to Venda people. The Venda residents on Tshikwarani tend to put more attention into the upkeep and presentation of their huts. A small group of single female Venda workers consider the plantation to be their “home” – that is, they live on the plantation year-round – even during the Christmas period when the plantation is officially closed. While these Venda are technically Zimbabwean citizens, they originate from villages just on the other side of the Limpopo, and thus have deeper connections to the region than workers from further afield. The Shona majority, by contrast, is far more attached to rural

54

Chiefs of the Plantation

homesteads in Zimbabwe. This Shona majority tends to belittle the plantation. When I would ask Shona workers to describe the culture of the plantation, a common refrain was that there is no culture at Mopane Estates – that culture is “at home” in Zimbabwe. Life on the plantation was described as “just a contract,” and a place of potential moral waywardness. For some in the Venda minority, many of whom were born on white-owned farms and worked for white farmers their whole lives, the customs of the plantation deserved more respect. When I first tried to interview older Venda women on the plantation, I approached them much as I had other workers. That is, I first explained the purpose of my research, and then asked their permission for an interview. While I generally found Shona men and women willing to participate, some of the older Venda women refused to be interviewed – at least in the first few months of my research. As Albert, my original Venda-speaking research assistant, explained, the women did not consider it appropriate to speak with a younger white man about their lives on the plantation. Their reluctance suggested a need to uphold racial, age, and gender boundaries along the traditional lines of local plantation etiquette – a desire that differentiated them from most other residents. While residential patterns contribute to social divisions within the workforce, conditions in the compound also facilitate a culture of surveillance. People live in such proximity that private conversations are difficult to have, and gossip travels quickly. Although the compound is largely unregulated in the sense that people move relatively freely through it, there is a tendency for workers to report on each other to management when rules are broken. “Breaking rules” could include inciting people to strike, stealing plantation property or selling alcohol. As one worker stated when I asked him why workers are reluctant to organize a local trade union: “He [Philip] does not want that thing. If you try to organize something like that, there is the problem of cios, people will tell the manager [Clayton] and you can be fired.” By “cios,” the informant was referring to the central intelligence organization of Zimbabwe, widely perceived as spies for the ruling zanu–pf party. The worker thus drew an explicit comparison between the prevalence of spies on the plantation and the tendency of people in Zimbabwe to report information to secret police and thereby minimize political dissent. The manner in which information gets “passed on” reveals much about authority on the plantation. When someone reports

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

55

information, it is usually done in secret, to avoid being labelled a mutengesi (sellout). Most informers pass news to Clayton or other chiefs, due to language barriers or the inaccessibility of Philip to the average worker. Providing information in this way can help lower-ranking workers gain favour with senior figures. But the chiefs may or may not pass along the information to Philip. As I explained in the introduction, during the first few months of my residence in the compound, the chiefs told Philip that I was an undercover journalist, based on news they received from workers in the compound; specifically, that I was asking people questions about wages and other sensitive information. It appears the chiefs initially felt threatened by my presence, and sought to have me expelled. Although they gradually came to accept me, their reporting to Philip in this way likely contributed to the latter’s eventual decision to temporarily ban me from the plantation (see chapter 3). Against this central role of chiefs, informers sometimes go directly to Philip, contravening the plantation hierarchy. Philip admitted to me that this is the only way he learns about the illicit activities of his chiefs, even if he rarely implements any changes in response. As he explained: “The only way you learn about things is by someone coming forward … but even then you have to be careful, because that person might just have a grudge against someone else.” Philip’s reluctance to intervene in the activities of his chiefs reflects a deep level of mutual dependence, a problem to which I now turn.

d e l e g at io n of rule The most fundamental aspect of the labour regime is a delegation of rule from Philip to black intermediaries. On Mopane Estates, there are three key intermediaries: Clayton, Nephias, and Vahove – all of whom are called “black managers” by Philip. While all three are crucial to the success of the plantation, Clayton is the most important. Nephias and Vahove are valued by Philip as particularly skilled and trusted labourers: they specialize in irrigation, fertilizing, and pest control, and have worked with Philip for over twenty-five years, stretching back to their time together on Philip’s parents’ farm. Philip frequently interacts with these two chiefs in their native language of Venda. Yet, Clayton is more important than the other chiefs because he is primarily responsible for the recruitment and management of labour – he ensures that the plantation has enough people and that

56

Chiefs of the Plantation

they work productively. In this section, I focus on the role of Clayton to show how chiefs are both conduits of Philip’s paternalistic authority and alternative centres of power in their own right. Clayton’s role as the “head” chief on the plantation manifests most symbolically at the morning roll call. A typical morning roll call takes place as follows. Every morning (except days off, such as Sunday) almost everyone gathers outside the workshop, the effective centre of the plantation. A concrete landing attached to the nearby “guard room” serves as the focal point and stage. Only senior workers – foremen, drivers, security guards, or other veteran workers – stand in the immediate vicinity of the guard room, and only the highest-ranking people, such as Clayton or Philip himself, actually stand on the concrete landing, which serves as a podium. All other workers are scattered around the open loading zone, some seated on large stones and others standing in small groups discussing the latest gossip. Often seated at some remove and observing the goings on are prospective job seekers, especially in January when the plantation reopens after the Christmas period. Men and women are starkly divided, with women occupying the far side of the loading zone, and there is little communication between the two groups during roll call. People are often still trickling in from the compound when Clayton shouts “swederai kuno!” (come closer), a signal that the morning proceedings are about to begin. At this command, stragglers quicken their pace towards the guard room; latecomers risk admonishment from Clayton and can be sent back to the compound without work for the day. After people have drawn closer to the guard room, Clayton (or Philip if he is present) starts the proceedings by saying “de macheroni” to everyone, a morning greeting that is always done in Venda. A pastor in the local church (known as Zion), Moses, who happens to also be a senior foreman and Clayton’s brother, then reads a Bible passage in Shona. He then occasionally preaches a short sermon and closes with a prayer. Everyone is expected to listen silently (although many workers tell me they do not pay attention). The sermons and prayers address work relations, emphasizing subservience to superiors but also enthusiasm about work. A recurring statement is “tino fanira kushingira” (“we must struggle fully”), implying people should take their jobs seriously and work well together. If Philip is present, he often addresses people after the pastor is finished. Philip never addresses the workers directly, but his statements are always made through Clayton. For instance, he

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

57

will say “Clayton, tell the people that I know firewood is in short supply, but that I don’t want them cutting the trees on hills,” and proceed to give instructions to Clayton, who relays them to the people in Shona. Some examples of his topics are mundane instructions regarding when wages will be distributed, stern warnings against selling beer in the compound, or accusations of stealing property. When Philip has finished his address, Clayton then meets with the other foremen, and they are given their daily assignments and confirm that the workers for whom they are responsible are present. If the plantation is in need of workers, the final order of business at the roll call may be employing new workers. It is in the process of hiring where the seamless regularity of directives breaks down, and the limits of Philip’s authority are witnessed. When it comes to hiring, Philip insists that people who have worked in past years must be employed first, and those who have caused problems in the past must not be hired back (especially for lateness, drinking, and fighting). However, Philip does not himself select the new workers, and even when he “oversees” the process, bribery is rampant. The term “oversees” needs to be taken loosely. He is not actually involved in selecting the workers, but basically stands around the workshop area, usually talking with other managers. Philip and other white managers have little direct communication with the workers, beyond the managerial group. This is partly a language issue but also indicative of the racially divided culture of the plantation. Bribery during the process of hiring usually works as follows: all job seekers are ordered to form a long queue, which in January and February can number several hundred people. The foreman who requires workers then selects his own workers from the queue. However, Clayton exerts influence over the hiring – either he discreetly orders the foreman who to hire or, alternatively, the foreman pays Clayton privately for each person he hires. In the latter case, the foreman is the one who will demand a bribe from the worker, and then give only a portion of this amount to Clayton. These payments – called kudiza – are typically R 100, and should be paid before one is hired. However, some workers told me that they paid at the end of the month, although the price had doubled to R 200. I have also been informed that women can also provide sex instead of money, if Clayton or other foremen demand it. Many people pay Clayton in his home area in Mberengwa, and then expect employment when they arrive at the plantation. Indeed, at one morning roll

58

Chiefs of the Plantation

Figure 1.4 Workers in line for hiring, Mopane Estates

call in January, Clayton apologized to people and asked them to be patient because job openings were not yet available. If one is lucky, it is possible to be hired without paying, but sooner or later, I was told, Clayton will approach and ask for kudiza. In the past, Clayton had complete control over the hiring process. But his practice of demanding bribes was eventually discovered by Philip, who tried to institute new procedures, such as having foremen select their workers, and appointing a white manager to oversee the morning roll call when he was not there. But these measures did little to actually curtail Clayton’s power, even if they forced him to be less direct. In part, the problem is one of language: since neither Philip nor any other white manager speaks Shona, it is easier for Clayton to manipulate the process. However, the more fundamental problem is that Philip can intervene only to a certain extent in Clayton’s activities, otherwise he risks undermining Clayton’s broader authority, which he perceives as necessary for the smooth running of the plantation. Clayton is effective as the labour manager because workers seem to fear his authority; they listen to him and work hard when he demands it. As one white manager put it, “Clayton is the backbone

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

59

of this plantation. Can you imagine little Philip trying to control all these blacks? I don’t think so.” Philip stated explicitly why he values Clayton as the labour manager, stressing his authority and the respect he has with the workforce as a whole: What I appreciate about the existing head [Clayton] … is that if I ask him to get something done, he’ll do it absolutely efficiently and effectively. Anything I ask him to do, he will basically say “consider it done,” and to get that level of efficiency and reliability is hard to come by, even amongst whites. He probably rules with an iron fist, and when he says jump, the people say, “how high?” And if, for instance, a truck of fertilizer comes in the evening, after people have knocked off, I’ll just tell this guy, find people to offload it, and in no time they will offload it … And also to maintain the quality standard in the land where you are picking … because you have to be very firm in dealing with such a big labour force. For example, if he tells a labourer continuously, “you mustn’t pick this underripe tomato, or this rotten tomato,” and they keep finding that in the same crate, he will end up tearing up that person’s ticket and sending the person home. That guy would lose financial income for the day, but the next day, it wouldn’t happen again. He’s stern in that way. And as long as he is fairly fair, I will support him in that. It seems to work. By “support” him, Philip implies that he is willing to tolerate some of Clayton’s illicit activities (such as demanding kudiza). He values Clayton’s experience and authority over other workers more than he is outraged by his perceived corruption. It is not only Clayton, but also other top structure figures, upon whom Philip has almost become too dependent for the smooth running of his plantation. I once asked Philip why he does not act more forcefully to control the illicit activities of his black managers. He said: “It’s very difficult to prevent it – I think in every farm there is a certain politics, or a certain mafia that is prevalent – but you’ve got to ask yourself, that by changing that existing mafia, and replacing it with somebody else, it’s only a matter of time where the same thing is going to be repeated, because this is what happens in Africa.” By rationalizing the bribery as being just part of “Africa,” Philip effectively relieves himself of responsibility for the situation.

60

Chiefs of the Plantation

The discussion thus far has focused on how Clayton uses his authority to obtain bribes and how Philip distances himself from these practices, but how does Clayton retain the support of lower-ranking workers? As Du Toit (1993) argued, the empowerment of non-white managers potentially makes them “sellouts” (or “pimps”) in the eyes of ordinary workers. They are, in this argument, “too close” to the authority of white farmers and are alienated from, or lack credibility with, the majority of workers. At the same time, in order to retain the confidence of white farm owners, black managers must command enough respect from the majority of workers that the latter will respond to their directives. Some scholars argue that third-party contractors and labour brokers project their own locus of paternalistic authority, an alternative web of obligations and expectations through which they secure the support of temporary workers (Barrientos 2011). To some extent Clayton projects such a web, but it is not independent of Philip’s authority. His web amongst ordinary workers manifests in several ways. As mentioned, at least one half of the workforce comes from his home area in Mberengwa and dozens of workers are directly related to him or have married into his family. The fact that many people are related to his family creates a sense that they must obey him. Clayton’s house, which looms above the compound, is a central place for entertainment on the plantation. During off-work times, dozens of people watch television at his house for free. Pointing to the satellite dish attached to his house, Clayton once said to me: “You see that satellite? I pay for the channels every month. But every time I come here, there are too many people. I can never watch what I want.” When I suggested that he charge people to watch television, he responded, “No, I could never do that.” Yet, I once witnessed Clayton switch off the TV, even though more than ten people were watching it, and complain to them, “Why don’t you buy some drinks? I’m paying 350 a month, so you must buy something so I get money to subscribe.” Other perks he gives to male workers is to allow them to charge batteries and cell phones at his house. During pay weekends, when the compound is frequented by Venda vendors, gamblers, and other visitors, Clayton parks his truck near the crèche and plays loud music as a kind of public service for everyone to enjoy. Additionally, many young men, as they wait for employment in the compound, can often find work at Clayton’s house. They can work tending his garden, selling his drinks and other items, or as

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

61

part of his taxi business, collecting money and unloading luggage. As I explore in chapter 4, many women end up in patron–client ties with Clayton through sexual relationships. A woman worker told me: “As long as you are a lady here, he has to come and propose you.” Referring to the three chiefs, distinguished on the plantation by the motorbikes they ride, she emphasized the sexual competition between them: “These guys with the motorbikes, they compete and bet with each other. So he will be feeling like a loser if he didn’t get what he wanted from a woman. He needs to feel like the king of the area.” Clayton gives easier tasks to women he favours, but can assign harder work to women who refuse him. She added, “If he has a girlfriend in the team, it works nicely. If not, they get hard work.” As the example of Clayton switching off the television suggests, his behaviour is unpredictable. A young man working as his gardener described him the following way: “Sometimes he is like a good father, very friendly, but other times he is angry, and you don’t know the reason. He has many different roles.” As the opening anecdote to this chapter suggests, during my research I too became embroiled in patron–client relations with Clayton. On several occasions, initially at the advice of my roommates in the compound, I gave him “gifts” as a token of respect and a way of maintaining access to the plantation. Some of the gifts were products of my own initiative, as when I gave Clayton portions of local meat that I had purchased. On another occasion, after noticing I was driving to Musina, he requested that I bring him a case of frozen yogurt packets for the shop he runs in his house. He made this request with a polite tone, even promising to pay me back (although he never did), but other times his “requests” seemed tied to a different agenda, that of enacting authority over me. My residence in the compound, and broader role on the plantation, was no doubt complicated for him. The compound was a space in which his word was law, but white people are nominally not subject to his power. Perhaps he felt anxiety over the fact that I was somewhat outside of his authority, given that I was a figure of extreme wealth in my own right. At other times, he demanded gifts from me in highly public spaces. For example, on a day off when I travelled with most of the workforce to Musina, I encountered Clayton near the central taxi rank where hundreds of Zimbabweans and South Africans were drinking and eating at an open air shebeen (bar). Clayton, holding a beer can in each hand, stepped out of the crowd and into my path,

62

Chiefs of the Plantation

drawing attention from hundreds of observers. I was carrying a can of baked beans in each hand. He shouted at me, “You must give me!” and reaching out, took one of the cans of beans from me. Until that point, his disposition towards me had always been kind and made use of customary greetings, so I was surprised. He was straight faced, unsmiling, and reeking of alcohol. After taking the can, he said, “Now it is one for you, one for me.” I smiled and kept walking, feeling the eyes of hundreds of observers. After telling one of my Zimbabwean roommates in the compound, Emmanuel, about the incident, he said, “He wants to show that he is important, that he can give orders to someone like you.” On another occasion during a weekend after work, while I was driving through the compound and passing through two new house blocks, he stepped in front of my car, forcing me to stop. There were dozens of people on either side of the car, including Venda vendors selling their wares. He approached the window and said, “If I ask you to stop, you must stop.” “Yes,” I said, uncertain of how to proceed in the encounter, and noting that he was drunk again. “If I ask you to stop, you must stop,” he said more forcefully, prompting a more enthusiastic “yes” from me. “I am like the chief of this place. If I step in the way, you must stop. If I want you to go like this,” he crossed his arms across his chest and bowed, “you must do it.” I again nodded and replicated the motion he suggested. He then moved off to the side without saying anything else, and I took the opportunity to drive on. He yelled at me as I left, “Come back and eat meat with us later!” At other times, I was more clearly the beneficiary of his “good will.” During the 2010 World Cup hosted in South Africa, when hundreds of male workers gathered in front of his television, he insisted that I get one of the best seats on the couch, directly in front of the television screen. And, as I mentioned above, he frequently gave me cold drinks without charge. This capricious behaviour reflects not so much Clayton’s personality, but the awkward position in which he is placed as “head” chief, wherein his vast power and responsibility can sometimes be a source of stress. Clayton’s role on Mopane Estates illustrates how black intermediaries have become increasingly important to the control of labour on border plantations. Throughout South Africa since the 1980s, many white farmers have promoted black and coloured workers into positions of management, often incorporating them into profit-sharing schemes and into the highest levels of decision making. There is thus deepening segmentation within plantation labour forces, as

The Border Plantation Labour Regime

63

managers and “core” workers enjoy the privileges of higher wages, incentive schemes, and close relations with white owners, while the majority of workers are employed on far more precarious terms. On Mopane Estates, these trends manifest in the personas of delegated rulers such as Clayton, who combine the roles of labour broker and manager. As a “delegated” ruler, his authority ultimately hinges on his relationship with the plantation owner, Philip. Yet, Clayton also pursues his own exploitative agenda on the plantation, beyond the control of Philip.

c o n c l u s i on This chapter has outlined four key dimensions of the border plantation labour regime: a shifting composition of labour, partial compliance with regulation, provision of accommodation and other means of subsistence, and the delegation of rule. Of these elements, the delegation of rule serves as the glue that allows these processes to combine productively. Figures such as Clayton enable the plantation to access and stabilize a mobile workforce. Philip’s delegation of rule helps disguise from regulators the actual practices of recruitment and labour control. Chiefs serve as Philip’s eyes and ears in the compound, even as they pass on information only selectively and in self-serving ways. Overall, the labour regime reduces the potential for benevolence within paternalistic rule, while the scope for arbitrary decision making by owners and management remains intact. While this labour regime enables the plantation to produce and sell a high volume of tomatoes, it is not without contradiction. The consistent pressure to cut costs and enhance profitability pushes Philip to roll back the already limited entitlements of migrant workers. The labour regime contributes to a discordant moral economy, in which whites remain committed to a view of the plantation as mutually supportive and beneficial, even as black workers continuously struggle to defend or expand entitlements. In the next chapter, I examine how the struggle over entitlements exposes spatial and supervisory gaps within the labour regime, through which lower-ranking workers can gain leverage.

2 Spatial Struggles: Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

The purpose of this chapter is to examine how the labour regime described in the previous chapter gives rise to conflict over the access to tomatoes, cigarette smuggling, and piece rates. These conflicts demonstrate two things. First, they are evidence of a wide gulf in moral-economic understanding between whites and blacks on the plantation. Philip feels that restricting access to tomatoes is fair punishment for stealing that comes to his attention. Yet, workers do not accept this curtailment. The access to high-quality tomatoes for self-consumption is a fundamental entitlement that makes them willing to work on Mopane Estates. In the case of smuggling, Philip believes it constitutes a major violation for workers to skip work and carry cartons of cigarettes across the border – to try and hold “two jobs” at a time when the plantation needs their labour. But workers feel that smuggling offers a vital way to meet important goals in terms of their “targets” back home and their wider life goals. With regard to piece rates, Philip neglects to grant pickers a customary increase in their wages for filling crates of tomatoes. In response, pickers go on strike and eventually force him to enact the raise. Second, these struggles demonstrate how lower-ranking workers gain leverage within the labour regime. The geography of the plantation generates its own weaknesses that workers can exploit. Workers live alongside the tomatoes and can take them with relative ease. The position of the plantation on the border facilitates ready access to cheap labour, but workers also use the proximity of the border to their advantage. The marketing structure of the plantation generates bottlenecks at harvest time and makes the plantation vulnerable to strikes. Residing in the cramped conditions of the compound enables

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

65

workers to share information and plan collective action. The labour regime, with its extreme reliance on black intermediaries, does not allow Philip to restrict these sources of leverage. Generally, the chiefs are too compromised by their own participation in the transgressive activities that pervade the compound to clamp down on them in any significant way. The picker strike represents something of an exception. In this case, the head chief – Clayton – is able to contain the strike and ensure that production continues, even as the strike achieves its modest goal. Before turning to these examples of contestation, I want to explain in more detail the moral economy of the plantation, as it is constituted between whites and blacks. One cannot apprehend the causes of worker contestation without appreciating how the moral economy is made discordant by Philip’s persistent effort to cut costs in the wider context of agricultural restructuring.

t he p l a n tat io n as c o l lecti ve enterpri s e The moral economy is built upon the synergy of two contrasting orientations. The first, active among whites, is the sense of the plantation as a benign, collective enterprise. Echoing traditional paternalism, this perspective emphasizes mutual reciprocity and edification. But it also includes detachment from the everyday lives of workers and the belief in racial hierarchy. In an interview, Philip conveyed how these seemingly disparate sentiments coexist. I asked him to what extent the “farm” could be described as a family. “Very much so” he replied. “We are a family in that we are not a conglomerate as such … although we are subject to market forces and economies of scale.” He then linked this sense of family to hiring practices and in-kind services. “We try to use the same type of people year in, and year out … We are in a way sympathetic to people’s needs and problems … Like we make available our vehicle that we take people to town and soccer.” Although one could disagree with Philip by pointing out that there is a relatively high degree of turnover in the workforce,1 and that benefits such as he describes are not always available, it was nevertheless significant that Philip viewed the plantation as a quasi-family. It suggested his persistent belief in the plantation as a benign institution, despite his own detachment from the everyday realities of the workforce. Philip spoke in explicit terms about detachment. I asked

66

Chiefs of the Plantation

him why he never enters the compound, or sought to socialize with his black employees outside of work. He responded: “If I familiarized myself too much with the workforce, I feel I would lose their respect … familiarity breeds contempt.” From Philip’s point of view, the need to maintain order necessitated a certain social distance, a stance that sat awkwardly alongside his view of the plantation as a space of fictive kinship. Other whites on the plantation represented a less contradictory perspective. Logan, the head mechanic, stressed the bond he felt with black Zimbabweans. He described working with them in the Limpopo River, carrying out the arduous task of installing irrigation pipes under the riverbed: “You know Lincoln, I push them. But I also work there right with them. They look at me and see that I’m working like they do … They look at me different because of that. We are working in the water till 10 at night, all together, even laughing about it.” He also praised their work ethic: “These guys are my age, but they are hard working. They pick up shovels and go just as hard as the young guys. They are hard working, not some pickaninny okes.” Logan valued a higher degree of social proximity than did Philip. He subsequently described having a “braai” (barbecue) with black workers in the dry riverbed, after a particularly hard day. Philip reportedly rebuked him: “The boss shit on me for having a braai with them in the river … He said I shouldn’t mingle with them.” But he nevertheless felt his approach of building friendship translated into a deeper level of respect and commitment: “You know, I lost one of my shoes in the river, and all the guys spent an hour looking for it. I told them to leave it, but they said, ‘No, it’s your shoe.’ You know why they helped me? Because I don’t look down upon them.” Logan thus consciously distanced himself from Philip’s emphasis on detachment. These differing perspectives suggest that what can be described in loose terms as a white “structure of feeling” (Williams 1977) on the plantation contains a diversity of views regarding what constitutes appropriate conduct across racial difference. Yet, this diversity only goes so far. There were limits to Logan’s apparent friendship with black workers that manifested spatially. Like Philip, he rarely entered the compound. Black workers were never invited to his house to eat, drink, or socialize. Certain barriers remained in place, holding intact the racial hierarchy and division of the plantation. Similar to Logan’s positive appraisal of the Zimbabwean work ethic, another white manager, Heinrik, spoke approvingly of their

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

67

seemingly deferential disposition. A former farm owner himself, he once employed an exclusively South African labour force. He described how his own farm became unviable in the mid-1990s, after workers demanded too high wages: “Every day we would go out to the lands, and they would be toy-toying and jiving … it was a disaster.” In contrast to this experience with a radicalized workforce, he described the Zimbabweans on Mopane Estates as more respectful. “They can work” he said, “they know what it is to suffer. And they are not arrogant – I had real arrogant guys at my farm.” But this approval sat alongside a racially charged view of Zimbabweans as being prone to steal. According to him, the Zimbabweans have stealing “in their blood.” He complained about the pickers hiding “green” tomatoes in the cases, rather than picking the ripe ones – in order to fill crates more quickly: “They put all kinds of green into the cases; they’re after the money, that’s what they do.” As another example of the white sensibility on the plantation, Dolores emphasized themes of charity and benevolence. Employed in the office, she had less opportunity to work alongside black employees. Yet, she often sought to “help” workers in various ways, including giving them vegetables from her garden and second-hand clothing. She often spoke about the positive changes she hoped to implement in the compound. These included installing clotheslines for workers to dry clothing, building better shower facilities, planting flowers to beautify the space, and – most ambitiously – connecting electricity to the compound. Although none of these goals were accomplished during my time on the plantation, she recurrently listed them as important goals she was “pushing” Philip to carry out. She relished the opportunity to do humanitarian work: “I really like to be needed. I just love to help people. I don’t care if there is no gratitude. I know when I walk away they will remember me. It is great when you fall asleep and you know what you did for somebody that day.” Despite this humanitarian attitude, and similar instances where she critiqued Philip,2 she still viewed the plantation as basically fair in terms of what it offered workers in exchange for their labour. I asked her on another occasion whether people should be eligible for overtime, since they often work extremely long hours: “I don’t think it’s an issue. You see, this is a farm. It’s a job where you can work any hours.” I asked whether migrants might obtain the status of permanent workers – and thus become eligible for higher wages and

68

Chiefs of the Plantation

benefits – if they have worked on the plantation for several years. She replied in the negative: “No, they are seasonal workers. They agree to sign on for the contract, and that’s it.” Alongside this perception of the plantation as a space of support and charity, then, is a sense of reciprocity and collective benefit. Philip positioned himself less as the owner or primary beneficiary of the plantation, and more as a neutral arbiter of a common trust. As can be seen in his reactions to stealing (this chapter and chapter 3), the goal of the plantation as he sees it is not to generate profit per se, but to “pay the costs of production” so that it can keep employing people. He feels he holds up his end of the bargain by providing employment, housing, and tomatoes, and by acting as a responsible steward of the plantation. In return, he requires loyalty from his workforce and expects its members to buy into what he calls the “ethic of the farm.” Philip raised this idea – the “ethic of the farm” – when I asked him what has enabled the success of his plantation. He noted the importance of delegating authority, but also the cultivation of a particular sensibility: “We have developed a strong work ethic at this farm by using the people themselves to enforce norms and accepted standards of work … They work better when their own people lead them. Work is not time orientated on this farm, it is task orientated, and I’ve tried to instill that into my managers. I kind of work easier with black people than with white people in that respect, because white people come here with their old baggage, where the black people are fresh, they’ve got fresh ideas, and you can actually mould them into the ethic of the farm. And one thing we believe in here is that you come, you do the task, and you can go when it’s done, irrespective of the time it takes.” When Philip alluded to the “ethic of the farm” he meant that workers should have a moral commitment to the plantation – to subordinate their personal interests in favour of the task-oriented production and goals of profitability on the plantation. Philip spoke about the humble origins of the plantation as a way of reinforcing this ethic. As he explained: “What was unique in our setup was that, when we came here, we built this farm with a handful of people, that we’ve trained ourselves. With just a handful of skilled people, we’ve managed to build this farm to something quite substantial.” Those who have sacrificed, who have put years of hard work – “blood and guts,” as he put it – into the land, have been rewarded. The proof

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

69

is found in the chiefs of the plantation, with Clayton’s pickup truck as the ultimate example. “And you know, Nephias is next in line … if we do meet our targets. There’s a possibility that he might get something to that extent.” Furthermore, those who reach the level of top structure get the opportunity to mould the destiny of the plantation: “In this company, people can be promoted and can have a say … they are given opportunity in the decision-making process and problem solving.” Thus, while there is internal variation among whites regarding how they envision the plantation, what unites them is a general sense of the plantation as fair – that it offers migrant workers a reasonable income and benefits in exchange for their labour. This sentiment coexists with social distance from the lives of most workers, such that whites continue to believe in the fairness of the plantation, even as Philip rolls back entitlements, and workers challenge plantation rules and authority. Yet, what whites often fail to appreciate is how Zimbabwean migrants are often far more oriented to their rural homesteads – encapsulated in the notion of kuvaka musha – or broader plans for the future, than they are committed to the plantation. This orientation can encourage acceptance of exploitative working conditions. But it also entails a far more instrumental relationship to the plantation, where it serves as a means to an end.

t h e p l a n tat io n as

k u va k a m u s h a

Most Zimbabweans on Mopane Estates possess a small personal notebook, usually stored in their rooms or mud huts. Inside this ledger, they keep track of money lent and borrowed, records of purchases, and lists of objects they intend on buying, called “targets.” For instance, a typical notebook for one young man lists such targets as a generator, a television aerial, a cow, a radio, shoes, and various groceries. For each item, an estimated price is noted beside it. On any given day, Zimbabweans can be seen referring to the targets in their notebook, checking off the items they managed to obtain or perhaps just to remind themselves of their goals. For Zimbabwean migrants, much depends on these targets; they are a source of both immense hope and anxiety – hope that “results” (mbairo) will be achieved and anxiety over the possibility of failure. The targets are, in effect, Zimbabweans’ attempts at kuvaka musha, a dominant idiom on the plantation that literally means “building a rural homestead.” The “rural homestead”

70

Chiefs of the Plantation

Figure 2.1 Worker consulting his list of “targets” in his notebook, Mopane Estates

refers to land occupied by a Zimbabwean or his or her family in the communal or resettlement areas of Zimbabwe, including the houses, huts, livestock, and crops within the homestead boundary. It also refers to the extended family living in or around the homestead. Kuvaka musha most often refers to supporting dependents at home, through paying school fees or providing food and other necessities, but also to physical improvements to a house or plot, and the accumulation of livestock. A closely related concept, kugadzira ramangwana (to prepare for the future), encompasses using one’s income to start a business, attend college, pay bride service to a wife’s parents, or, as in the case of some women, purchase fashionable clothing to attract a husband back in Zimbabwe. Kugadzira ramangwana is often pursued by Zimbabweans precisely so that they can more effectively attain kuvaka musha. For example, obtaining training or certificates from a college will enable one to get a better job, earn higher income, and thus support the rural home even more.

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

71

These practices are important to Zimbabweans in at least three ways. First, many Zimbabweans believe that to obtain prestige or maintain good standing with friends and relatives in the rural home, one must demonstrate improvements to the homestead. Kuvaka musha in this cultural context is the “proper” use of wealth. Second, adding assets to the homestead or educating children are investments in future security. For instance, in a country like Zimbabwe where banks are unreliable, it is far better to buy a cow, which can be used for ploughing and potentially sold in times of difficulty. Third, as in many other contexts, the dominant notion of masculinity is tied to effective provision for one’s family. I was told on many occasions that a man who arrives home without having acquired significant funds or goods can become the target of scorn and derision at home. For many migrant workers, kuvaka musha is linked to a broader objective: attaining enough rural assets to sustain a permanent livelihood in Zimbabwe, most often through small-scale farming or starting small businesses. If the Zimbabwean homestead is neglected, the worker risks severing ties with family, and not having assets to build upon if the job at the plantation is lost. Among Zimbabwean plantation workers, the term resonates everywhere. It is reinforced in daily discourse and in church services. Kuvaka musha orders a certain moral code, in which finances are supposed to be channelled towards projects in Zimbabwe, almost as a matter of principle. Many informants define happiness as experiencing “success” with one’s plans in relation to kuvaka musha. If successful, one strengthens and maintains bonds with relatives and has greater peace of mind regarding the future. Kuvaka musha also grants lower-status workers a sort of moral ammunition against senior workers. For instance, Clayton is often ridiculed in relative secrecy for failing to build anything substantial in Zimbabwe, despite earning a high salary and operating several businesses at the plantation. With the exception of the pickup truck, he has no exceptional wealth in Zimbabwe that distinguishes his household from others in the communal areas of Mberengwa. The vast majority of his income has gone to paying for innumerable girlfriends (see chapter 4). While he is something of an extreme example, he is not alone, as many men spend the bulk of their income in transactional relationships with women on the plantation. Paradoxically, kuvaka musha can encourage discipline and frugality among workers, but it simultaneously individuates the

72

Chiefs of the Plantation

workforce, whereby each worker has his or her own projects or plans in Zimbabwe for which much is sacrificed. Kuvaka musha can thus be a constraining force that diminishes collective action and effectively reinforces existing hierarchies on the plantation. However, under certain conditions, Zimbabweans do act against the interests of management, even on a collective basis. The preoccupation with kuvaka musha situates the expectations of black workers in contrast with those of white management. Workers expect to be paid a minimal amount, such that they can facilitate their goals away from the plantation. They rely on the availability of free food, especially in the form of tomatoes, and accommodation. They anticipate free movement across the border. They believe that they should be treated with respect, and not subject to unfair punishment, insults, or physical violence. The insistence on particular entitlements – food, mobility, and a seasonal wage increase – is demonstrated below.

to m ato e s At a roll call during the height of the picking season, Philip announced that he was creating “new laws” regarding how workers access tomatoes. On the previous day, he had found tomatoes concealed in the back of a pickup truck that provided a taxi service for workers. “I was coming back from church yesterday,” he said, speaking through Clayton, who translated, “and I saw a white bakkie [truck] parked near the gate … I was going to pass by, because the driver was someone I trusted. But I had a second thought, because I’ve heard that people are selling tomatoes to bakkies.” He then recounted how he searched the vehicle and found a bucketful of “Freshmark quality” tomatoes, hidden under some clothing. The driver claimed to have purchased them from an unknown plantation worker. Although this was only one incident, Philip felt it was symptomatic of a largerscale problem and necessitated his intervention: “We have to take measures to stop this from happening,” he continued. “We already put a lot of money into those tomatoes. We’ve sprayed them with heavy chemicals, we’ve fertilized them, we’ve paid people to weed them, we’ve paid electricity for pumping water there, we’ve paid tractors, used diesel … there is plenty of costs that have gone into those tomatoes. So we’ve got to take measures to stop that from happening, so we can get something back from those tomatoes, to pay the costs. If we don’t control it, it will spread like fire … And

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

73

then I will not have any money to pay peoples’ wages. The wages come from the tomatoes that I am selling … I don’t have a mountain of money in the bank I can just go and take anytime. Without tomatoes we cannot pay the people.” He then explained that people would no longer be allowed to take tomatoes from the field for self-consumption: “We used to have a law on this farm, whereby people could take tomatoes from the fields back to the compound … no buckets, baskets, or boxes were allowed, because a person cannot eat more tomatoes than what they can carry in their hands.” Now, he insisted, people would have to come to the pack shed to collect two tomatoes per day, under the supervision of management. “If the people do not comply with this, Clayton,” he threatened, “then they will have to buy the tomatoes with their own money.” As Philip spoke, the audience of six hundred Zimbabweans were silent and attentive, suggesting something significant was at stake. Given workers’ low earnings and lack of available food on the plantation, the prospect of having to pay for tomatoes was dire. Later that day, Philip followed through with his plan to modify how workers accessed tomatoes. A large bin filled with second-grade tomatoes was placed in the parking zone of the pack shed. Workers were reminded in the afternoon by Clayton to not take tomatoes from the field back to the compound, but to collect them instead from the bin. I made it a point to visit the pack shed around the time workers were knocking off. Very few workers – mostly those working in the pack shed itself – made the effort to go to the bin and collect tomatoes. Yet, I also noticed when I strolled through the compound that evening that most workers were still consuming tomatoes as part of their supper. Where were they getting the tomatoes? My key informants reported that people were still taking tomatoes from the fields – they were just being more subtle about it. Tomatoes were being hidden in their lunch tins, pockets, and plastic bags. Others were going back to the fields after dark and taking what they needed. Philip noticed that hardly anyone took tomatoes from the new distribution point and, the next day, confronted Clayton about it. Heinrik, who was present at their meeting, relayed to me that Philip asked Clayton why workers were not complying. Clayton reportedly told Philip that workers found it “too far” to walk to the pack shed after knocking off. This was partly true – the pack shed was at least

74

Chiefs of the Plantation

one kilometre from the compound, and after a day of working in the fields, walking that extra distance for tomatoes was inconvenient. What Clayton did not mention was that workers also did not prefer the quality of the tomatoes in the bin. They were damaged or diseased varieties, destined for the low-end Mozambican market or, failing that, the canning factory. Workers preferred higher-quality tomatoes that they picked themselves – such as the unblemished tomatoes destined for the Freshmark contract. By focusing on the location of the tomatoes, rather than quality, Clayton probably sought to provide a plausible explanation that avoided the contentious issue – likely to stoke more anger from Philip – of workers continuing to take high-quality tomatoes. Philip’s next move was entirely in keeping with Clayton’s explanation. After three days of having the bin near the pack shed, Philip ordered the crate of tomatoes moved to the centre of the compound, beside the crèche and where the Zion services are held. However, this made little improvement. Workers largely ignored the large bin, and continued clandestinely taking tomatoes from the fields. The bin sat in the compound, full to the brim with low-grade tomatoes that progressively softened and rotted. Despite the stench and flies around the rotting tomatoes, Philip did not have the bin removed until almost two weeks had passed. Without any public pronouncements, Philip relented and allowed workers to continue carrying “handfuls” back to the compound. He never raised the issue for the remainder of my fieldwork. Philip had attempted to change the method of tomato allocation, but was thwarted. What accounts for his backing down in this struggle? Part of the problem is a lack of food on the plantation. Mopane Estates depends on a low-paid, residential workforce. This workforce, in order to be productive, needs energy in the form of calories. Yet, workers reside in a place where there is little food available. Ironically, in some respects the plantation is a “food desert.” There are few shops – except for those like Clayton’s with highly inflated prices. People are not allowed to grow their own crops or keep livestock on the plantation. Sometimes workers bring food from Zimbabwe – like peanut butter, mopane worms, or bambara nuts – but this is often intended for resale, not self-consumption. Fish is available in the Limpopo River, but catching it is time consuming and seasonal. Workers buy food during the monthly visit to Musina and bring it back to the plantation, commonly a 50 kg sack of maize, cooking oil, sugar, salt, and

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

75

Figure 2.2 Tomatoes rotting in the bin, three days after Philip ordered the bin placed in the compound

some loaves of bread. Given the shortage of alternatives, stewed tomatoes – known locally as gwenderere – serve as an important source of gravy to accompany the maize-derived sadza that workers prepare for their breakfast and dinner. Finally, very few people pack a lunch for the workday. They depend on the tomatoes as a source of food and water as they labour in the fields. One worker summed up the importance of tomatoes, when I asked him why people were disobeying Philip’s edict: “You can’t live without them.” Yet, workers’ refusal to comply with Philip’s rule change reflects not only insufficient food, but also a deep sense of entitlement over plantation produce. The practice of workers taking a handful of tomatoes from the fields is a longstanding one that goes back to the founding of the plantation. In the early days of Mopane Estates, Philip not only allowed workers to take tomatoes, but also provided a 50 kg sack of maize for each person. As the plantation expanded, the practice of giving free maize was revoked, but the access to tomatoes remained in

76

Chiefs of the Plantation

place. Philip’s attempt to change something so historically ingrained was thus likely to encounter resistance among long-term workers, who are accustomed to relatively easy tomato access. More fundamentally, the freedom to take tomatoes from the fields is bound up with a package of “free” services Philip offered workers, including accommodation and running water. As bare as these services are, they collectively make life tolerable on the plantation, and foster acceptance of low wages and difficult working conditions. Indeed, the fact that Philip allows workers to take tomatoes for free (even if only vaguely defined as a “handful”) serves to attract migrant labour. In my conversations with workers, people frequently attested that the main reason they prefer migrating for work at Mopane Estates, as opposed to destinations further south, is the low cost of living – of which tomatoes are a crucial part. “Some people just survive off them,” said one worker to me. “They will eat gwenderere and sadza the whole year. It allows them to save money.” If people were forced to pay for tomatoes, the worker reflected, “Many people would leave the farm. They [free tomatoes] are the only incentives.” In addition to this sense of worker entitlement, there are geographical and supervisory problems that impede Philip’s attempt to enforce the rule change. Workers reside directly adjacent to the crops, and handle them all day at work. There are simply too many people living in close proximity to the fruit for Philip to know who is taking them at any one time. His previous provisioning of free maize represents an instructive contrast. He could revoke this perk because it was something he had direct control over; he had to pay for the maize and distribute it. With tomatoes there are spatial limits to his authority, in that workers live alongside the crop and can take them with relative ease. Furthermore, unlike other infractions, where Philip can rely upon spies “selling out” deviant workers (for instance, in the case of stealing pesticides, explored in chapter 3), all workers are complicit in continuing to take tomatoes. The collective nature of the transgression lessens the likelihood of someone reporting on someone else’s illicit action. Moreover, the elite group of chiefs, upon whom Philip normally depends for disciplining the workforce, also proves unable or unwilling to enforce Philip’s rule change. Part of their reluctance is rooted in their own complicity – managers were purportedly among the worst offenders in terms of tomato stealing, going beyond personal consumption. As one pack shed worker relayed to me, Clayton and his brother Moses regularly

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

77

sold boxes of tomatoes at reduced rates to the Mozambican and Indian truck drivers, with an understanding that the buyers conceal the transaction from Philip. But in addition to this complicity is the problem I explored in chapter 1: namely, the need for the “head” manager Clayton to maintain credibility with workers ranking below him. His effectiveness as head manager depends in part on his own projection of paternalistic authority – through which he tries to make workers feel that he represents their interests. If he were to punish his underlings and tell Philip about their every infraction, he would be perceived as a total sellout – making his position as the leading intermediary less tenable. Thus, a combination of factors undermined Philip’s attempt to change the method of tomato allocation. While his policy change had an initial impact, with people taking fewer tomatoes and disguising the practice, within a week or two things returned to how they had been previously. That Philip did not push the matter further reflected a tacit realization on his part. His need for a steady supply of labour outweighed the risk of people leaving the plantation – a real possibility were he to charge for tomatoes or administer an outright ban. The smuggling of cigarettes represents a similar example and outcome of contestation.

c ig a r e t t e s muggli ng A few weeks after Philip’s attempt to change the method of tomato allocation, he warned workers at another roll call not to become involved in the smuggling of cigarettes across the border: “What I want to talk to people about, Clayton, is the carrying of bags, full of cigarettes … there is big money in carrying bags.” In response to this statement, workers began laughing and whispering excitedly to each other. On one level, their laughter may have signalled their greater ease with this topic, in contrast to the silence and anxiety that was palpable when Philip addressed tomato stealing a few weeks earlier. Only a minority of workers were actually involved in “carrying bags” – that is, transporting large sacks of cigarettes across the Limpopo River as part of smuggling syndicates – whereas every worker was potentially impacted by the changing rules over tomato access. But their laugher may also have been a subtle way to register disagreement with Philip’s assessment of what constituted “big money.” Men who participated in the smuggling were paid R 150 per trip,

78

Chiefs of the Plantation

roughly equivalent to a week’s wages at Mopane Estates. But considering the actual work involved in the smuggling – carrying a heavy bag over 30 km during the night, at the risk of being arrested or even killed by border patrols – the money was not that “big.” Furthermore, the money only appeared “big” because Philip was comparing it to wages on the plantation. His statement implied, in other words, that wages on the plantation were standard or fair – a claim that most workers would disagree with. This use of laughter as a way of critiquing Philip became more pronounced as he continued lecturing the workers over cigarette smuggling. Gesturing to the attendance book on the podium in front of him, he expressed concern that participation in smuggling was resulting in high rates of absenteeism: “Some people are marked present, present, then cross, cross – that means they are working here, then going to carry bags.” He threatened that if people continued to smuggle cigarettes, they would be fired: “We cannot allow people to stay in our accommodations in our farm, eat our tomatoes, and do two jobs at the same time.” Surprisingly, Philip then stated that policing the border was not his responsibility. “It’s not my job to stop the smugglers coming through,” he said. “Our job is to plant tomatoes. If the people are interested in carrying the bags, and it does not affect the farming, then they can carry on with that.” He even offered to connect people with a recruiter: “We have a guy at the office who works for the smugglers. He is here to recruit people. You can come to the office and sign up.” This statement elicited a final, boisterous round of laughter from the crowd, with one man shouting: “He will arrest us!” Meanwhile, Philip left the podium with a grim expression. Judging by his sombre demeanour, Philip seemed unaware – or unwilling to acknowledge – that workers may have been laughing at him, as though mocking his attempt to deceive them about the supposed smuggler-recruiter. As the crowd dispersed I asked one worker, whom I knew to be involved in smuggling, if he would report to the office to meet the recruiter. “Go there?” he replied, with a look of incredulity. “If I go there I will be arrested! Philip is very tricky.” The worker was proven correct: there was no recruiter at the office. Philip had indeed attempted to trick workers into revealing themselves as potential smugglers, so he could identify and fire them. Philip’s order to not perform “two jobs” had been prompted by an event earlier that week, when Mozambican buyers arrived at the

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

79

plantation seeking the smallest-sized tomatoes. As the buyers needed a large quantity, Clayton arranged for people from the day-scouting and weeding group to join the picking crew. Most of these reassigned people had little experience picking and were not accustomed to piece rates – they normally received the minimum daily wage. As one participant recounted to me, some of these workers realized that their prospects for a decent income that day were slim, as the Mozambicans wanted small tomatoes and it would take longer than usual to fill crates. Consequently, around fifteen young men abandoned the fields and walked back to the compound, eventually making their way across the dry Limpopo River to the camps operated by smugglers. Later in the afternoon they carried bags filled with cigarettes back across the plantation to a checkpoint further south. This group made a second trip the following day, and returned to work after a two-day absence. Upon their return at the roll call, Clayton called them aside and threatened to fire them if it happened again. The loss of this group’s labour had not been insignificant; the day they absconded Philip spent much of the day haranguing Clayton on the radio about why it was taking so long to complete the orders for the Mozambicans. Philip’s effort to dissuade his workers from smuggling thus reflected his desire to have exclusive control over their labour power. Cigarette smuggling had been occurring throughout my fieldwork at Mopane Estates, but this was the first time it came into direct conflict with the labour needs of the plantation. The escalation of smuggling over 2009 to 2010 was related to increasingly higher import taxes and tightening border controls in South Africa. In the early 2000s, smugglers relied on official ports of entry at border posts and airports – often involving hiding the product in containers and/ or bribing customs officials. However, by 2009 South Africa had taken new measures to strengthen security at official entry points – in part due to the lobbying of domestic cigarette producers who lost significant market share to smuggled cigarettes. Illicit Zimbabwean cigarettes accounted for 20 per cent of all cigarettes smoked in South Africa (O’Toole and Botes 2011). As a consequence of this “hardening” of the border, smuggling syndicates moved their operations to more remote, undesignated entry points. At least five “base camps,” each employing ten to twenty people, were set up across the river from Mopane Estates. Cigarettes would be transported by truck from Harare to the base camps, where it would be stored until carried across by human “mules.”

80

Chiefs of the Plantation

Smugglers were attracted to Mopane Estates for multiple factors. Unlike the border west of Musina, there was no security fence. The absence of a tar road and distance from town reduced the likelihood of police and military patrols. As I learned from conversations with workers involved in smuggling, smugglers avoided the neighbouring game farms because of the threat posed by wild animals. Mopane Estates had a compliant management and security team that could be bribed. Beyond the relative safety of Mopane for smugglers, the plantation represented a fertile site of socialization and escape. Most of the smugglers themselves originated from urban areas of Zimbabwe. While the average week for a “full-time” smuggler involved three or four trips across the border, there might be significant downtime depending on the supply of cigarettes coming into the camp. The camp itself was abject – a collection of tents and tarps in the bush, with only a radio for distraction. Smugglers therefore sought enjoyment and distraction in the compound at Mopane Estates. Many smugglers were involved in sexual relationships with women workers, involving not only intercourse but also the woman providing reproductive labour such as washing clothes and preparing food. Smugglers frequented Clayton’s house to watch television, or to buy beer and socialize. Mopane Estates served as hub from which they could catch lifts to Musina. Finally, the plantation had a relatively large population that could be sourced for “mules” as the need arose. Philip’s intervention at the roll call – his threat to fire anyone who became involved in smuggling – represented a shift in policy towards the smugglers. Until this point, he seemingly tolerated their presence on the plantation, and had not explicitly banned his own workers from dealing with them. In the past, he had contacted the police when he received notice of their crossing his property, but avoided direct confrontation. In this respect, his comment during the roll call that “it is not my job to stop the smuggling” was sincere. But as the smugglers came to represent an alternative labour market to Mopane Estates, Philip clamped down. In addition to his threat to fire people, he ordered his managers to ban smugglers from the compound. One week after his roll call pronouncement, five workers were fired after they arrived late at the roll call, having spent the night carrying cigarettes across the border. Over the weekend, Clayton refused to allow smugglers to use his truck for transportation, despite the loss of income this represented for him. Clayton also explicitly warned women not to host

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

81

smugglers in the compound, telling them to “go across the river to visit their boyfriends.” Despite this initial period of compliance, within a few weeks smugglers were once again using Clayton’s truck for transportation, and openly consorting in the compound. Additionally, far from reducing the loss of labour to the smugglers, even more men became involved in the practice in the ensuing months. When Philip made his intervention in May there were approximately thirty people involved in smuggling. But by July there were more than fifty. For the remainder of my fieldwork, Philip did not publicly raise the issue of smuggling again. Why did Philip’s effort to limit cigarette smuggling ultimately fail? A key factor is the multiple benefits that smugglers channel to the black managerial corps in exchange for their non-interference. Examples include smugglers’ purchase of drinks and food from Clayton’s shop on a regular basis. One worker-smuggler stated: “The manager protects them because of business … they buy a lot. If he hears that someone is disturbed, he will fire them. He’s making a lot of money – people come from loading points, to come to his place, spending. On days off they rent his truck.”3 In addition, the smugglers regularly give heavily discounted cartons of cigarettes to Vahove, one of Philip’s top chiefs. Vahove frequently resells these cigarettes to truck drivers passing through the plantation. Finally, the smugglers pay direct bribes to the head of security, Fainos. This bribe takes the form of a monthly payment, ranging from R 100 to R 200. Taken together, the income these figures receive outweighs whatever benefit they can gain through helping Philip remove smugglers permanently. Instead, the senior management perform a temporary compliance to placate Philip, but thereafter return to previous practices when they feel his attention is elsewhere. Relations between management and smugglers are not always smooth. As the head of security, Fainos can sometimes be caught in the middle when problems come up. I observed occasional arguments and fights between smugglers and plantation workers, often fuelled by alcohol or accusations of “stealing women.” One example of such conflict was at a soccer match I attended at Mopane Estates. At this match, more than twenty smugglers were present – brazenly flouting Philip’s rule that no smugglers were permitted on the plantation. Philip himself did not attend the match, but even if he had, he likely would not have distinguished the smugglers from the rest of the population – such was his lack of knowledge about the majority

82

Chiefs of the Plantation

of the workforce. At the match, the smugglers consumed beer and chicken they had purchased from Clayton’s house. One smuggler, apparently inebriated, sauntered over to a group of empty-handed plantation workers and mocked them: “You people are just watching,” he slurred. “But I contribute to the success of business … I can buy chicken pieces and beer!” In response, Fainos approached him and said softly, “You must respect the people … they are here for the match.” The man shouted back: “These people are not your properties!” Before the conversation became more heated, another smuggler intervened. Grabbing the belligerent man by the arm, he escorted him away saying, “This is our big man (mudhara wedu) … we must show respect to him for the success of our business.” Tensions between security and smugglers thus had to be handled carefully. Fainos could have ordered the smuggler off the property – or even notified the police – but this might have threatened his own patronage ties. He was careful not to escalate the situation. Thus, while tensions between smugglers, management, and security occasionally flare up, conflict is typically avoided for the sake of maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship. Another factor that inhibits Philip from clamping down on the smuggling is his own ambivalent relationship to the border. Farming along the border presents distinct advantages. In the mid-1990s, when Philip first purchased land on the border, he was drawn initially by ecological factors: the fertile alluvial soils on the banks of the Limpopo, the ability to pump water from the river, the dry climate that permitted growing tomatoes during South Africa’s winter season. But by the end of the decade, a propitious economic decline in Zimbabwe also made his plantation a major hub for international migration. Mopane Estates gained easy access to cheap labour that enabled the subsequent profitability and growth of the plantation. In an interview, Philip spoke of how the border promotes flexibility: “The advantage of farming along the border is that labour is more available in quantities that you need, especially in peak season … because now Zimbabwean labour is sought after.” In addition to providing the needed quantity of labour, the border also promotes flexibility in the sense of allowing Philip wide latitude in disciplining workers. Some of the same factors that make the eastern border attractive to smugglers – the absence of a tar road, the limited presence of police – make it a suitable space for a plantation. Abusive labour practices can more easily go unchecked. Isolation limits the

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

83

possibility of state intervention, and promotes Philip’s autonomy and that of his chiefly delegates. Yet, the very flexibility that makes the border advantageous to plantation agriculture also generates negative elements, such as smuggling networks. The smugglers, whose base camps line the opposite side of the Limpopo, represent an alternative authority to Philip. Two months after Philip’s attempt to clamp down on the smuggling, I asked him why he could not stop it. He replied: “The smuggling network uses the farm as a venue. This is a negative because of the competition; they offer temporary employment to people during the night. But if you oppose it, you put yourself and your family at risk.” Hence, Philip felt he could not push too hard against them, lest he jeopardize his personal security and that of his family. After unsuccessfully trying to limit cross-border smuggling, he ultimately settled on a non-interventionist stance. The struggle over cigarette smuggling also reveals divergent moral understandings. Philip grants the smugglers a grudging respect based on his fear of their potential violence. But he also views them as symptomatic of the disorder and failure of post-apartheid policing. He blames corruption in the South African police as one of the major reason for the success of the smugglers. His view corresponds with understandings of cigarette smugglers in news reports, which frequently portray them as violent criminals (Muleya 2013; Netsianda 2017). These negative portrayals are in contrast with the understandings that the workers on Mopane have of smugglers. The latter differentiate between smugglers and violent elements on the border, which they call magumaguma. The latter are criminal groups who inhabit the interstitial space of the border on the Zimbabwean side. Magumaguma are viewed as sadistic and indiscriminate killers, associated with robbing and raping innocent border jumpers. In contrast, many workers position the cigarette smugglers as responsible and helpful entrepreneurs. “These guys are not magumaguma,” one migrant attested. “They just do their job. They even help people coming from this side, to get to the other side. They prepare food, show the way … They can connect you with transport, to Diti, Beitbridge.” Some workers credited the smugglers with stabilizing the border around Mopane, in that they “chased away” the magumaguma who had occupied the area previously. One stated: “There used to be magumaguma around here … but they were beaten by the tobacco guys. They moved to the other

84

Chiefs of the Plantation

side.” Another worker, Nyaradze, who became involved in smuggling himself, describes the smugglers as “brave people”: “They are quite brave people, they are like soldiers … There was one instance where a guy fainted in the bush. He made it back to camp the next day. Another time the police fired at us, and we had to leave the bags. If you don’t offload at the truck you don’t get the money.” Here they are represented as intrepid figures, taking on enormous risks and physical challenge to earn a living. Not all workers agree with these sentiments. One plantation worker, a pastor in a local church group, portrayed the smugglers as follows: “They are harsh people. If you stay with them long, you will see a change in behaviour.” The same informant gave the example of a former churchgoer at the plantation who, after becoming involved in smuggling, now “talks more about being drunk than going to church.” Going beyond the moral corruption presented by cigarette smuggling, another worker felt that the smugglers could not be trusted – that there is always the possibility they might “change” into a hostile magumaguma: “At times you fear to collect firewood [across the border], because one might change to a gumaguma.” There is an air of unpredictability and danger around the smugglers even if they were generally seen as distinct from magumaguma. Workers who engage in smuggling see the practice as a legitimate way to earn an income. I asked Nyaradze why he became involved in the smuggling practice: “What calls people to move with the satchel is the money here is low. Here I can move for five or six hours and get it.” He felt the income earned in one trip carrying cigarettes was comparable to a week’s wages from Philip. More fundamentally, this added income from smuggling enabled him to realize his underlying goals in Zimbabwe more quickly: “I only need to do five or six more trips and then I will go home!” he explained. Nyaradze frequently consulted his list of “targets” for the year: the things he planned to buy before returning home at the end of the picking season. On his list were a plough for tilling the soil at his parents’ home, a generator to power a grinding machine, and a skirt to build a relationship with a woman, which he hoped would eventually lead to marriage. Seemingly disparate items, they collectively represented his effort to kuvaka musha – to build a better life and future for himself and relatives at his rural home. For Nyaradze and many others, the desire for kuvaka musha is felt as a moral obligation. The concept is not only about advancing individual goals, but is bound up with helping

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

85

a wider kinship network. Hence, while smuggling is widely recognized as illegal, it is also viewed as justifiable because it enables the realization of a higher order moral obligation associated with the pressure of kuvaka musha.

p ie c e r ates One April morning a cry was heard as people gathered at the roll call, “Pamberi ne Zanu!” (up with zanu–pf). This slogan, common at ruling party rallies in Zimbabwe, was yelled by a lone worker amidst the masses as they entered the gate. Uproarious laughter erupted in response while Clayton, absorbed in consultation with foremen, angrily yelled, “Get behind the gate, you drunkard!” Dismissing the cry as a drunken outburst, Clayton did not grasp its significance. In fact, the shouter was not drunk. His slogan was part of a loosely concocted plan by several tomato pickers to initiate a strike. Having been paid a few days earlier, pickers were angry that their wages had not been increased, as had been promised by Philip. The roll call proceeded as usual, and the approximately 200 pickers boarded their respective tractors and trailers, and went out to the fields with no outward signs of discontent. But on their arrival at the designated land for picking, people refused to disembark. A spokeswoman, Mai Rudo, conveyed the pickers’ grievance to Clayton and expressed that people would not work until they were given confirmation from Philip that their pay had been raised. Clayton incredulously responded that Philip was away and nothing could be done at the moment. Not persuaded, pickers began singing and dancing in the fields, while Clayton and other foremen stood around awkwardly. At some distance, the pack shed stood silent and its workers idle, while the trailers of several large trucks, parked by the road – representing customers hoping to buy tomatoes and get to markets in Mozambique, Johannesburg, and Durban by the end of the day – remained empty. Underlying the strike was a broken promise from Philip. As indicated, he had told the workers a few weeks earlier that the piece rate for crates of tomatoes would be raised, although he did not specify by how much. Up to that point, pickers were being paid R 1.50 per crate. Since the late 1990s, Philip had increased the rate per crate between ten and twenty cents per season – increases that would take effect in April, usually the first full month of picking. Pickers thus had the expectation that he would raise their wages. Over the

86

Chiefs of the Plantation

period of a month, pickers earned anywhere between R 900 and R 1,500 – strong pickers occasionally earned more than their foremen. However, tomato picking is extremely hard work. Consider how much labour goes into filling a crate of tomatoes. On a typical day, each picker is assigned a row of tomatoes that sprout out from ground-level bushes divided by narrow trenches. After the morning dew has lifted, men and women race, bent over along their rows, furiously filling plastic crates with tomatoes as the sun reaches its zenith. Pickers cannot be indiscriminate in selecting tomatoes, but must focus on particular grades according the day’s orders, or risk having foremen dump their crate without receiving credit for it. When pickers have filled their crates, they hoist the over 45-kg crates onto their shoulders and quickly return them roadside (women carry the crates on top of their heads). If the needed variety is plentiful, a good picker can fill a crate and return it in less than ten minutes. Most pickers average between twenty-five and thirty-five crates per day. The job requires considerable physical strength and determination. Because of the demanding physical nature, many Zimbabweans will defer employment on the plantation until other positions become available, such as weeding, baboon scouting, or trench-digging, which are paid according to a daily rate. To get a better sense of how the strike was organized, I interviewed a senior female picker several weeks after the strike. She explained how the strike was organized in advance. I asked her how people avoided the ever-present threats of “selling” one another to management, and how the strike seemed to catch Clayton by surprise. She replied in hushed tones: “People only discussed the issue in small groups … It started in a group of four people, after we did not see the increase in our pay. These people discussed in secret and then negotiated with other senior men and women to tell their groups that there will be a strike on Monday.” Thus, the strike started as discrete rumblings of discontent. Then the word was passed along privately to other pickers. As she informed me of this, she added, “People are selling one another to the manager. Will you keep these things quiet? You won’t give me problems? People are selling the country.” As with the shouting of “Pamberi ne Zanu” to inspire strikers, her reference to people selling the country (“Vanhu vanotengesa nyika”) conveys how Zimbabwean migrants made use of political discourse associated with zanu–pf to further their cause at the plantation. Paradoxically, most workers I spoke to did not support zanu–pf,

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

87

including the shouter of that slogan. I asked him why he shouted “Pamberi ne Zanu” and he replied, “We just want to appear as if we are going to a rally … it draws comparison to home; people go to rallies even if they are not supporting the party. People are doing different jobs, so it can unite them. They were quickly reminded by it.” Zimbabweans can thus selectively draw on material and symbolic resources given from the past, and put these to different use. They can draw upon zanu–pf’s traditions of resistance to white rule and deploy it on the plantation, even while disassociating themselves from political allegiance to the party in their home country. In this case they are not occupying farms for resettlement, as has occurred in Zimbabwe since 2000, but striking for higher wages on a whiteowned plantation in South Africa. They have, in a sense, adopted flexible political affiliations to suit the conditions of the plantation. Let us return to the events that followed the confrontation in the fields. After Clayton had pleaded with the pickers for several hours, the male pickers returned to work first and were followed by the women more than an hour later. Women whom I spoke with later on claimed that “men were weak” and returned to work first out of fear. Clayton promised the workers that Philip would meet with them the following day to discuss their pay, but they had to continue their work for the day. Revealingly, when Clayton informed Philip of the strike, I heard the latter over the radio give a short reply, saying only, “Clayton, take care of it.” Philip was on his way to town and did not plan to return until much later in the day. His dismissive attitude towards the strike suggests that he did not take it very seriously, perhaps underestimating the resolve of the workers. This resolve was displayed the following day, when the pickers once again refused to work. The pickers had gone to the roll call expecting Philip to address their concerns about the raise. He did not, apparently thinking that the strike issue would be resolved on its own. The pickers elected to strike once again. A similar scene unfolded, in which the pickers were transported out to the fields, and yet they refused to work. All the pickers left the field and sat down beside the Limpopo River. I happened to be in the vicinity of a heated exchange between Clayton and the pickers. The pickers demanded to hear confirmation from Philip about their wages, while Clayton attempted to assuage their concerns and encourage them to return to work. The pickers were seated on the ground, while Mai Rudo continued to act as a spokesperson.

88

Chiefs of the Plantation

The following is a transcript of Clayton talking to striking workers: clayton. Philip can’t talk where there is a lot of people, so you must pick, and afterwards I will call him, and call you, so you can negotiate, like I said this morning. [Clayton had given them this instruction at roll call.] mai rudo. He must come if we are to pick, so we can get the full amount. clayton. That’s true. But you just have to pick, he is not here. mai rudo. He must come and speak to us. clayton. That’s true, he will come. But now he’s busy. … He doesn’t want to speak where there is a lot of people. He will speak to you after we finished picking. I will call him so he can speak with you … I spoke with him and he agreed to raise the price, so if you are now refusing to work, you are playing with his mind. mai rudo. That’s it, my God, if he can come for five minutes that will be excellent. clayton. He is no longer here. He went to Musina. mai rudo. May his wife come? clayton. That’s impossible. … You are just confusing yourself, by the time I will call him, he will come. And if he fails, then the problem will be mine. mai rudo. It can’t be your problem; you are also a child like us. clayton. Why is it that, Mai Rudo, you are the only one speaking while others are silent? mai rudo. We can’t speak at once. clayton. You are now the spokeswoman of all the ladies, because they are silent. mai rudo. We can’t speak together at one time. clayton. Just give me one more day. If he fails to come in the afternoon, or tomorrow morning, you can continue with your strike. Tomorrow you must start it from the workshop. mai rudo. Tomorrow you will come and give us a different story. clayton. It won’t be possible. … You must go and work. If I phone him and inform him you people are no longer interested in working, it will be another story … This will be your last time to come to the field, if he doesn’t come and address you. Stay there at the workshop in the morning if he doesn’t come.

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

89

[Break] clayton. If he fails to come, you will realize I was lying. But I am telling the truth. Most of the time I speak the truth; I am yet to lie to anyone amongst you. Let’s go. … Stand up Mavimba [a long-term male worker, seated on the ground], stand up ladies … let’s go to work. Do you think I can lie to you? [Break] clayton. Now you are giving me problems, but when he comes most of you will be silent; only two or three will speak. Why don’t you save yourself trouble and come to work now? We need to look at the job now. [Women start standing up.] clayton. Get away from behind that tree and let’s go and pick. [Ladies whisper as they walk away: “Why is it that the old men are not able to strike?” The discussion soon turns to picking, choosing rows, and so on.] As can be seen in this interaction between Clayton and the striking pickers, he used a combination of threats and cordial reassurances to win the workers over. On one level, he presented himself as a common worker, joined to the pickers’ cause. They should trust him to relay their concerns and resolve the problem, he suggested, because he could relate to their grievance. However, Mai Rudo cleverly pointed out a contradiction in his approach: the problem could not be resolved without the involvement of Philip, precisely because Clayton is a “child” like them, and without any decision-making power concerning wages. Frustrated that his appeals to shared interests did not lead workers back to the fields, he resorted increasingly to thinly veiled threats such as potential reprisals and efforts to identify spokespeople. On the following day, Philip finally addressed the pickers. Instead of doing so at the general roll call, he chose to have them march up to the office and wait for him there, after other workers had left the vicinity. I gathered from pickers who attended the meeting that he made a few simple remarks. He began his speech by briefly recounting the history of the plantation, how it had built up slowly over the years and how people who had worked hard had been rewarded. He then gave pickers an ultimatum: he offered to raise the price per crate to R 1.70, and those who accepted the new rate could form one line, while those who disagreed could form another. I was told

90

Chiefs of the Plantation

Figure 2.3 Clayton addressing striking workers, near the Limpopo River, Mopane Estates

that no picker stood aside and chose to reject the offer. All pickers returned to work and no one was fired. The tomato picker strike was a success because they received their sought-after raise, and no one was fired. What enabled this success? One factor is that the strike took advantage of the marketing structure of the plantation – it took place during a time of peak demand. The dependency of the plantation on buyers that come directly to the plantation and wait for their product to be loaded creates a bottleneck. If a buyer cannot get tomatoes in a timely fashion, they may choose to leave and buy from another plantation in the vicinity. Pickers clearly recognized their leverage at such moments. Another factor that helped the strike is the setup of the compound. As other studies of migrant labour have noted (e.g., van Onselen 1976; Pun and Smith 2007), the practice of accommodating workers on a production site facilitates flexible labour arrangements and employer surveillance. But workers also have the opportunity to

Tomatoes, Cigarettes, and Piece Rates

91

share information or, in this case, plan collective action. This strike was organized in secret – with senior women playing a leading and coordinating role – such that potential informers did not learn of it in advance. Finally, it was significant that pickers sat down by the Limpopo River on the second day of the strike. This act symbolized a suspension of their commitment to the plantation. They could have remained in the compound, or stayed in the fields, but the striking pickers chose to move to the more interstitial space near the Limpopo River, as though they were prepared to leave the plantation entirely and go back to Zimbabwe if their demands were not met. Inasmuch as the strike can be judged a success, what is also notable is the manner in which it was contained. Workers from other sections of the plantation did not join. That the strike was resolved in a two-day period, and not given the chance to escalate, owes much to Clayton and his deft ability to negotiate with, threaten, and divide the workers. Yet, Clayton was also in his own way compromised in the course of the strike, and had to tread carefully. Women were at the forefront of initiating the strikes and were more persistent in their willingness to hold out for their demands. Women may have added leverage because they are the sexual partners of high-ranking men on the plantation – at least five of the striking women were known to be girlfriends of Clayton’s. Mai Rudo, the erstwhile spokeswoman for the group, had a younger sister in a relationship with Clayton. These connections meant that Clayton could not have too heavy a hand in his efforts to break the strike. Accordingly, in his effort to quell the strike, Clayton elected to call male workers by name (as the transcript above indicates), telling them to “stand up” – as a way of undermining the unity of the group.

c o n c l u s i on This chapter demonstrates how the moral economy of the plantation is rendered fragile by Philip’s attempts to curtail access to tomatoes, restrict the mobility of labour, and limit wage increases. His efforts to reduce these entitlements run up against the alternative moral commitments workers feel with regard to kuvaka musha. The attachment to one’s homestead, and one’s future goals, can propel contestation on the plantation, as most workers feel that Philip’s cost-cutting compromises their deeper commitments to rural homesteads and other projects.

92

Chiefs of the Plantation

At the same time, the struggles over tomato access, labour mobility, and piece rates are best understood not as conservative reactions that attempt to restore a status quo, but rather as “future-oriented” efforts to define entitlements, defend privileges, and acquire new ones (Edelman 2012, 56). In this sense, these forms of contestation are part of an ongoing dialectic between capital and labour, where each seeks to shape the labour regime according to their interests. In the examples discussed here, migrant workers succeed because of strategic weaknesses within the labour regime relating to the spatial context of the plantation and compromised position of delegated rulers. Not all contestation unfolds so successfully for workers. In the next chapter, I explore another example that arose out of the fragile moral economy – the stealing of pesticides. In this case, the transgression goes too far for Philip, and sets off a wider crisis on the plantation.

3 “Their Heart Is Not in the Farm”: Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

In early October, a conflict erupted among workers on the spray team after the morning roll call. After most workers had vacated the workshop area for the fields, the spray team remained in the vicinity awaiting orders for the day. Unexpectedly, a confrontation broke out between Macheso, supervisor of the spray team, and Farai, a senior tractor driver. I heard Macheso shout as he sat on his motorbike a few feet from Farai, “What is your problem, do you want to fight me?” A semicircle of workers from the spray team, usually vocal and expressive in the morning, silently observed. Farai stepped back and responded, “No I can’t fight, you are stronger than me.” As I learned from my research assistant who was also standing nearby, the tense exchange started when Macheso informed Farai that he was being demoted from the spray team and assigned to the loading team. Farai received this news with disbelief and accused Macheso of “telling lies to Philip” for his own personal gain. Though I could not appreciate it at the time, this conflict would have far reaching implications for my research at the plantation. It marked the first in a series of events that revealed extensive chemical stealing and culminated with Philip beating my roommate, Emmanuel, and in my own temporary eviction. Unlike with the stealing of tomatoes, smuggling of cigarettes, and strike explored in the previous chapter, the stealing of pesticides provokes a deeper sense of betrayal and violent reaction from Philip. This difference arises in part from scale. Unlike the more quotidian theft of tomatoes, the chemical theft explored here involved a wellcoordinated network of workers that over the course of multiple seasons cost the plantation over three million rand. Yet, this cost is not

94

Chiefs of the Plantation

by itself exceptional: Heinrik, commenting on how Zimbabweans help themselves to the crop, remarked with some consternation: “Whatever we manage to grow for a season, we have to expect that 50 per cent of the crop will be lost to the blacks.” Even if this figure is an exaggeration, the financial impact of tomato pilfering is thus at least comparable to that of chemical theft. A perhaps more significant difference is the people involved. While the previous examples of contestation involved lower-ranking workers (in the case of smuggling, and in the work stoppage) or the community as a whole (in taking tomatoes), this case involves more senior employees. Most of the participants in chemical stealing are “middle managers,” those who rank a step below the black chiefs, occupying positions such as drivers, security guards, and those responsible for the storeroom and scouting for pests. It is important to consider these roles because, unlike the majority of casual workers at the bottom of the hierarchy, such people may have a direct relationship with Philip and be in a better position to benefit from his beneficence. Yet, while their elevated position grants them access to valuable resources, they do not benefit enough from the labour regime to preclude them from illicit activity. Nor are they senior enough to escape extreme sanction. This chapter thus provides a different angle from which to view the fragility of the moral economy. The focal point now shifts to tensions between middle-ranking workers and the white management. This chapter focuses on Arthur and Emmanuel – the two brothers with whom I shared a room in the compound – and their relationship with Philip. I first describe how Arthur, in his position as scout, tries to limit the impact of pesticide stealing on the plantation, without revealing the full truth of the stealing to Philip. His reluctance shows how casualization of the labour force creates for him a sense of personal insecurity. Next, I describe another possible reason for his reluctance to tell Philip the truth about the stealing: his frustration over the lack of a financial bonus. His anger – and the similar position of his brother, Emmanuel – signals how stark inequality on the plantation places limits on their identification with the plantation as a collective enterprise. In subsequent sections, I examine how Philip’s beating of workers leads Arthur to break away entirely. Finally, the manner in which my ethnography was implicated in this controversy further emphasizes the instability of labour relations on the plantation, as I could not avoid becoming entangled in a labour conflict.

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

95

c as ua l iz at io n a nd i nsecuri ty On the day of the altercation between Macheso and Farai, it was not until nightfall that I grasped the significance of the conflict. During the evening I attended a worship service on the outskirts of the plantation with my roommate Arthur, and as we walked back towards the compound I asked him about the fight. I knew he would have some insight, because as the plantation scout he worked closely with the spray team to identify areas that needed pesticides. He responded in hushed tones, indicating sensitivity towards the matter under discussion. “We are having a problem at this farm,” he whispered. “You cannot tell anyone, or I will have to leave this place.” He explained that for months he and Macheso had been directing the spray team to target specific pests, but nothing was happening. Suspecting that chemicals were being stolen, he started to ask around the compound to try and find who was responsible. His investigations led him to someone in Madongini who was storing chemicals in his room. “Someone came to me, and he showed me the mushonga (pesticides) that was being stored in his room. I cannot tell you his name, but now we have evidence.” He suspected that many other people were storing chemicals in their rooms or in hiding places in the bush. He went on to indict Farai as ultimately responsible for the stealing because “he is supervising the team during the night,” especially when Macheso (the formal supervisor of the spray team) is unavailable. Arthur also claimed that “the whole spray team is involved or at least knows about it.” Yet, no one would report the issue to Philip because, in Arthur’s terms, “it is not worth selling out.” Seeking to end the stealing without revealing the full scope of the problem to Philip, Arthur and Macheso advised Philip to remove Farai from his position because of lax discipline: “We had an opportunity to punish Farai because he has committed other infractions, like knocking off too early before the work is done. So we told Philip about him leaving work too early, and then Philip demoted him to the loading team.” As I furiously scrawled Arthur’s testimony in my notebook by the light of the moon, I sensed the conflicted position he was in. As the scout, he was responsible for identifying pests on the crop and ensuring that the spray team was given the proper orders. If pest activity went unchecked – because instead of spraying the chemicals,

96

Chiefs of the Plantation

members of the spray team were taking the chemicals for themselves – he would be held accountable by Philip. Arthur knew that chemicals he ordered to be sprayed were being stolen, but he felt he could not report this information to Philip. I asked him why it was “not worth selling out,” why he could not simply tell Philip about the stealing. Pausing for a moment, he stated, “It is only that I fear for my security. I want to be faithful to boss Philip, but he cannot do anything to protect me.” He speculated that if he did “sell out” the whole spray team, members of that group would ambush him on one of the paydays and take all his money. For this reason, he says he could only “drop the truth bit by bit,” because “if it is all at once they will be frightened.” Caught between the ire of Philip and the potential retribution of the spray team, Arthur balanced these concerns by – in collaboration with Macheso – targeting Farai and thereby, he hoped, “sending a message” to others involved in stealing. His quiet and nervous manner as he shared his thoughts, stating “I am scared that I told you and if possible you should not talk about this, because if it leaks…” testified to the high stakes involved. If Philip learned about the chemical stealing, Arthur could be punished for not reporting the matter sooner. Yet, the spray team might also confront him if they learned about his role in ousting Farai. Arthur’s dilemma conveys how the casualization of labour on the plantation compromises Philip’s social connection to the workforce. As discussed in previous chapters, the dependence of the labour regime on a mostly transient and Shona-speaking workforce fosters social distance between Philip and the majority of workers. One implication of this social distance is that workers feel insecure in the compound. The thinly regulated nature of the compound means that physical violence can go unchecked. During my residence there I witnessed numerous physical altercations, most often over unsettled debts or accusations of adultery. Clayton, the nominal authority, would occasionally intervene in these disputes if they were overly disruptive, but for the most part he held a laissez-faire attitude. As in Philip’s case, Clayton’s was constrained by logistical challenges – the population of the compound was too large, and the workforce too mobile, for him to know about or intervene in every dispute. However, his reluctance was also due to the fact that he himself was an active participant in the sexual economy of the compound, and therefore was often embroiled in the tensions that arose between men and women who were married or cohabiting (see chapter 4).

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

97

Arthur’s fear, then, about other workers beating him on payday and taking all of his money, was well founded. While all plantation workers on Mopane Estates are subject to this personal insecurity, for middle managers like Arthur it represents a particular problem. Unlike workers lower down the hierarchy, Arthur would be held accountable if there was a major pest outbreak. This places him in a conflict of interest with those stealing chemicals. In studies of more thoroughgoing forms of paternalism on farms and plantations (Genovese 1972; Du Toit 1993; Gibbon, Daviron, and Barral 2014), passing on information to the employer is a way to achieve upward mobility. But in this setting, Arthur cannot share his knowledge of the stealing because he feels that Philip is unable to protect him in the aftermath. Despite his reluctance to inform, Arthur’s aspiration to be “faithful” to Philip was nevertheless sincere. A four-year veteran of Mopane Estates, Arthur had over the years built what appeared to be a strong relationship with Philip. He had earned his present position as the scout after working for two seasons as a tomato picker and menial labourer, until he impressed Philip with his work ethic and command of English. As the scout, Arthur was among a select few workers who met with Philip on an almost daily basis to discuss the prevalence of given pests and diseases. In addition to his connection to Philip through work, Arthur’s evangelical Christianity encouraged close ties. In 2006, his first year at the plantation, Arthur founded the Interdenominational Worship group (known locally as Inter-D, see chapter 5), an endeavour for which Philip expressed support. In 2008, Arthur and his brother Emmanuel were among twelve workers chosen by Philip to travel to a Christian revival conference in KwaZulu-Natal. Philip provided transportation in one of the plantation trucks. Since Arthur started working at Mopane Estates, at the end of each season Philip would write a letter addressed to the pastor of Arthur’s church in Zimbabwe, explaining how Arthur had been a good Christian and followed good behaviour. Given his close relationship with Philip, Arthur may have underestimated Philip`s willingness to protect him. But as I later learned, Arthur had other grievances that may have discouraged him from sharing the whole truth of the pesticide stealing with Philip.

98

Chiefs of the Plantation

s e g m e n tat io n a n d frustrati on Several weeks after Arthur revealed to me the practice of chemical stealing, the issue unexpectedly resurfaced. It emerged in the course of Arthur trying to secure a bonus on top of his regular pay. Similar to his effort to protect Philip from the stealing, his manner of appealing to Philip for a bonus revealed paternalistic attachment. Yet, his frustration and even jealousy towards the chiefs who received relatively high bonuses contributed to his decision to withhold information regarding the stealing. While Arthur prepared to return to his homestead in Zimbabwe in early December – the picking season had ended and his scouting duties were no longer required – he expressed anger that he would likely not get a bonus: “Others, they always get bonuses, but what about me? Philip always forgets.” He spoke of it with some bitterness. “I run around the fields for Philip, but he gives me nothing all these years.” His frustration was understandable. As discussed in chapter 1, the group of chiefs are given additional income at the end of the season if they meet or exceed production targets. This contributes to deep inequality between low- and middle-ranking workers on the one hand, and the core group of chiefs on the other. The latter figures enjoy enormous privileges relative to other workers, not simply higher wages. The chiefs enjoy many opportunities to increase their income through their control of the informal economy on the plantation, or their opportunity to receive bribes. The wide gap between the chiefs and the majority stands in stark contrast to historical trends in South Africa, where internal inequality among the nonwhite workforce was often less pronounced (Du Toit 1993). After discussing his frustration with me on several occasions, Arthur eventually decided to appeal to Philip directly. In the past, he had raised issues with Philip in a letter, because “otherwise he will not let you finish talking” he claimed. The matter had to be handled with some delicacy, as appealing directly to Philip contravened the plantation hierarchy – normally any complaint had to be addressed to through Clayton, the most senior chief. Eventually, Arthur composed a letter and shared it with me – even allowing me to make a copy of it. He used biblical references to open the letter: Like what King Hezekiah did after the Lord sent Isaiah to say to him “set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.”

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

99

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed, saying “remember now, o Lord, I beseech you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight.” In the same way, Your Excellency, I turn my face to the wall which is writing a letter, To say please, your excellency, remember now how I have walked before you since 2006 in truth and with a whole heart … I never ran away from Mopane Estates since I started to work here and trying within the frailties and limitations of being human to do the best in the world of scouting. I have been trying to be everywhere in 160 ha in order to give the best security. I can’t remember the day I came to your office to sign a warning after disturbing peace in the compound. Now what I don’t know is the reason why I am not getting a bonus, as one of your top structure as you once said I am. Remember the former scouter before me? What were you doing for him? Your Excellency, I am ready to come to your office and answer for the cost I that I am negatively affecting Mopane Estates in its journey along the line. If the coming in of worms here and there is my responsibility then together we can discuss the way I can raise my standards to meet your will, but I can ask maybe this one question. I can’t forget what you mean to my life. For I have built my foundation on you. I have learned a lot from you and I am still learning, so your worth is very dear in my regards. In this letter, Arthur positioned himself as Hezekiah, and Philip as God. He used this framing to remind Philip that he has observed good behaviour on the plantation. He also pointed out an inconsistency: that a previous scout received a higher bonus. Similar to his statement above about “others always getting bonuses,” Arthur felt entitled to a higher income. In effect, he appealed to be treated in the same way as the other “top structure” figures on the plantation, and to be given a significant payout. Arthur submitted the letter to Philip but did not hear from him for over a week, so eventually he decided to approach Philip directly in his office. Returning to our room in the compound afterwards, he was unsatisfied with the outcome of the encounter. As he reported to me, when he asked Philip directly whether he would receive a bonus, Philip dodged the issue by elaborating on the example of Bill Gates: “He [Philip] said successful people start small, exercise patience

100

Chiefs of the Plantation

before rewards come.” He told me that their conversation took an awkward turn when Philip remarked, “We give bonuses after seeing results,” alluding to the exceptionally large outbreak of pests on the tomatoes that Arthur’s scouting had failed, thus far, to counteract. Arthur defended himself by saying that his job was only to report the pests, not apply chemicals. But at this point Philip interjected, “I know we have one or two guys stealing chemicals.” Although Philip was probably pressuring Arthur to reveal any knowledge he had about stealing, Arthur pleaded ignorance. He advised Philip to “shift people” (i.e. rotate employees) if that is what he thought was happening. Yet, the meeting ended with a seeming affirmation of paternalistic understanding. Philip stated, “Thank you for coming. We will only get answers to our problems when we come together.” Arthur responded: “I respect you. I do not want to create problems for the goose that lays the golden egg. I will not run away. If I find greener pastures, I will first come and thank you for helping me build my foundation.” The exchange seemed to confirm mutual goodwill, even if Philip’s mentioning of the chemical stealing cast a shadow. But Arthur was not overly excited about the possibility of receiving a bonus: “Otherwise, according to what he said, I will get something. But he is cheap.” His comment was prescient: Arthur did end up receiving a R 500 bonus on his last pay for the month. This was a far cry from the multiple thousands paid out to the managers, and it did little to assuage his nagging frustration about low pay. However disgruntled Arthur remained, as he left the plantation in early December he could have no idea of the plans afoot to counteract stealing at the plantation, and how these would radically alter his future.

t h e ro l e o f e m manuel In mid-December when practically all workers returned to Zimbabwe, I travelled to a village in southern Zimbabwe that is home to most workers on Mopane Estates. As I visited the homestead of one worker with whom I had a close relationship, he gestured towards a white container and said, “This is Selecron chemical, from the farm.” Selecron was one of the primary pesticides used on Mopane Estates. The informant said he needed it to treat his cattle for ticks. I asked him how he obtained it. He recounted how he scoured the compound for several weeks, trying to find the

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

101

best prices among chemicals being sold by different people. He mentioned that Emmanuel, Arthur’s brother and my other roommate in the compound, was among those selling the stolen chemicals. He also explained how the chemicals were actually taken directly from the workshop, involving more people than just the spray team, as Arthur had initially suggested. He said the chemicals were placed inside the water tanks on tractors while the vehicles were still inside the workshop gate, so security would not notice the material leaving. Still, some security guards were bribed to go along with the practice. As it turned out, Emmanuel played a crucial role. As the workshop store man, he was supposed to keep a record of all chemicals that left the workshop. However, he was often giving the pesticides to workers on the spray team without recording it. The revelation of Emmanuel’s involvement did not surprise me. He often complained about Philip. In one moment of frustration, he worried about his exposure to pesticides: “To work with those chemicals, to be affected by them is worse than a lifetime smoker … And after all that, he gives you little money, and tells you he gives you a ‘fat salary!’” His decision to steal chemicals was therefore not a startling revelation. More surprising, perhaps, was that he managed to conceal his role from his brother. But given Arthur’s close relations with Philip, his interest in keeping his role a secret made sense. Emmanuel likely calculated that keeping Arthur uninformed was best – it would protect Arthur from Philip by not putting him in a position where he would need to lie. In sum, Emmanuel’s anger about being underpaid resembled Arthur’s frustration over bonuses. Their grievances were aggravated by the wide gap between their income and that of the managerial group. While other low-ranking workers could have expressed similar feelings about inequality, few could have felt that injustice as keenly as Arthur and Emmanuel – both of whom had worked on the plantation for nearly five years, and who performed jobs that entailed high risk and responsibility. This illustrates how the internal segmentation of the labour force can contribute more acutely to the grievances of middle-ranking figures than to others in the plantation hierarchy. Arthur and Emmanuel can be understood as intercalary figures, in the sense associated with the Manchester School (Werbner 1984). In studies of mines and farms in Southern Africa, the intercalary is usually identified as the person who serves as the interface between a white employer and black workforce (Epstein 1958; Bolt 2016b).

102

Chiefs of the Plantation

But in this highly discordant moral economy, the tensions within the hierarchy come to rest just as centrally, if not more so, upon middle-ranking figures. These figures are incorporated just enough to have access to things like chemicals or sensitive information, but not enough to overcome their own grievances. While Philip tolerates the transgressions of chiefs, no such leniency applies for middle-ranking workers, as Philip’s violent response attests.

pat e r n a l is m a n d vi olence In early February, I returned to the compound after a trip to Musina, to a rapidly developing situation. Months had passed since I last discussed chemical stealing with anyone and I had almost forgotten about the issue. My car stocked full of groceries, I expected to be greeted warmly by Arthur and Emmanuel. As I pulled up near our room, Arthur was absorbed in washing his clothes, aggressively rubbing them together to remove stains. Emmanuel was nowhere to be seen. I greeted Arthur but he turned to me, eyes downcast and visibly shaken: “Lincoln, something terrible has happened. Emmanuel has been arrested. He was beaten in the office by Philip this morning. The police have taken him, Onsen [a workshop assistant], Munyaradzi [a tractor driver and worker on the spray team], and Chomo [a security guard] to jail for stealing chemicals.” Arthur went on to explain how he witnessed Philip beating his brother and the other workers. In the morning, Clayton had summoned Arthur to the office. When he arrived, he saw his brother, Emmanuel, and three other workers being beaten by Philip: “I saw boss Philip at the office, he was very cross. Just before I started to realize what was happening, I saw Emmanuel sitting in one of the chairs. His eyes were swollen and bruised. Philip shouted at Onsen, ‘You are stealing mushonga!’1 And he started beating him with a fist. He was beaten in my presence.” As Arthur explained, the interrogation went on for over an hour. At one point Philip accused Arthur of knowing about the stealing but not informing him. He shouted at Arthur, “Do you know your brother is a criminal?!” but did not beat him. Arthur again denied any knowledge of the stealing. Eventually, Emmanuel and the other workers confessed to the stealing, and began apologizing to Philip. The police arrived and Emmanuel and three other workers were arrested and taken away to a jail in Musina.

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

103

As he further recounted, Arthur then apologized to Philip and offered to quit: “I’m sorry about this, I know I no longer have a good name at this farm. A continuous song will be made of the fact that I’m guilty, and as a consequence, I will resign.” But Philip replied, apparently more composed after witnessing the accused workers driven away by the police, “No Arthur, you were not part of the deal.” But by that time, Arthur had started to cry and left for the compound, with Philip stating they would talk later. The manner in which Philip punished the accused workers suggested that he holds wide latitude for the use of force. In the course of being beaten, the workers were submissive. They accepted being punched and kicked with no active resistance. Reflecting on this fact, Arthur commented: “He is a small man, but if you understand you are guilty you cannot return fire.” Chomo, a security guard accused of colluding in the stealing, was ordered to strip off his uniform near the workshop, and walk approximately 100 metres to the office in his underwear, where he was beaten alongside Emmanuel, Onsen, and Munyaradzi. The fact that Philip was able to have the police arrest the workers and deliver them to jail, even after they had seen their bruised bodies, is reminiscent of apartheid-era paternalism, when police and state authorities allowed white farmers to act with relative impunity. Yet upon closer examination, Philip’s use of violence also reveals important changes in the way violence manifests on plantations today. The fact that he conducted the beatings within the relative privacy of his office environs contrasts with the practice of punishing workers during slavery and apartheid. In those contexts, beating workers was a more open performance and had broadly accepted rules governing its application (van Onselen 1992). Philip’s reluctance to beat the workers publicly may reflect Bolt’s (2016a) analysis of a different border plantation west of Musina, in which he argues that white landowners have distanced themselves from violence, as part of their efforts to project a “professional’ image for labour and Global Gap inspectors. Physical violence remains a necessary part of labour control, but the agents who carry it out are senior black foremen and South African soldiers, who work in close collaboration with the plantation owner. Yet, conditions on Mopane Estates are different. Unlike the senior foreman in Bolt’s case, the primary black manager at Mopane is Zimbabwean. As indicated, many of the workers come from his home area in Zimbabwe, making it

104

Chiefs of the Plantation

difficult for him to inflict violence. Moreover, as a relatively new plantation, located along the more remote eastern border, a pattern of close cooperation between soldiers and white farmers has yet to materialize on Mopane Estates. Thus, while in the post-apartheid setting plantation owners feel less confident in their use of violence, Philip’s beating of the accused worker demonstrates how the locus of disciplinary violence can remain with them. As his sense of betrayal suggests, Philip feels justified in beating the workers because he believes he has been treating them well. This coincides with van Onselen’s (1992) insight that the care and intimacy of paternalistic relations make violence possible. But in the context of the discordant moral economy on Mopane Estates, Philip continues to feel justified in the use of violence, even as others responded more ambivalently. This ambivalence became apparent in the aftermath of the beatings as the white managers responded.

w h it e m a n ag e r ial response After my meeting with Arthur, I walked around the plantation, and had a series of encounters with white managers. The white mechanic Logan drove by and, upon seeing me, screeched to halt and called me over to his truck. By this time in my fieldwork, I had established considerable rapport with Logan; many times I dined with him and his wife, Dolores, at their home. He must have been keen to see me, as Emmanuel was known to be one of my closest friends. A grizzled man in his early 50s, his normally jovial attitude was instead reflective, even resigned. Allowing his truck to idle, he leaned out the window and spoke with concern: “Lincoln, did you hear about the guys stealing the poisons? Unbelievable. I don’t understand it … those were good okes [guys]. No, I can handle almost anything. I’ve done a lot of crap, but stealing’s not one of them. If a guy’s got a problem and needs money, I have no problem giving it to him. But I cannot stand for stealing. Stealing is out, if you’ve got to steal, you’ve gone down the wrong path. You know, the guy I like is Tapiwa. There’s a guy who is hard working; if he wants something, he asks for it. And I always try to help a man. If he needs a shirt, I will fetch it for him, go up to my house and get it for him myself. But if I catch a guy stealing, that’s it. I draw the line there. I don’t know why I do, but I suppose I draw it.” It was significant that as Logan condemned the stealing, he felt it necessary to hold up Tapiwa as an example of a good worker. His

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

105

comments suggested an ongoing faith in the plantation – that workers should espouse a strong work ethic and positive attitude even in the context of low wages and arduous labour. Logan felt that Tapiwa, a long-time irrigation worker at the plantation, personified this ideal Zimbabwean worker. The revelation that workers he considered “good okes” were involved in stealing clearly disturbed him. In his view, they should be patient for incremental wage increases and, if needed, ask for charitable assistance in the meantime. Those who steal have chosen a morally degenerate path and deserve little sympathy. Logan’s wife, the office manager Dolores, was also seated in the truck. She felt it necessary to share her views. She started by filling me in on how the workers were actually caught. According to her, Philip had suspected the stealing for some time, having learned about it from informers. He eventually coordinated a “sting operation” with the police. An undercover agent – posing as a prospective buyer of pesticides – made contact with a member of the spray team, Sibanda, when they were in town on an off day. Sibanda agreed to sell him the product. When Sibanda brought the chemicals to Musina the following week, he met the undercover agent at a taxi rank and was promptly arrested. Under interrogation by Philip and the police, he gave the names of everyone involved. Sibanda also informed Philip of other kinds of infractions taking place on the plantation – including Clayton’s practice of stealing tomatoes, and allowing his girlfriends to be marked “present” in the roll call book, even when they were gone for the day. Dolores then conveyed a palpable sense of disappointment: “I just can’t believe they stole. It is so sad. Every time I passed Onsen, we used to clap hands. It is very disappointing that they felt they should subsidize their income in this way. What they were getting selling the stuff was a month’s wages in one day … I don’t know what to think. Over the last two weeks, Chomo had changed. He became demotivated. I noticed him lying around … He went from being a happy person to someone who never smiles … My heart is sore. I loved those guys. The fact that they felt it necessary to steal, I don’t understand it. They never stole from me … I felt they didn’t make any difference just because I was white.” Dolores’ reaction underscores the general picture of a discordant moral economy, in which whites continue to think of the plantation as a common enterprise, even in the aftermath of transgression. Their belief in the essential legitimacy of the plantation

106

Chiefs of the Plantation

produces what Genovese and Genovese (2011) call, in the context of slaveholders in the Antebellum South, “self-deception.” That is, the paternalistic self-identity of whites – their sense of themselves as responsible providers – fosters naïveté regarding how the labour regime contributes to feelings of injustice among many workers. In the immediate aftermath of Philip’s beating of the workers, Logan and Dolores emphasize the violation committed by black workers, seemingly unconcerned about Philip’s use of violence. Heinrik conveyed a different view. As I walked back to the compound, he confronted me on the roadside. Heinrik was similarly perturbed by the events, but unlike Logan and Dolores, his first comment was that he was “unhappy” with Philip’s violent reaction. I encouraged elaboration by saying, “Philip must have been very angry.” He replied with sudden vigour: “Of course, four million rand! And it’s been going like this for four or five years!” While he thus sympathized with Philip, he still seemed shaken. He described having to physically constrain Philip during the beating: “You know, today I had to step in front of him, to hold him back, and shout at him, ‘Philip, just stay calm!’ I had to tell him that. He was rushing at the guys.” Shaking his head, he continued: “He’s not handling it well. The problem there is love of money. Philip says he is a believer, a real Christian, but he’s got that problem.” Heinrik thus questioned Philip’s response, even as he did not support those accused of theft. His sense of what constituted proper punishment was out of step with Philip’s, leading him to critique Philip for being “greedy” and un-Christian. Yet, despite this critique, his objection only went so far. Heinrik did not raise his difference with Philip again, nor did he come to the aid of affected workers in any way. Despite Heinrik’s ambivalence over the beating, the white community represented a common front in the aftermath of the incident, in which they stood united in their condemnation of the stealing, and broadly tolerant of Philip’s violence. But it remained to be seen how Philip would deal with Clayton. As his most trusted “chief,” Philip depended on Clayton for the smooth running of the plantation, and to prevent serious theft like what had come to light. Given his responsibility over the day-to-day operations, and his own network of informers, Clayton must have known about the practice of stealing pesticides. Furthermore, under interrogation, Sibanda had revealed more of Clayton’s illicit activities, the full extent of which Philip may have been unaware. How would Philip respond?

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

107

p h il ip s h u n s clayton The following morning at the roll call, Philip publicly rebuked Clayton. Upon his arrival at the workshop, Philip leapt out of his pickup truck and rushed up to the podium. In a decisive utterance, he indicated for Malvin, a senior foreman for the tomato pickers, to stand alongside him and translate his message to the hundreds of people standing around. The disavowal of Clayton, his usual translator, signalled Philip’s disapproval. After a quick prayer by Malvin, Philip began a long narrative, pausing at times to allow Malvin to translate: “I want to talk to these people about what has been happening for a few years on this farm. I will talk first about what happened last week. We had a store man here that I trusted, his name was Emmanuel. We had a security here at the gate, named Chomo. We had a driver named Sibanda. These guys had a deal here: Emmanuel would take out mushonga from the stores, and he was helped by Onsen. They would wait until lunchtime, when everyone is out of the shed area. Then they would put that mushonga in a checker bag, they would come to the gate where the security is, and the security would say, ‘no problem.’” As he mentioned the words “no problem,” he slapped his hands together and then waved a hand through the air, as though to emphasize the severity of the matter under discussion. He recounted how the mushonga was given to Sibanda, who tried to sell it in town, but was then arrested, and how the latter “told us everything that was happening on the farm.” He then discussed various infractions that had come to light, such as people being marked present at the roll call even though they were not showing up for work. He indirectly implicated Clayton in this practice: “Many girlfriends are getting marked present, sent to town in a private bakkie of someone who is in a high position at the farm, then getting paid for being at work, when in fact they were absent.” Philip thus publicly rebuked Clayton, but interestingly did not actually say his name. His disapproval of Clayton thus only went so far. Through the use of Malvin as translator, Philip perhaps sought to demonstrate his independence from Clayton – to show that even the latter could be demoted or fired from the plantation. For the entirety of the roll call, Clayton did not stand on the workshop podium, but stood a few metres off to the side with other foremen, in a sulking posture. Ultimately, however, this was only a temporary shunning of Clayton – he returned to his usual “head” position alongside Philip the following morning, and remained there from then on.

108

Chiefs of the Plantation

Sounding like a disappointed father, Philip’s speech then took on a more personal tone: “It makes my heart sore because I thought that I was looking after people well … The thing is people think that when the farm is selling the tomatoes, all that money is going to my pocket … They forget that each season we’ve got nearly 600 people to pay, each and every one of them gets given money. They forget about the diesel that I have to pay, they forget about the electricity and power I have to pay … they forget about all those things I have to pay. Most of the money is going to pay costs. When something is left over, we buy a new tractor, or buy a new pipe, we buy new pumps, things like that, to make the farm grow bigger. But the problem is that people – their heart is not in the farm.” In an otherwise vindictive and aggressive speech, Philip’s invocation of the “heart” struck a different chord. It revealed how the stealing incident caught him by surprise, and may have wounded him emotionally. His reaction underscored an ongoing commitment to a paternalistic ethic, even as he felt that commitment to be unrequited. Yet, his evident consternation also demonstrated – as with the other whites on the plantation – a failure to appreciate the complexity of factors that prevented workers from placing their “heart” in the plantation. Philip remained oblivious about how his own violent response to the stealing further alienated him from much of the workforce – particularly from Arthur.

a rt h u r b r e a ks away Arthur’s initial reaction to Emmanuel being beaten was one of shock and sadness. After the roll call the next day, his attitude had shifted to anger. Seated together in our room in the compound, he said, “I am wondering what to do to support my brother. My blood is thicker than water. Right now I want him out of there.” Arthur was committed to helping Emmanuel get out of jail. I told him I would do whatever I could to help him, without appearing to be in conflict with Philip. I offered to transport him to Musina and connect him with a legal advocate I knew. Arthur replied positively: “Lincoln, this is why you are here.” That morning, I drove Arthur to Musina to see Emmanuel in jail and inquire about legal charges against Philip. We were able to see Emmanuel for a few minutes during visiting hours. His face was swollen, his eyes were blood shot, and he was not completing

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

109

sentences. Arthur told Emmanuel that he was going to press charges against Philip. Emmanuel hesitated and disagreed. Our visit was broken up by the guards. Reflecting on why Emmanuel did not want press charges, Arthur stated, “He is not thinking straight.” We then met my contact who runs a legal advice office in town, and regularly assists Zimbabwean migrants. He arranged a meeting for us with the police commander. The commander stated that when Emmanuel and the others were brought in the previous day, he asked them if they had been beaten, but they denied it. To this, Arthur responded, “They are hoping they will be forgiven by Philip.” The police informed us that they would be taken to court the following day for sentencing. Why would the workers deny their beating? Their effort to protect Philip appeared to stem less from a sense of loyalty, and more from a sense of self-preservation. By denying that Philip beat them, the workers hoped they would be able to return to their jobs. The alternative would be to face deportation to Zimbabwe, or perhaps face extended jail time. Their only choice, as they perceived it, was to be forgiven by Philip, in the hopes that he would change his mind and hire them back. The situation thus reflected their dependency on Philip, as insecure migrants, and not so much heartfelt commitment to the plantation. Philip’s violence became for Arthur a source of moral outrage. As we left the station and drove back to Mopane Estates, Arthur expressed disgust: “The boss beats people. But I’m going to tell Philip, what he is doing is not good at all.” He announced that upon our return, he would confront Philip at his house. As we approached the plantation, I dropped Arthur off some distance from the property, so he could approach Philip’s house alone. I did not see Arthur until after his meeting with Philip. As he recollected to me, Philip initially told him to go away because it was after working hours. But Arthur insisted, saying, “No, the problem is that Emmanuel’s face is swollen, and I have gone to the police – if he is going to serve his sentence, the time must be reduced.” Philip then slammed the door in Arthur’s face, saying, “Tomorrow you can come and pick up your money.” Whatever paternalistic bonds once existed between Arthur and Philip were broken. By saying “you can pick up your money,” Philip effectively fired Arthur. Yet, even in the aftermath of this confrontation, Arthur’s position on the plantation was not as tenuous as

110

Chiefs of the Plantation

it might seem. The wider community of workers in the compound did not ostracize him. Although other residents knew there was growing animosity between him and Philip, they sympathized with Arthur and the workers who were beaten. In the aftermath of the beating, several visitors to our room inquired sympathetically about how Emmanuel was doing, and expressed disagreement with Philip’s behaviour. My research assistant, Blessing, conveyed to me the pulse of the community: “The people are saying it is long since we have seen him beat people – they don’t agree with it.” The sympathy extended towards Arthur, even as he fell out of favour with Philip, differs from examples of other farms and plantations, in which the commitment of workers to the employer often led them to shun someone in Arthur’s position. Denunciation by Philip did not translate into “outsider status” for Arthur in the community (see Du Toit 1993). Of course, while workers expressed genuine sympathy towards Arthur, it only went so far. No one engaged in any sort of “solidarity action” to demonstrate their objection to Philip. The following day, I drove Arthur back to Musina so he could attend the court hearing for the arrested workers. I elected not to attend with him, suspecting that Philip might be there. Later, Arthur contacted me by phone, notifying me that all the workers were released without charges. Each had only to pay a processing fee. According to Arthur, the black judge had sympathized with the Zimbabweans, who saw them as victims of white racism and, having witnessed their bruises, was inclined to free them. Philip did not show up. The judge may have taken into account that no one had charged Philip with assault, and so the workers deserved to be set free. When I met Arthur in town to bring him back to the plantation, the released men had already dispersed. Arthur decided not press formal charges against Philip, guessing that his efforts would probably “accomplish nothing.” “My victory,” he said, “was freeing the guys from prison.” The following day, Arthur left the plantation for Johannesburg to seek alternative employment.

e v ic t in g t h e e t hnographer The following morning I learned of a troubling rumour that many people believed I was responsible for freeing the men from jail. The plantation was abuzz with news that the men had been released. The news had arrived yesterday – apparently some of the released men

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

111

had visited the compound during the evening to retrieve possessions. Blessing informed me that most workers believed that I had somehow arranged their release, either by paying their fine or hiring a lawyer. During lunch hour, I was visited by Fainos, the chief security guard, who told me that Philip wished to see me. When I arrived at the office, I was stunned by a hostile reception. Dolores, seated at her desk, turned and glared at me when I entered the office. She spoke with indignation: “I got reprimanded this morning. Philip was angry with me for giving you information, saying that I made a breach of confidentiality, by telling you how the guys were caught stealing. He says, ‘Lincoln is good friends with these people and so we have to keep quiet.’” She nodded her head as she spoke, as though she agreed with Philip’s interpretation. Logan, who stood silently off to the side, avoiding greeting me, just raised his eyebrows when I looked at him, as though trying to convey the gravity of Dolores’ remarks. She continued in a less offensive, but still agitated, tone: “Now I’ve told Philip that I invited you and your wife to stay in our house in May, and he says ‘I don’t think so.’ He says he doesn’t want you back at the farm.” Several weeks prior, Dolores had agreed to accommodate my wife and me in May, when my wife would be visiting from the United States. It was unfathomable to Dolores (and other whites on the plantation) that my wife and I would stay in the compound together. I attempted damage control in response to her comments: “Oh, that’s terrible. I need to speak with him.” Logan muttered in the background, “Yes, to straighten him out.” I began to detect a measure of empathy in his remark. Heinrik then entered the office and, upon seeing me, stated abruptly, “I’m not saying anything,” and then stepped slowly towards me, as though unsure what to make of me. Heinrik had witnessed Philip rebuke Dolores for talking with me, and so exercised caution. I tried to level with him: “I don’t know what is going on. I’m trying to meet with Philip to clear my name.” Heinrik said, “Yes, there is much talking, they’re even saying you paid the bail.” I replied, “These are lies … I just hope he gives me a chance to explain.” Heinrik responded supportively: “Yes, you can’t just leave, you have your work to do.” In the course of this interaction, I felt the hostility softening, as though Dolores, Logan, and Heinrik were gradually becoming more sympathetic. Perhaps in my absence, the rumours of my collaboration with the arrested men seemed plausible and

112

Chiefs of the Plantation

compelling, but when I was physically present in front of them they felt aligned to my interests. In the depth of my uncertainty, Philip finally appeared in his truck outside the office. He approached and asked me to accompany him into his office. Sitting across from me at a long table, he spoke coldly: “Let me start just by telling you the magnitude of the syndicate that has been operating here. In one month, the farm could lose R 100,000 easily … and we know that this was going on for three or four years.” I replied, “Yes, it’s terrible.” As we talked, I felt the tension in the room lessen, sensing that Philip was becoming less stern and more conciliatory. For a moment, it was as though he was confessing his sins: “So when I first heard it, I was filled with this uncontrollable rage. I feel bad about it, until last night when I finally gave myself up to the Holy Spirit and let it go. But when I first heard about the stealing, the rage was so bad, that when I saw Emmanuel I hit him.” Yet, whatever optimism I was beginning to feel was quickly dispelled with Philip’s next remarks: “I know it’s wrong, but for these primitive people, sometimes that’s the only language they understand. At first he was denying it, saying ‘no, no,’ but after I hit him, he confessed to it. Now the problem with Arthur is that he is bluffing with me, saying that he will charge me for hitting his brother. But that’s small in comparison to what they did. The one is a minor charge. Now I am trying by all means to have these guys arrested. There is a problem in our justice system. Now all of this involves you because you were friends with these guys, you were eating together, sharing a room…” At this point in his narrative, I felt compelled to interrupt. This was my last I chance, I reasoned, to salvage my fieldwork and prevent my eviction from Mopane Estates. Looking him in the eye, I spoke quickly but firmly: “Yes, and let me interject, just to set the record straight. I am not involved with the stealing in any way … I feel like my reputation at the farm is being ruined by this.” A moment of silence followed my plea, and Philip nodded his head while I spoke. He replied slowly, with a sympathetic tone: “So, just because of this, I feel we have a conflict of interest, and I think it is best if you put your studies on hold. Why don’t we say that you come back and see us in a few months, when your wife is here, and we will go from there?” I then collected my few belongings from the compound and did not return to the plantation for over a month. Reflecting on this interaction, it was significant that Philip felt he had to explain why he beat the workers. On one level he acknowledged

Middle Managers as Sources of Instability

113

that the beating was wrong, but his comment about “primitive people” showed his sense of justification. Black workers were, in his view, essentially children who require violent forms of punishment in order to, in this case, extract the truth from them. This was not just a racist comment, but showed how Philip saw the plantation as his personal fiefdom, where he was entitled to commit violence.

c o n c l u s i on This chapter has argued that middle managers represent particular sources of instability on the plantation. The casualization of labour and delegation of rule compromise worker commitment to what Philip calls the “ethic of the farm.” As the plantation scout, Arthur learns about the stealing of pesticides but cannot share this information with Philip. His fear of being beaten by coworkers and resentment over bonuses overcomes his feeling of duty towards the plantation. Similarly, Emmanuel ranks high enough on the hierarchy to have access to pesticides, but his frustration with low pay and exposure to toxins encourage him to steal. While casualization and inequality lead these workers to lie and steal, from the point of view of Philip and white managers these workers are trusted employees. The depth of this trust is revealed by their shock and melancholy in the aftermath of the stealing. The emotional attachment of whites to middle managers contributes to the instability of the latter, as it is Philip’s deep sense of betrayal that leads him to inflict violence. Philip may be more hesitant to apply violence against his chiefs, as his dependence upon them runs more deeply. Philip only temporarily shuns Clayton at the roll call, despite his culpability in other infractions and likely knowledge of the stealing. Hence, the relative disposability of middle managers, compared to chiefs like Clayton, also contributes to their instability. More broadly, Philip’s capacity to inflict violence and have the workers arrested underscores the way in which plantation owners retain a high degree of autonomy in post-apartheid South Africa – even if a beating like this is a relatively rare event. Yet, Philip’s violence is not accepted uncritically. A white manager considers the violence out of place, and many black workers disagree with it more strongly. For Arthur, his outrage at his brother’s beating leads him to quit the plantation and threaten Philip with legal action. My own ethnography gets caught up in the ensuing events, as I become

114

Chiefs of the Plantation

entangled in a difficult ethical situation. I am morally compelled to assist Arthur with freeing his brother from jail, but this results in my temporary eviction from the plantation. Thus far, my ethnography has traced how the labour regime on Mopane Estates creates a fragile moral economy between black workers of varying statuses and the white owner and managers. In what follows, I turn attention to how this fragility percolates downwards into the relations amongst workers themselves.

4 “The Babies Are Dying!”: The Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Narratives of Infant Death One brisk May morning during my fieldwork, Philip announced at the roll call that all “farm mothers,” women with children at the plantation, must gather at the main office to “have a word” with him. Thirty or so women, many with babies on their backs, strolled up the road to the office, and sat on the ground awaiting Philip. Most women did not know what he would speak about. Some speculated quietly, as I stood among them, that he would address the topic of babies dying: two had died in the compound over the weekend. Eventually, Philip emerged from his Toyota pickup and addressed the mothers through Clayton, who translated his message into Shona: “Clayton, first of all, tell the women that my heart is very sore about what has been happening at this farm, with the babies dying. We used to have a very good name at this farm, no babies died here for years and years. So now we have to look at it. Why are babies suddenly starting to die? We need to look at hygiene, we need to look at feeding, we need to manage the babies more carefully.” Philip went on to emphasize that women coming from the fields must make sure to shower and wash their hands before handling babies. He told the women they should get tested for hiv/aids, that if they are positive they must not breastfeed. He announced that he would buy powdered milk formula for all mothers so that they could supplement their babies’ diets. “The only thing is,” he added, “we need to figure out how dispense it. We can’t just hand them out, otherwise women will just end up selling the tins.” He seemed unconcerned or, more likely, unaware that Clayton and a few other senior workers standing off to the side were the fathers of more than half of the babies present.

116

Chiefs of the Plantation

In subsequent days, speculation and gossip regarding the baby deaths were rife on the plantation. Two dominant explanations emerged. First, like Philip, other white managers attributed the deaths to poor hygiene and hiv/aids. Second, an alternative explanation surfaced among mostly male Zimbabwean workers, that of “blood mixing” (kusanganisa ropa). In this explanation, pregnant women who have sex with men other than the partner whose child they are carrying fall victim to “bad luck” or evil spirits that can kill newborn babies. A third interpretation, expressed by only a few workers, viewed the baby deaths as cases of infanticide. According to informants closest to the women involved, the babies were most likely killed by their own mothers. Of the two cases, it was claimed that one died of deliberate neglect during sickness and the other was strangled by its mother. Over the next several months, this infanticide narrative gained more credence among workers, even as the other explanations persisted. Initially, it was curious that the baby deaths provoked such public proclamations. Philip seldom took interest in the private affairs of his workers and the Zimbabweans rarely discussed sexual matters so openly. For Philip and for the exponents of blood mixing, it was as though the deaths touched a sensitive place, as if they may have posed a threat. In Philip’s case, the deaths could lead to criticism of the poor living and working conditions on his plantation. His explanation emphasized the individual hygienic practices of mothers to minimize the role of plantation conditions in infant mortality. For the predominantly male exponents of blood mixing, their accusations were possibly motivated by frustration at the loss of breadwinner status to their female counterparts. Though expressed more quietly, the rumour of infanticide implied a desperate position for mothers employed at the plantation. Yet, it is not so much the explanations themselves that are of interest, but what they reveal about the sexual economy on the plantation. Scholars have explored the political economy of sex elsewhere in South Africa, but few have addressed the specific conditions in large-scale agriculture. The need to know more about this context is urgent. As a publication from the International Organization for Migration (iom) (2010a, 26) reports, populations inhabiting large-scale farms and plantations in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces possess among the highest hiv/aids rates in South Africa (39.5 per cent). Additionally, some evidence suggests that rural

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

117

wage employment is a more effective means of poverty alleviation for African women than smallholder agriculture and other forms of self-employment (Sender, Oya, and Cramer 2006; Oya and Sender 2009). Given that the sexual economy is such a prominent feature of social life on plantations, in what ways does it influence the livelihoods and welfare of women working for wages? In addressing this question, this chapter moves beyond epidemiological and quantitative work, which characterize most research on sexual economies and hiv/aids in Africa. Similar to other recent ethnographic studies (Norris and Worby 2012; Smith 2014; Lowthers 2018), my goal is to reveal not only the multi-scalar causes of the sexual economy, but also its diverse manifestations and consequences. In other South African settings, scholars point to growing unemployment, increased migration, and changing gender roles as factors that contribute to high rates of transactional sex (Shishana and Simbayi 2002; iom 2004; Collinson et al. 2006; Hunter 2010). These factors also apply to border plantations, but what remains to be examined is the role of changing labour regimes. As I outlined in chapter 1, since the 1990s a vast transformation has occurred in the northern Limpopo Valley, in which the sector has consolidated around large-scale producers, and Zimbabwean migrants have steadily replaced Venda families as units of employment. Plantations rely on unprecedented numbers of female workers and a high degree of turnover among workers. These demographic shifts suggest a potentially greater variety of people participating in the sexual economy than in the past. Families as units of employment have declined, and black chiefs and supervisors increasingly serve as a primary locus of coercion on the plantation and in the sexual economy. Moreover, the monetization or diminishment of services that were once given free of charge places pressure on women to earn income however they can, including through transactional sex. Each discourse surrounding the baby deaths provides a point of departure for analyzing the implications of the sexual economy for women plantation workers. Philip’s donation of formula appears emblematic of traditional paternalism, but it also has the effect of distancing him from [the phenomena of] transactional sex on the plantation. His reliance on predatory chiefs like Clayton for the control of labour makes him indirectly responsible for coercive aspects of the sexual economy. The discourse of blood mixing underscores the differential economic impact the sexual economy has upon men

118

Chiefs of the Plantation

and women. As a commentary on women’s behaviour, blood mixing is one of many ways that men express resentment over women’s successes in the sexual economy. While this section presents data documenting the economic gains of women, the third section complicates this picture by sharing the story of Eunice, a mother who allegedly committed infanticide. Her story conveys an inherent disadvantage for women in the sexual economy: the ease with which men can deny their role in cases of pregnancy and leave women without financial assistance. Before returning to the story of baby deaths, some historical context is necessary. To examine how the sexual economy has changed, the next section reconstructs how gender relations were constituted under apartheid-era paternalism in the northern Limpopo Valley. While I have covered the history of the eastern border in the introduction, this section expands the geographical focus to the broader “Soutpansberg zone.” This area encompasses all the territory north of the Soutpansberg mountain range and south of the Limpopo River (Rutherford and Addison 2007). Until processes of agricultural restructuring began to unfold in the 1980s, women farm workers were situated by a “patriarchal agreement” between male heads of households and white farmers. As I explain below, the unravelling of this agreement produces contradictory implications for the status of women on plantations.

g e n d e r r e l at io n s in n o rthern li mpopo In the arid Limpopo Valley north of the Soutpansberg Mountains, white agriculture did not establish a firm foothold until the 1930s. The relative lateness of this development – in comparison to other parts of South Africa – was due to the prevalence of tropical diseases, long distances from markets, and armed resistance from Venda groups, as I explained in chapter 1 (Wagner 1980; Lahiff 2000). By the 1930s, government subsidies for white settlers, the extension of railway, and military subjugation and displacement of the Venda established the conditions for white farming. In the northeast portion of the valley, scores of white farmers relied upon Venda people as labour or cash tenants (Mulaudzi 2000). As elsewhere in South Africa, tenancy required Africans to work a certain portion of the year in exchange for access to land and grazing (Maliba 1939; Keegan 1986). Throughout the mid-twentieth

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

119

century, labour tenancy often coexisted with other labour forms, such as migrant, prison, and wage labour, yet tenancy remained the dominant form until it was eventually surpassed by resident wage labour in the 1950s at the earliest (Marcus 1989; Mulaudzi 2000, 287). In this context, both tenancy and settled wage labour were governed by racialized paternalism. As van Onselen (1992) observes, a central conduit of paternalistic power was the role that black male heads of households played in providing labour. In the Limpopo Valley and elsewhere, paternalism depended on a patriarchal agreement between white farmers and the male heads of households on their farms. Farmers recognized the authority of male workers over their own families while the latter provided the labour of their wives and children during peak harvest times (Mulaudzi 2000, 260–1; van Onselen 1992, 134). In this context, women were dependent on their husbands for accommodation and access to land. In addition to their work for the white farm owner, women were required to perform unpaid domestic and agricultural labour for their tenant household (Orton, Barrientos, and McClenaghan 2001, 472). The patriarchal agreement was contested primarily through desertion or movement off the farms. Wives and children frequently fled the farms in search of better-paid employment in cities (Bradford 1987, 50; Jeeves and Crush 1997, 21). In part, the problem of securing a reliable labour force led farmers to support the abolition of tenancy in favour of wage labour confined to the farm. In northern Limpopo, the rise of resident wage labour in the 1960s and 1970s diminished only partially the role of male household heads as conduits for obtaining labour. Farmers continued to employ Venda families who lived on their farm property, even as they increasingly supplemented these workers with seasonal Venda workers from the nearby homeland or villages in southern Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe. Many seasonal workers were independent or unmarried women, but most women living on farms remained dependent on their husbands for jobs and accommodation. As was the case under labour tenancy, if a husband was fired, his wife was often told to leave the farm as well. Gender relations remained largely defined by the patriarchal arrangement described above until the onset of agricultural restructuring in the 1980s, involving the removal of agricultural subsidies, new forms of labour market regulation, and the casualization and externalization of labour.

120

Chiefs of the Plantation

How gender relations have changed in commercial agriculture amidst these processes is a matter of debate. Kritzinger and Vorster (1996) assert that women workers and farm dwellers have gained greater independence, given the breakdown of male-headed families as units of employment. As already indicated, in the past the employment of women workers was tied to the status of their husbands. To a large extent, the shift towards a more flexible labour force has unravelled the patriarchal agreement characteristic of paternalism since many women are now employed as independent workers. Relatedly, Orton, Barrientos, and McClenaghan (2001) argue that gendered assumptions about feminine “nimble fingers” and patience ensure employment for women in restructured agriculture, given its focus on export-led production and high-quality produce. Yet, the same authors suggest, these very gender ideologies also impede women from advancing into supervisor or management positions. In contrast to these relatively optimistic perspectives, Marcus (1989) and Segal (1991) emphasize that the restructuring of agriculture increases opportunities for sexual abuse by managers and senior figures towards women workers, given that unprecedented numbers of independent women are present. While each of these perspectives reveals something important about the changing status of women in commercial agriculture, they do not specify how the restructuring of agriculture shapes the sexual economy and the contradictory opportunities that this presents for women. The restructuring of agriculture transforms the sexual economy in several ways. The composition of labour on plantations in the Limpopo Valley has changed dramatically since the 1990s. Instead of Venda families living more or less permanently on farms, there is a larger proportion of casual workers from Zimbabwe, including unprecedented numbers of independent female migrants. The temporary and seasonal nature of employment ensures a high degree of turnover among workers, as does the tendency for migrants to use the farms as “rest stops” before proceeding southwards (Rutherford 2008; Bolt 2010). As has been argued in other African contexts, the lack of family ties and greater anonymity among such migrant populations can allow for greater sexual freedom (De La Torre et al. 2009; iom 2010b; Kwena et al. 2012). The withdrawal of paternalistic entitlements, such as free accommodation, food, and other forms of assistance, by white owners may compel women to use sex to meet material needs. This is analogous to research on a sugar

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

121

plantation in Tanzania, where the withdrawal of social welfare following privatization encouraged transactional sex among workers (Norris and Worby 2012, 367). Women’s participation in the sexual economy can bring them substantial economic reward, but they are not necessarily “empowered” in this process. Often, high-ranking figures such as Clayton abuse their positions by demanding sexual favours from women. The increasing delegation of authority is therefore one way that Philip is indirectly complicit in the sexual economy, a process connected to his constant attempt to curtail services and benefits at the plantation. The manner in which whites responded to the baby deaths obscures this complicity and gives a false impression of widespread paternalistic benevolence. In this context, I analyze the donation of formula below.

“ t h e ba b ie s a re dyi ng!” Following Philip’s speech to the mothers, I stayed in the vicinity of the plantation office and conversed with Dolores. Among her responsibilities, she served as the de facto plantation nurse, although she had no official training. Since Mopane Estates was relatively isolated – the nearest town is 50 km via a dust road – her role as nurse was important. Apart from monthly visits by a Doctors Without Borders mobile clinic, she was the only medical service provider for plantation workers. On an almost daily basis, she dispensed medication to workers with common ailments, such as flu, diarrhea, and syphilis. Dolores applauded Philip for offering to purchase milk for the mothers. Still, she expressed consternation regarding the baby deaths, and for not being consulted by the mothers: “The babies are dying! I don’t get it! What’s wrong with these women? There is a free health service here. Is it because I’m white?” Like Philip, Dolores indirectly blamed the mothers themselves for the deaths. It was their lack of education, their “primitive” African customs and poor hygiene: “Look at how they feed their babies. They lay that baby flat on their laps, and force-feed it sadza, but this way the porridge goes straight to the lungs, and if the baby has the flu, they can die. It is soft-food asphyxiation. They are feeding them this stuff at three months, which is far too young. It’s just so in them.” What exactly, I asked her, is “in” them? “Well,” she replied, “it is just the way they are brought up, and it’s hard to get rid of. The way

122

Chiefs of the Plantation

people are brought up has a big effect.” She later added: “It’s not the black people’s fault they are uneducated. They were minding their own business when van Riebeeck landed at the Cape. If the whites never came, they would still be running around in their buckskins.” Her response did not rebuke the mothers, but conveyed frustration and a patronizing sympathy for them. Likewise, Philip’s donation of formula may have shown genuine concern for the health of babies on the plantation. These reactions are indices of how of paternalism continues to be relevant for the self-perception and ideology of whites on the plantation. Yet, the donation is also an exceptional gesture that goes against a general tendency of curtailing such entitlements, as I described in chapter 2. The formula donation also distances Philip from the promiscuous behaviour of black managers. As I described in chapter 1, these “top structure” figures frequently abuse their authority by extorting other Zimbabweans for bribes (kudiza). Women are often compelled to “pay” their employment debt through sex, or to provide sex if they wish to gain other work-related benefits. Yet, in most cases I was told that men pay for sex. Most of the chiefs and senior foremen of the plantation maintain one or more “regular” girlfriends, to whom they pay cash, groceries, and other goods. Several of the children in the compound were fathered by these senior figures. Philip seemed aware that the top structure figures on his plantation were highly promiscuous: “Unfortunately, the higher the person’s position, they’ve used that to their own benefit, I think, because they believe they are now a king in their own domain, that they are entitled to the best of the women, which is unfortunate. But bear in mind also that it’s acceptable to have more than one wife in their culture, it’s a norm to send their wife home, the wife that they have paid lobola and they’ve got their children with, and then take on a mistress to do the cooking and other services.” While Philip acknowledged that the senior leadership of the plantation was involved in many sexual relationships, he stopped short of connecting his strategy of indirect rule with widespread transactional sex on the plantation. His comments implied that promiscuity was related to African culture, denying and disguising his own responsibility for the coercive aspects of the sexual economy. This view of sexual promiscuity being related to “African culture” was shared by other whites on the plantation. Heinrik conveyed an explicitly racist perspective when I joined him for a drink and fire

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

123

outside his house. Our conversation drifted towards politics, and he offered a familiar critique of the anc government: “The only good thing about the anc is that the world will see that blacks can’t run a country,” he said, staring into the fire. “Us who fought in the war, we will never accept this black government. What was the fighting for? Otherwise it would be a waste. But look now, you can see the anc is taking us into communism.” Taking a sip from his beer, he continued: “Maybe it will get better in forty years … that’s how long it will take for the whites to come back to power. You know that hiv/ aids is going to reduce them, the blacks.” He thus positioned hiv/ aids less as a scourge the plantation needed to contain, and more as something that could correct a perceived population imbalance. His racist views hardened as the subject turned to interracial relationships: “But you see now some of the white people gets with blacks, and that thing I do not understand. Especially in the foreign countries, they think black people are so beautiful. But I cannot understand how a white guy can sleep with a black woman … I can’t stand to think about it!” he yelled, lowering his head into his hands. He continued: “The men love the women who come home, covered in sweat. It’s their culture. They think we stink, eh, if we wash. They love the sweat, it’s like their perfume. In the field, they will go to the bushes. The men attack there … they will only pay two rand.” In his account, black men represent rampant and uncontrollable sexuality. For Heinrik, the plantation is not responsible for sexual promiscuity; it is part of African culture – and whites must stay away from it. Dolores offered her views on sexuality in the context of marital disputes she sometimes had to adjudicate in the office. While these disputes were relatively common, and were most often settled by the compound security or one of the chiefs, cases could come to Dolores. Lamenting the frequency of conflict in the compound, she said she had been involved in at least five cases where people were fired for fighting – all of which had to do with accusations of adultery: “Sometimes it’s the woman burning the man’s stuff. But also the man beating her.” Her next comments conveyed the distance that white managers maintained from the sexual economy: “We can’t involve ourselves in their affairs, we can only advise women about if she is being a good wife, or if the man is just a bad husband. But we can’t force men to be with their wives.” I asked her whether anything could be done to reduce promiscuity on the plantation. “No,” she

124

Chiefs of the Plantation

replied. “This is how it’s always been … it’s inbred in their culture. I think it all stems from when they had six wives, or eighty wives, it’s just never bred out of them. With black men, I find the more women hanging off them, the more status they have.” Not all whites explained promiscuity through the lens of culture. In the middle of the conversation with Dolores, Douglas chimed in with his perspective: “If you check, Lincoln, why is aids such a big thing in Africa and poor countries? Look at alcohol and sex, it’s a big problem. They drink to forget about their problems. Sex is the only thing they can give for free.” Unlike Dolores and Heinrik, he acknowledged that the causes of promiscuity were not simply cultural, but somehow linked to material circumstances. Yet, he did not elaborate on what these material circumstances were. His body language conveyed a certain fatalism, as he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head after making the statement. By not dwelling on the problem, he allowed the plantation to escape any responsibility. In sum, Philip’s donation of formula following the death of babies distanced him from the realities of the sexual economy. The gift of formula implied that the death of babies resulted from poor hygiene or the transmission of hiv/aids through breast milk. In other words, the responsibility for the baby deaths was placed on the mothers themselves, while plantation conditions were ignored. The gesture removed the sexual economy from discussion and instead directed attention towards the individual behaviour of mothers, obscuring the highly unequal power structure that leaves most people, specifically women, with few other options than to participate in the sexual economy. The ultimate futility of Philip’s gift of formula was perhaps best demonstrated by how workers reacted to it: No one ever came to the office to collect it. For the remainder of my fieldwork on the plantation, the formula sat in boxes in an office-room closet, unopened. In multiple ways, the labour regime at Mopane Estates cultivates conditions for the sexual economy. The reliance on Zimbabwean migrant labourers, most of whom are unmarried, marks a radical departure from a labour force centred on male-headed households characteristic of apartheid-era paternalism, in which workers and their wives and children lived more permanently at the plantation. Philip takes only partial interest in the social or off-work activities of his workers, and feels little moral responsibility for his workers’ behaviour. Low wages paid to most workers, particularly women,

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

125

encourage the latter to seek other income opportunities in secondary economies, including transactional sex. Moreover, the chiefs empowered by Philip often use their influence to solicit sexual favours from women, even if at other times they also pay for sex. More broadly, the promiscuous chiefs set an example that other men emulate. As Bolt (2010) notes in a study on another Limpopo farm, lower-ranking men gain favour and develop camaraderie with senior managers by imitating the latter’s sexual behaviour, a process also evident at Mopane Estates. Yet, if the labour regime contributes to the enabling conditions for the sexual economy, women are not simply helpless victims coerced into sex. Certainly, in cases where managers or senior figures demand sexual favours, women risk losing their job or angering powerful figures if they refuse. Yet, most relationships are more consensual and women are known to be initiators in some instances. Many women have turned the sexual economy to their advantage, demanding payments and grocery subsidies from their male counterparts. It is their successes in the sexual economy that provide the context for accusations of blood mixing.

b l o o d m i xi ng At a morning roll call the day after Philip spoke to the group of mothers, Clayton addressed the entire workforce: “There is an issue of children dying in the compound. Yesterday, the white man spoke with you mothers about the children … If you are pregnant by a man, and he goes to Joburg, then don’t take chances to sleep with another man, because the blood will not mix. Don’t look for other men if you are pregnant, his blood will not mix with the child’s blood.” As he raised the point about blood mixing, several hundred people applauded, shouts of “That’s right!” and “100 per cent!” were heard from the crowd. Most who shouted in agreement were men, but one woman yelled, “That’s true, the child will be burnt.” Later, as I spoke with my Zimbabwean informants about the meaning of blood mixing, I learned that it is a common belief in Mberengwa, Zimbabwe, where most workers originate. Many people believe that for a pregnant woman to have sex with someone other than the father of the fetus invokes angry ancestral spirits that create “bad luck” for the people involved, or harm the newborn baby. My purpose here is not to question the validity of this belief but, by probing the sentiment

126

Chiefs of the Plantation

behind it, assess how the sexual economy affects gender relations among plantation workers. The blood mixing narrative revealed deep anxiety among men as their ability to support their rural homesteads in Zimbabwe is undermined by payments they give women in the course of transactional relationships. To illuminate this argument further, I provide more details on the sexual economy below. The sexual economy at Mopane Estates comprises a spectrum of transactional relationships, ranging from temporary cohabitation or long-term partnerships, known as kuchaya mapoto, to pay-on-thespot, private encounters known as chiback. Literally translated as “knocking the pots around,” kuchaya mapoto connotes the domestic labour performed by women in the relationship. In addition to sex, women often cook, collect firewood, wash clothes, and clean the hostel room or mud hut for their male counterpart. Men pay for these services typically by purchasing groceries for their partner. Chiback, in contrast, refers to a form of cash-and-carry transactional sex. Men pay the on the spot for sexual intercourse at an agreed-upon price. This usually occurs at night or during the day in secluded bush areas. As the term implies, they are secretive relationships carried out “behind the back” of one’s wife or cohabiting partner. A man or woman can have any number of chiback partners. Kuchaya mapoto and chiback relationships are confined to the plantation and only in rare instances does a long-term partnership develop into “official,” culturally sanctioned marriage. Marriage is still an important aspiration, especially for younger workers, but most workers do not expect to marry another plantation worker. During conversations, men frequently characterized women on the plantation as mahure (prostitutes), unfit for marriage, while women frequently criticized men for not supporting their children and families. Many male workers are already married, but their female spouses remain in Zimbabwe and visit the plantation infrequently and for short periods, usually to collect their husbands’ wages. These visits can be fraught with conflict as wives sometimes discover their husbands’ indiscretions, while other wives seem to tolerate extramarital liaisons so long as an effort is made to hide the relationships. For instance, men who were involved in kuchaya mapoto relationships could insist that their partner move to another hut or room in the compound before their wife arrived. This would not work in occasional cases in which the wife showed up at the plantation by surprise. In contrast, most women workers are divorcees and

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

127

widows. Divorcees stated that their marriages fell apart primarily due to their husband’s infidelity. According to many of these women, marriage is a failed institution, and they did not expect to be married again except as a second wife in a polygamous marriage, something most were unwilling to accept. For most, their primary focus was on supporting children and their own homesteads in Zimbabwe. As one woman put it, “It’s not time for marrying, it’s time for working for kids and parents.” While I found respondents to be relatively open about their marital history, they were less willing to discuss the non-marital sexual relationships they have on the plantation. Despite their commonplace occurrence, these relationships were seen to be socially inappropriate by most workers because they deviated from proper behaviour as understood in rural areas of Zimbabwe where most came from. For this reason, it is difficult to determine precisely how many workers are involved in kuchaya mapoto or chiback relationships. However, when I asked workers in general terms how many people participate in these relationships, the answer invariably was “everyone” or “almost everyone.” While these responses contain perhaps some exaggeration, they nevertheless suggest that the majority of workers participate. Given such widespread involvement in the sexual economy, it has a substantial economic impact that shapes gender relations on the plantation. As indicated, the sensitivity surrounding kuchaya mapoto and chiback made it inappropriate to ask workers how much they paid or received in their relationships. My way around this problem was to ask workers how much they spent on average each month at the plantation. On average, men reported spending R 480 per month and women reported R 150. What accounts for the lower spending (R 330) of women? Wages for the majority of male and female respondents were almost equal, so men did not have “extra” income to spend. Some informants stated that women were disciplined at saving money because “they think of their children and families back home,” in contrast to men, who were perceived as prone to spending money on drinking, gambling, and other “wasteful” hobbies. However, the difference in spending seems not only due to women’s discipline, but also to the resources men provide them in the sexual economy. These payments add to the expenditures made by men, and in some cases (as with groceries, clothing, or other expenses women would otherwise buy on their own) result in savings for women.

128

Chiefs of the Plantation

How much do men pay in these transactional relationships? Informants commented in general terms that payments vary depending on the people involved. I was told that in some cases a chiback encounter can cost several hundred rand, but for others chicken pieces and Coca-Cola suffices. In kuchaya mapoto, I was told men commonly pay for shared monthly groceries that cost approximately R 300, but some also give gifts of jewellery, clothing, cell phones, or additional cash payments. In an environment characterized by low wages and scarcity, what appear to be small payments are actually quite significant, particularly when one accounts for the accumulation of these payments over the usual nine or ten months spent at the plantation. Income that women earn in kuchaya mapoto and chiback increases their savings above those of men, and it is widely claimed that they return home to Zimbabwe with more cash and goods. The tendency for women to return home with more goods and savings to show for their time at the plantation produces great anxiety among Zimbabwean men. This anxiety is produced by the strong emphasis Zimbabweans place on the improvement of their homesteads and support of those family members left behind, what I have identified as the widespread sentiment of kuvaka musha. As I argued in chapter 2, men in particular told me that good standing with friends and relatives, and prestige in the rural areas depends on demonstrating success and progress in kuvaka musha. I was also told that some men, failing to save enough money, do not return to Zimbabwe at all. As one worker put it, “a man is measured by what he brings home.” Men are aware that their participation in the sexual economy undermines their ability with respect to kuvaka musha, while bolstering that of women. One male worker stated: “If your sister comes with you to the plantation, she will build a bigger house than you at home.” Relatedly, consider the following comments from a preacher at a church gathering in the compound: “This year we must be open to one another in order to prosper. Your actions will be rewarded. Some of us will have prostitutes here, while keeping our wives in Zimbabwe. Who then is your wife: the one for two weeks or the one for a year? The one in Zimbabwe will receive a plastic bag and the one here will receive a shangaan bag. We will face it in heaven … You ladies, you can build everything you want but you won’t sleep in that house due to death and diseases. It will be of little significance.”

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

129

The preacher’s comments not only provide warnings against immorality, they also reveal anxiety over the emergence of women as more robust homestead supporters. Women on the plantation, referred to as prostitutes, receive the much larger and more durable “shangaan bag” of groceries than the “real wife” at home in Zimbabwe. These women will build houses in rural Zimbabwe, so says the preacher, but they will die of diseases or “bad luck.” Similar to the accusation of blood mixing, women are threatened with a form of spiritual retribution for their economic successes. As men fall short of the social expectations implied in kuvaka musha, they tend to blame women for their failure (cf. Ferguson 1999). Most men view women as experienced divorcees seeking to lure young men as their sexual victims. Women are accused of using witchcraft or other magic (mupfuhwira) to seduce men. One said: “The problem is, if you look at the ages, we have smaller guys and the women are more mature. They are drawing them in.” In contrast, women attribute blame equally or blame men for promiscuity on the plantation. As one female informant explained: “Men are the initiators, they pretend as if they want to help you.” Related to the narrative that blames women for promiscuity is widespread suspicion among men that women with whom they cohabit have chiback relationships with other men. As one man put it, “You have to expect it, that someone will be with my woman. You have to put in place measures.” Such measures might include asking a friend or relative to “watch over” one’s partner while the man is at work, or trying to restrict the partner’s movement around the compound. If a woman is caught “cheating” with another man (or possibly even suspected) she is likely to be beaten by the man with whom she cohabits. Men seek to justify these beatings by emphasizing that they pay the women to stay with them and that, in addition, they can demand back whatever money they have given. Beatings occur during the night to avoid the attention of the security guards, who, even if they notice, are unlikely to intervene unless there are serious injuries. Like charges of blood mixing, this violence against women is an expression of frustration among men, in part rooted in their perception that women undermine their ability to save for kuvaka musha in Zimbabwe. The explanation of blood mixing alerts us to how the sexual economy channels resources towards women and generates anxiety among men. This is not to deny the extent to which blood mixing is a sincere

130

Chiefs of the Plantation

belief among its exponents. The fact that some women agree with the idea of blood mixing suggests that it is not only an expression of male anxiety, but a widely held belief in its own right. Yet, because blood mixing primarily blames women for sexual permissiveness – suggesting that they should know better than to seduce men while pregnant – it represents a convenient tool with which men reproach women in the face of their relative success. Moreover, the collective male resentment towards women (implied in blood mixing) generates a measure of patriarchal solidarity among men, despite the large inequality between ordinary male workers and managers. In sum, women are widely assumed to return to Zimbabwe with more savings than men, largely as a result of transactional relationships in the compound. Most women use their income to buy clothing and pay school fees for children they have left with other relatives in Zimbabwe. Some women, particularly those in their thirties and forties, own homesteads and livestock in Zimbabwe. As divorcees or mothers out of wedlock, many women could be described as social outcasts in their home communities, but by working at the plantation they have enhanced their status. While many women are able to use the sexual economy to their advantage, there are negative consequences. The labour performed in the course of kuchaya mapoto relationships (cooking, cleaning) adds to the existing workload women endure during their employment on the plantation. The specter of diseases like hiv/aids, alluded to by the preacher above, do in fact loom large at the plantation. A study by a local health organization estimated the population of Mopane Estates to have a 40 per cent hiv infection rate. I was told on many occasions that women involved in kuchaya mapoto and chiback are unable to insist on condom usage, and men prefer not to use them. Similar to other research on transactional sex in Africa, the fact that women are the recipients of cash and goods appears to diminish their negotiating power to insist on condoms (Dunkle et al. 2004; Kuate-Defo 2004; Luke et al. 2011). Women can be left with unwanted pregnancies that undermine their economic progress or damage their social standing at home in Zimbabwe. Such negative consequences caution against employing blanket descriptions of the sexual economy as a productive source of “agency” for women. They suggest instead the necessity of a more critical perspective in which women’s economic gains are balanced against the inherent risks in the sexual economy. The story of Eunice, a mother suspected

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

131

of committing infanticide, illustrates sharply the contradictory implications of the sexual economy on the status of women. Eunice was proactive in initiating relationships in the sexual economy but her plans did not turn out as she intended.

e u n ic e I did not learn about the possibility of infanticide until a few days after Philip and Clayton spoke publicly regarding the baby deaths. I interviewed a senior woman, Ambuya Rachel, the aunt of one of the women, Eunice, who lost her baby. She lived in her own mud hut, less than ten metres from Eunice’s hut. Recently, Ambuya Rachel had buried Eunice’s baby in the banks of the nearby river. Eventually, I asked her how Eunice’s child had died. She replied in hushed tones: “You should know the truth. It’s a secret … but Eunice killed the baby. She throttled the child inside her hut.” By this time in my fieldwork, I had established a friendship with Ambuya Rachel, but her candid testimony still surprised me. She continued: “I am pained. The child did not need to die. I will tell Eunice’s father at home – these are my relatives, I have a responsibility to tell them.” Initially, I was perplexed as to why Eunice would potentially commit infanticide. Yet, as I reflected on events that transpired during her pregnancy, her reasons for possibly doing so became clearer. The context in which I first met Eunice suggested that such an outcome was unlikely. From the start of my fieldwork at Mopane Estates, she performed domestic labour for Arthur and Emmanuel, and myself when I moved in with them. Ordinarily, if a woman performs domestic labour it is within the confines of a relationship like kuchaya mapoto, but in this case she was termed a “Christian sister” by Arthur and Emmanuel, who saw themselves as missionaries in the plantation environment. Because Eunice did all the cooking and sweeping of our room, we collectively covered her monthly grocery costs, so the “Christian sister” relationship retained a transactional element. Arthur and Emmanuel led Pentecostal services on the outskirts of the compound on certain evenings, and Eunice was an active participant. My roommates offered her the job, they claimed, to surround her with Christian influence and preclude her from “backsliding” or becoming involved in the sexual economy on the plantation. When I heard rumours from other workers that Eunice was the “girlfriend” of Arthur, I interpreted it as false gossip.

132

Chiefs of the Plantation

As it happened, Arthur was, as he put it, “defeated by the devil” on one occasion, and had sex with Eunice. As he confessed to me later on (explored in more detail in chapter 5), he felt that Eunice had been trying to seduce him for many months. He stated that she repeatedly invited him to her hut to have sex after church services, and flirted with him by placing her leg over his when they were seated together a few times. In his account, he was eventually overwhelmed by these temptations and had unprotected sex with her. A few months after the event, she told him she was pregnant. Arthur denied responsibility. He accused her of having other boyfriends. He felt that she accused him of being responsible for the pregnancy because she wanted to force marriage on him, or at least receive a hefty compensation. He was already engaged to another woman in Zimbabwe, and with his limited income he did not want to be compelled to support her. In the meantime, Eunice told others around the plantation that Arthur impregnated her, shattering his image as an example of a respectable Christian man who stood above the sexual economy. Yet, he persisted in his denial of responsibility. One day I gave Eunice a ride to the health clinic in town. Later, her friend informed me that she attempted to get an abortion at the clinic. The medical staff refused, however, either because she was too far along in her pregnancy or that she failed to pay a bribe, which is sometimes required, according to the woman with whom I spoke. Problems mounted for Eunice midway through her pregnancy. Eunice returned home to southern Zimbabwe over the Christmas period when the plantation closed. Her friends informed me that, upon her arrival at her parents’ homestead, she was chased away by her own father. Her parents were angry with her for becoming pregnant again when she had already left two children behind at their homestead, born out of previous relationships. With nowhere to go, she returned to the plantation practically destitute and subsisted in the compound until Philip began hiring for the new year. When Arthur similarly returned to the plantation for the new season, she continued to tell others that he was responsible for her pregnancy and requested financial help from him. As Arthur confessed to me, his humiliation as a result of this gossip began to undermine his commitment to working at the plantation. As it happened, the arrest and beating of Emmanuel by Philip occurred just at this time – thus pushing Arthur to leave in any case (see chapter 3).

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

133

With the departure of Arthur, Eunice now faced the prospect of supporting her baby alone, and made efforts to secure additional financial assistance. She began cohabiting with another man in a kuchaya mapoto-style relationship. According to her neighbours in the compound, she also took on various chiback boyfriends. It is unclear what material support she received in these relationships, yet any amount of food or income were crucial for her at this stage, since as her pregnancy advanced she was unable to work in the fields (there is no “pregnancy leave” policy at the plantation, though women are advised to stop working after they are eight months pregnant). After she stopped working, her only source of income was the sexual economy in the compound. Yet these relationships also made her vulnerable, later on, to the accusation of blood mixing. As Eunice approached her delivery date these relationships appeared to end, leaving Eunice without financial support. She was too tired to do the cooking and sweeping required in kuchaya mapoto. When she delivered at the hospital in town, I visited her after the birth and provided what Zimbabweans call “preparations” – blankets, baby clothing, baby creams, and money. She told me she had no money and there was no one to support her. On a few occasions, she tried to reach Arthur by phone but he ignored her calls. After a few days in the hospital, she returned to the plantation with her baby. I assumed after visiting with her in the compound that she was adjusting to life with the new baby, but her disposition raised concern among those living near her. One of her neighbours stated to me shortly after she returned: “Each time I see Eunice by her hut, the baby is sleeping in the room. Most of the time I go to the hut, I see her seated by the fire, but the baby is in the hut. So this shows people she don’t have care about her baby.” Moreover, Eunice reportedly told friends, “Ah, this child is going to give me trouble,” and even admitted to one that she hoped it would die. One afternoon, Eunice reported to a security guard in the compound (Fainos) that her child was not breathing. He investigated and found that the baby was dead. Later, Fainos commented to me, “If the child was sick, she only waited until it was far too late to tell me.” In subsequent days, others commented that Eunice showed no signs of guilt or of sadness. She returned immediately to work at the plantation. In other cases where babies had died at the plantation, mothers “appeared pained and missed work for a few days,” as one informant put it.

134

Chiefs of the Plantation

No one knows for sure what Eunice was or was not feeling, yet her apparent emotional detachment may reflect what Scheper-Hughes (1992, 340–2) terms the “pragmatics of motherhood,” in which mothers divest themselves from unhealthy babies or those born under unpropitious circumstances. Such cases of “mortal neglect” (ibid.) can be understood as survival strategies that enhance the life prospects for healthier older siblings, or babies yet to be born in a more supportive environment. Scheper-Hughes’ choice of the term “mortal neglect,” instead of alternatives such as “benign neglect,” reflects how some mothers in dire poverty have developed a stoic acceptance towards the death of their babies, whom they believe are born already predisposed to death. Yet, Eunice never said to me that she committed infanticide, stating only that her child died from “sickness,” and she avoided elaboration. However, from conversations with her, I knew she was trying to establish a business in Zimbabwe selling clothes and groceries. Plantation labour was supposed to generate her enough start-up capital for this endeavour. It is clear for women in Eunice’s position that a baby can be an enormous burden. With no extended family willing to help her with the baby, it interfered with her ability to earn wages and her relationship prospects, generated conflict or disapproval from extended family, and required energy and resources that were in short supply. The possibility of infanticide suggests the terrible cost of highly unequal labour relations on the plantation, as women like Eunice engage in the sexual economy from positions of extreme desperation.

c o n c l u s ion In this chapter, I have examined how the labour regime transforms the sexual economy, particularly through shifts in the composition of labour and management practices in the northern Limpopo Valley. The casualization of labour dissolves the patriarchal agreement upon which the employment of male-headed households was based. Instead of relatively stable worker households living more or less permanently on the farm, there are more independent and often unmarried Zimbabwean workers, including unprecedented numbers of women. The resultant production system involves less paternalistic entitlement than in the past and grants more power to chiefs, allowing them to exploit other workers for bribes or sex. Although this dynamic of senior men exploiting women for sex is not directly

Sexual Economy, Gender Relations, and Infant Death

135

illustrated through Arthur’s relationship with Eunice, the relationship does exemplify how women seek to use the sexual economy to enhance their livelihood, and the contradictory implications that often result. Although women often return to Zimbabwe with more goods and cash to show for their time at the plantation, exposure to hiv/aids threatens to undo these successes and shorten life spans. Participation in the sexual economy can also involve additional physical labour, produce unwanted pregnancies, and undermine a woman’s social standing at home or leave her no better off than she was before, as appears to be the case with Eunice. More broadly, the sexual economy may reinforce divisions among workers and contribute to what Bernstein (1996, 39) describes as the often “introverted politics” of rural South Africa: “that the pressures of everyday reproduction (for many) and petty commodity accumulation (for some) mean that political energies are absorbed (and exhausted) in struggles between and within … communities.” In other words, the sexual economy may encourage individualistic livelihood strategies to the detriment of collective struggles aimed at improving working conditions on the plantation. In the absence of such collective struggles, interventions aimed at “empowering” women or improving their bargaining position in the sexual economy will be limited in effect. In northern Limpopo, such interventions include educational campaigns on plantations by organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, and birth control services being made available through government mobile health clinics. More fundamental and difficult to uproot is the highly unequal power structure that allows chiefs and supervisors to pressure women for sex. In this respect, the gender question is deeply entangled with the labour question on the plantation. Improving the status of women on the plantation is thus partly contingent on addressing wider class inequalities that empower Philip and his managers over the vast majority of ordinary workers. While the sexual economy reveals tension within gender relations on the plantation, the next chapter examines internal contestation within the labour force by considering the role of plantation churches. Much as the sexual economy operates as a domain for women to capture a significant portion of the wages paid at the plantation, Christian worship serves as a terrain in which some lowerand middle-ranking workers strive to develop spiritual autonomy from a management-dominated church.

5 War with the Devil: The Rise and Fall of the Interdenominational Worship Group After a long day of traversing tomato fields in search of pests and diseases among the crops, Arthur returns to the compound. Without pausing to rest, he methodically gathers wood and builds a fire for dinner, begins to sweep the room and sets clothes in a bucket for washing. Following these tasks, he sits on a metal bench and reads a weathered King James Bible, copying portions of scripture into a small notebook. Allowing for only a few minutes to consume sadza with tomato gravy, he climbs the nearby mopane-covered hill and enters a clearing to worship with his Pentecostal prayer group, the Inter-D. His industriousness and disciplined attitude towards domestic labour, and the sentiment of respectability that underlies it, is not unique among compound inhabitants. Nor is it uncommon to see men in the compound performing this (traditionally gendered as female) work, particularly those not involved in kuchaya mapoto. What appears to set Arthur apart is his fervent Pentecostalism and sense of Christian mission. In his own words: “Our mission is to create opportunities for people to hear the word of God. There are so many things that people can get involved in, so many doggish behaviours … they can be involved in prostitution, others are drinking. But the more you attend worship the more you can run away from worldly things.” Before Arthur was accused of impregnating Eunice, and Emmanuel was fired for stealing chemicals, the two brothers appeared as frontier missionaries engaged in a “war” on sin. Yet, the revelation of Arthur’s involvement in the sexual economy contradicted this image. That turn of events, and the ultimate collapse of the church the brothers helped found, reveals how the abiding concern with sexual purity in this brand of Pentecostalism contributes to its own undoing.

The Interdenominational Worship Group

137

This chapter examines the role of Christianity within the plantation labour regime. How Christianity informs employer-worker relations in South African agriculture is rarely addressed (cf. Crapanzano 1985). Scholarship in related contexts suggests that Christianity often plays a “progressive” role, in that it not only allows for coping with suffering, but provides a basis for organization and activism. Literature on Pentecostalism in Zimbabwe suggests that it offers a powerful set of practices for coming to terms with dislocations brought on by neoliberalism. It is not an opiate that mystifies relations of exploitation, but “provides a language for discussing these forces, embodying them and breaking them down in ways that they can grasp and confront” (Maxwell 2005, 26). This argument is similar to claims by scholars of plantation slavery in the American South: that religion played a progressive role among the slaves by fostering community and ethical norms that ultimately equipped blacks for their eventual liberation (Genovese 1972). In South Africa, Jean Comaroff (1985) argued that African-initiated churches, long viewed as apolitical or complicit in apartheid, were spaces of autonomy and symbolic counter-hegemony for South African blacks. In the 1920s, involvement with African independent churches often led labour tenants and farm workers to join the radical Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of South Africa (icu) (Bradford 1987). Beyond Southern Africa, Newby (1977) argued that the spread of revivalist Methodism among English farm labourers in the nineteenth century provided a foundation for unionization among workers. Among Latino farm workers in the United States, the Catholic Church provided resources and activists essential for social movements and unionization, as in the case of César Chávez and the United Farm Workers of America, and the more recent Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida (Estabrook 2010). In contrast to these examples, my argument in this chapter is that the labour regime on Mopane Estates discourages such progressive articulations of Christianity. I focus on two different church groups. The more prominent group is the United African Apostolic Church (uaac), an example of an African-initiated church that is widespread on farms and plantations throughout the Limpopo Valley. Known locally as the Zion church, it draws the largest number of participants. The second group among workers is the interdenominational church (hereafter referred to as Inter-D), which is Pentecostal in orientation. While the Zion church is closely linked to upper-level management, the Pentecostal group represents an alternative centre of

138

Chiefs of the Plantation

power. The demise of the latter group suggests that religious associations existing outside of the power structure are difficult to sustain. But it is not only that independent groups risk marginalization. The stringent moral requirements of Pentecostalism, particularly its call for sexual purity, render precarious the leadership of this church in the plantation context. Church leaders face constant pressure and temptation to participate in the sexual economy, undermining their legitimacy as potential leaders in wider struggles on the plantation. Nevertheless, the fact that the Inter-D group persisted for several years suggests that worship practices provide at least a potential terrain for contesting the labour regime. I proceed by first outlining how the labour regime sets limits upon Christian practice. It does this mainly by demanding so much of people’s labour that workers have little time and energy left for organized religion. I then provide an overview of the Christian beliefs and practices among three groups: the Zion church, white managers, and the Inter-D. White managers are nominally detached from the religion of black workers, but to the extent that Philip offers support to black churches it is often channelled to the Zion church, which is run by top-ranking senior workers. I describe the rise and fall of the Inter-D church through a religious biography of Arthur. This account does not provide a full life history, but rather reconstructs key moments in the formation of this church through Arthur’s experience as a founding member. As recent literature emphasizes (von Oppen and Strickrodt 2012; Urban-Mead 2015), religious biography can reveal how religious movements transcend boundaries or challenge established orders. Through Arthur’s experience, it becomes possible to see how the Inter-D represented a threat to senior figures on the plantation, but also how this alternative church was politically muted by its own emphasis on sexual purity. In the final section, I relay the circumstances of Arthur’s eventual confession with me. His agony conveys how the Pentecostal disposition – at least how it came to be practiced and felt on Mopane Estates – undermines the sustainability of churches that might otherwise help workers challenge the plantation hierarchy.

c u rta il in g t h e ki ngdom Although the employed population on the plantation reaches nearly 700 people during the picking season, participation in either of the

The Interdenominational Worship Group

139

two main churches rarely exceeds 50. What accounts for the seeming weakness of Christianity on the plantation? On a basic level, the labour regime restricts church participation by demanding people work long hours, without leaving much time for reproductive labour and other pursuits. During the picking season, most people work twelve-hour days (or more), Monday through Saturday. Sunday, when both churches hold services, is usually the only day off, and sometimes workers are called into the fields on this day of rest. Many workers told me they are too physically exhausted to attend church, including the night services held by the Inter-D, described below. If workers return to Zimbabwe during the picking season, it is almost always during Saturday and Sunday, leaving fewer people on Sunday to attend church in the compound. Church participation competes with numerous tasks, pursuits, and pressures. The laborious task of gathering firewood for cooking can take several hours and is therefore often reserved for Sunday. Washing clothes is also time-consuming and saved for Sunday. Although men involved in kuchaya mapoto relationships do not typically wash clothes, they do frequently gather firewood. Other less essential activities compete with church. Soccer games held on the pitch at Mopane or at other plantations in the area are popular attractions that involve scores of workers as spectators and players. Church leaders often complain in their sermons about members who choose to go fishing or watch soccer rather than attend services. Dozens of young men pass their Sundays huddled in front of Clayton’s television, watching sporting events or soap operas. Several workers operate businesses on Sunday, such as small spaza shops selling bread, candy, and cigarettes, as well as cutting or plaiting hair. Finally, I was informed that Sunday is a popular day for pursuing love affairs. Despite these competing pressures, church is still the largest form of collective organization among workers on the plantation. Worship in the form of prayers, preaching, singing, and dancing helps workers cope with stress and insecurity in their lives. Common prayers that I heard during my participation in services included prayers for continued employment at the plantation, for healing from disease and sickness, for success in future plans for kuvaka musha in Zimbabwe, for protection from evil spirits, and to resist temptation on the plantation. Another factor that might lead people to church is the hope of building relationships with senior figures, particularly in the Zion

140

Chiefs of the Plantation

church. This friendship can prove useful when these senior figures are deciding whom to lay off as the picking season draws down. I explore the composition and practices of the Zion church below.

t h e z io n c hurch Although the labour regime discourages church participation in the ways noted above, it nevertheless privileges participation in the Zion church over the Inter-D. The Zion church can be considered the official church of the plantation because it is deeply integrated with the management hierarchy and draws the largest number of participants. The head pastor and founder of the church on the plantation, Moses, is the brother of Clayton and is himself the supervisor for the loading team. Trained as a church leader by a local uaac branch in southern Zimbabwe, Moses said that when he arrived at the plantation in 1997, there were no church leaders and people were praying in a “disorganized way.” He added, “So I said to myself, why don’t I carry the name of Jesus and let me catch all the fish and put them together?” The second most prominent leader, Malvin, is the senior foreman for tomato pickers. Other influential figures in the church, including prophets and regular preachers, are long-term workers and foremen. In contrast to uaac branches in Zimbabwe itself, where women are sometimes important prophetesses, women are wholly excluded from the church’s leadership and are never given the opportunity to preach. On any given Sunday during the picking season, between thirty and fifty people (around one third of whom are typically women) attend the four-hour-long services held in the open-air crèche. The crèche is a favourable site not only for the shade provided by its tin roof, but also for its central location in the compound, ensuring that many passersby will notice the services and potentially join in. Moreover, since the crèche is an “official” plantation building, the site reinforces the impression of Zion as the most legitimate source of religious authority among workers. While most members are aligned with different branches of the uaac in southern Zimbabwe, at least 25 per cent of the active participants are part of the Zion Christian Church (zcc). Both groups are examples of African-initiated churches that have spread rapidly throughout southern Africa in recent decades. Even though their members are accustomed to different songs and dance styles, the denominations share a similar worship format and practice that make the two groups compatible.

The Interdenominational Worship Group

141

The typical Sunday service starts around 10 a.m., when there is an initial gathering of between ten and fifteen men at the crèche, who begin with singing and dancing, beating a large drum, and blowing a horn made from a kudu antler. The songs involve the repetition of a few phrases or words, sung out while churchgoers dance in different styles. There are several different dance styles, but the two most common include taking a few steps forward, then turning and leaping backwards, repeating this movement continuously (women do not leap, but turn back, shaking their hips). Alternatively, people dance closely together in a circle around the horn blower, shuffling their feet in small steps while rotating their hips, allowing the circle to rotate. The music sends a signal to the other people in the compound that church is about to begin. After an hour or so of this music, a more sizable crowd gathers, and one of the pastors (Malvin or Moses) will start the proceedings by shouting “Rugare!” (peace, or praise God), to which people shout “Rugare!” in response. At this, everyone sits down, with men seated along a stone bench under the shade of the crèche, and women on the concrete floor and on the ground around the crèche – often exposed to the sun for most of the afternoon. Several chairs and stools are placed against the northern wall of the crèche, the front of the church, where pastors, prophets, and senior men sit. The leaders and prophets wear purple robes, with Moses also a wearing a stole with the markings of uaac. Women are required to cover their hair, usually with a head wrap or more rarely a hat.1 After everyone is seated, Moses says a short prayer, usually asking for the presence of God in the service, and for people to worship in a worthy and acceptable manner. During the next several hours at least four different men preach, each sermon interspersed with long periods of dancing.2 Invariably, the sermons are delivered without the use of notes and preachers punctuate their remarks by shouting “Amen” or “Rugare,” which the crowd repeats in unison. The sermons are usually connected to a passage from the Bible, which is read out by another man during their talk. Normally, each preacher offers a different Bible reading, resulting in a lack of thematic unity in each service. Nevertheless, in the many sermons I observed during fieldwork, preachers always spoke against different transgressions and instructed people on how to behave appropriately. This instruction was based on literal interpretations of scripture or on norms and customs from rural Zimbabwe, which they felt were not being observed, particularly

142

Chiefs of the Plantation

Figure 5.1 Zion service, Mopane Estates

regarding sexual relationships. Although the church allows male adherents to have multiple wives, it only accepts officially sanctioned marriages, denouncing kuchaya mapoto or other forms of prostitution. As I discuss in the previous chapter, the problem of transactional sex is regularly blamed on women during these sermons. However, on occasion a preacher will criticize the more senior leadership for transgressions. While Moses was not as notorious as others for having transactional sex (such as his brother Clayton), during my fieldwork he was accused by several people of having impregnated a teenage girl on the plantation. A few people criticized him for this during interviews, and a mid-ranking foreman, Mafuta, indirectly rebuked him during a sermon. In the following excerpt, Mafuta speaks metaphorically of a “river bird” found in a granary, an example of matter out of place, similar to church leaders committing adultery: “If you sin recklessly we are wasting time. If a river bird can be found in a granary, it will be a shock to everyone. You can

The Interdenominational Worship Group

143

deny your evil doings to the prophets but to God you don’t have a chance. Women will be having several men, but what are they looking for? Only the name of a well-respected person. It is better you leave the clothes or go fishing than spend your time here, but your heart is somewhere else. You leaders are our guidance but you are not doing your job. It is a great sin.” At this point, Mafuta was interrupted by Malvin, who started singing a song. It was not unusual for other church members to stop preachers by singing. This would happen, for instance, if they felt he was going too long or, as in this case, was making the leadership uncomfortable. Although Moses is not mentioned by name, the reference to a “well-respected person” could only be him or Malvin. Both leaders were known for having transactional sex, but Moses’ indiscretion was a prominent topic of plantation gossip during this period. In any event, Malvin’s singing marked the end of the sermon and sparked a long period of dancing. In the moments of dancing, prophets occasionally take a person aside to convey a dream or vision that relates to the person’s life. They often give specific instructions, such as to eat particular foods or wash in a particular way, as a means of preventing or resolving a certain problem. At some services, people who are sick are prayed over by the prophets and leaders while the singing continues. Those praying over the sick often appear to fall into a trance and speak “in tongues.” As the service nears completion, the style of dancing shifts. Moses leads a small group of men on a different dance outside of the crèche. Men form a line behind Moses and he takes them towards the showers and new houses. As the group follows him, arms are kept up in a jogging stance, swivelling back and forth to the beat of the drum and horn blast. The rest of the congregation remains at the crèche, with most dancing and singing as a group. Occasionally, Moses spreads his arms like an airplane and quickens the pace, with each follower mimicking the movement. The routine reaches its climax by reverting to the few steps forward, few steps back and jump manoeuvre, gradually increasing in speed until reaching the limits of exertion. Eventually, Moses stops the routine by placing his staff in the air. The drum and horn sounds cease, and a slow, reverent song is sung in unison as everyone returns to their starting places at the crèche. The song ends when Moses shouts “Amen!” and receives the customary response.

144

Chiefs of the Plantation

Moses then gives the final sermon of the day, building on or responding to the previous preachers. Mafuta’s criticism of Moses, and the wider gossip on the plantation critical of his behaviour, led him to respond in the following way: “If there are some adulterers in this church, it won’t affect others to go to heaven. A person can preach good news, and can remain behind, while those he preached unto go to heaven.” He also went on to argue that he is a good pastor, and never asks people to tithe, so they should not go to another prophet but should keep coming to church. Clearly, he was trying to re-establish his authority, emphasizing the positive aspects of his leadership. After Moses completes the final sermon, the service concludes with a final prayer in which everyone kneels towards Moses. In the final prayer, Moses typically gives thanks to God for the service and other blessings, such as for continued employment on the plantation. He also asks for God’s protection over people as they begin another week of work. Philip and other white managers are distant from church activities in the compound. Yet, they offer de facto or tacit support to the Zion church as the “official” church of the plantation, in contrast to the Inter-D group. As I illustrate below, this support arises both from whites’ own Christian identity and Philip’s delegation of the morning devotion to leaders in the Zion group.

w h it e c h r is ti ani ty Philip and the white managers on the plantation are self-described “born again” Christians. They identify most strongly with Angus Buchan, a South African farmer-turned-evangelical preacher. All own a copy of Buchan’s best selling Faith Like Potatoes (1998), in which he recounts how faithfulness to God saved his farm and family from dissolution. Buchan is the founder of Shalom Ministries and hosts the annual “Mighty Men” conference at his farm in KwaZuluNatal. His brand of Pentecostalism has been enormously popular with white South Africans. Over 400,000 white men attended the three-day revival conference in 2010 – nearly 10 per cent of the total white population in the country. Philip, Heinrik, and Logan attend the conferences regularly, while Dolores and Philip’s wife Patricia read Buchan’s “daily devotion” on a regular basis and participate in the female counterpart organization “Worthy Women.”

The Interdenominational Worship Group

145

Similar to other Christian right movements, Buchan’s gospel is deeply patriarchal. Buchan and his followers believe the Bible is an infallible and literal truth. He calls for a restoration of traditional gender roles, with men urged to become responsible “leaders” of their family (Nadar 2009; Nadar and Potgieter 2010). While Buchan talks openly about the need to restore masculinity among South African white men, his preaching is also directed at alleviating post-apartheid anxiety among whites more broadly. Dube (2016) notes how the popularity of Buchan’s movement stems from how whites feel empowered by his message, that it counters their sense of loss since the end of apartheid and legalized white privilege. While Buchan does not call for a return of apartheid or explicitly espouse racism, there is a sense in which his silence around these issues reinscribes white privilege. As Dube (2016, 6) puts it: “His ‘race-blind’ approach has the same effect of not interrogating white privilege and simultaneously maintaining it through the process of spiritualising the plight of men in the mmc [Mighty Men Conference].” This sense in which Buchan’s brand of Christianity can maintain white privilege while remaining nominally “race blind” is visible on Mopane Estates. Whites recognize a certain kind of spiritual equality with the black population – that everyone regardless of race has the potential to “come to Jesus” and the capacity to be a true Christian. Whites are even keen sometimes to evangelize among the black population. For instance, Philip and the other white managers were very enthusiastic when I arranged for fifty Bibles to be sent to the plantation from the United States. Yet, the possibility of interracial worship – of actually participating in a church together – is almost unthinkable outside of highly circumscribed situations, such as the morning devotion. When I mentioned to Philip, early in my research, that I was participating in the churches in the compound, he expressed surprise: “But are they really Christians, Lincoln? Are they not also worshipping ancestors?” Similarly, when I invited Dolores to join me at a service in the compound, she declined: “The way they do things is just too different. I couldn’t go to church in the bush!” This abhorrence towards even the idea of interracial worship suggests that whites continue to believe in their racial superiority, even while professing a nominal spiritual equality with blacks. Christianity provides a terrain for white managers to express differences with Philip, yet such disagreements do not translate into real empathy with the black population. During my fieldwork, I attended

146

Chiefs of the Plantation

several Bible study meetings with Dolores, Logan, and Heinrik, in which we would pray, read a section of the Bible, and discuss the meaning of the text. Philip never attended these meetings and sometimes became a target of resentment. In one session, the managers likened Philip to the “uneasy rich man” described in the Book of Ecclesiastes, someone constantly anxious about his property, while his poorer labourers enjoy a restful sleep. Heinrik reflected: “That is Philip. Look at him always running around here … trying to make something big. But for what? It is more important to get a good sleep.” Yet, while Heinrik differentiated himself from Philip in this way – seeing Philip as too greedy and preoccupied with wealth – he did not feel any sense of solidarity with the black labourers. In fact, in his subsequent comments, Heinrik reflected on the futility of having been, in his own view, a good and generous boss when he owned his own farm in the 1990s. He expressed disappointment with how his workers seemingly turned on him after apartheid ended and began demanding higher wages: “I used to give people everything, pay school fees, clothing, but now they don’t give me the time of day. They don’t show thanks, they don’t even greet you … they say bugger you, they only think of apartheid.” Thus, while the Bible reading prompted Heinrik to critique Philip, he stopped short of expressing sympathy with the black workforce. In his view, his former workers had no legitimate grounds for demanding better wages or working conditions – it was a result of their arrogance or “cheekiness.” Similarly, Logan often expressed disappointment with Philip in Christian terms. On one occasion, he came to me frustrated after Philip had reportedly kicked a tractor driver for causing minor damage to a vehicle: “The thing that bothers me is that he claims to be reborn. If you look in the Bible, it says you shouldn’t clap people. But this oke walks around clapping people all the time … You can bullshit me, but bullshitting God is a whole new game.” While frustrated with Philip for his seeming duplicitousness, Logan did not recognize any real solidarity with black workers. Instead, he infantilized them: “I don’t know it all, I don’t say I walk in God’s path. Now Dolores, she is always trying to stick on the right path. When she’s got something, she always wants to help someone. These munthus [sic] love her, the little pickaneys [sic] love her … look at little Michael, he runs to the office, just to get in and sit with her. They call her Gogo [Grandmother]. I don’t say make friends with everyone, but don’t hit them … Now, I’ve worked with lots of munthus [sic]. Some are good,

The Interdenominational Worship Group

147

some are bad, and some are mediocre. If you treat them with respect, it will go well. Look when Tapiwa worked with me in the river. Why did they work so hard? I never forced them to. There must be some method to my madness. Treat them with respect and you will get what you want.” From Logan’s perspective, Philip was wrong to have kicked the worker. But the problem was not the unequal power structure that makes such violence possible – it was rather Philip’s failure to relate to black subordinates in an appropriate way. In contrast, Logan held up his wife, Dolores, as an exemplar of Christianity due to her focus on charitable and humanitarian work. By equating Christian conduct with humanitarian action, white managers escape any sense of complicity or duty to challenge the racialized power structure on the plantation. In the same Bible study meeting in which we discussed the Book of Ecclesiastes, Dolores reflected on her underlying motivations for her humanitarian work: “Why am I doing what I do? I mean with all of this humanitarian work, with iom, Save the Children, msf – am I doing it so people will say, ‘Dolores, you’re the best’? Or am I doing it for Galatians 6:9,3 so I will just be an emotional wreck, just seeing how these people feel?” In effect, Dolores questioned whether her motivation for humanitarian work – of arranging for these various organizations to visit the plantation and provide services – stemmed from her own need for self-gratification or to please God. If her actions were about pleasing God, she felt this carried with it the cost of “being an emotional wreck” because it entails directly encountering the suffering of the unfortunate. And yet, the forms of charity she engaged in were largely determined by her (i.e. her effort to install clotheslines in the compound) and external interests (i.e. the services provided by msf and Save the Children). These interventions ameliorated some of the harshest aspects of plantation life, but they did little to address the underlying causes of extreme inequality and exploitation. The Bible reading thus led her to interrogate her motivations for helping, but she did not reflect on the nature of the “help” itself – the fact that it was given with little or no consultation with the intended beneficiaries, and whether this help made any meaningful difference in people’s lives. Christian-inspired charitable action softens the emotional difficulty of living in a context of high inequality but can leave the structural causes of that inequality intact. Thus, Christianity among whites can encourage humanitarian action towards black workers, but it rarely encourages real solidarity

148

Chiefs of the Plantation

or engagement with their struggles. Even though the Angus Buchaninspired Christianity of the whites might have more in common theologically with the Pentecostal Inter-D group (described below), their effective disengagement from the worship practices in the compound reinforces the dominance of the Zion group. For his part, Philip effectively endorses the Zion group by giving their leaders control over the morning devotion. Practiced among the entire workforce every day at the roll call, the morning devotion comprises a Bible reading, prayer, and sometimes a short sermon by Moses or Malvin (although more often it is Malvin because Moses usually works in the early morning). More than half of the morning devotions I attended emphasized humility and respect for superiors. In the course of messages and prayers delivered from a central podium, people in the audience often talk and appear inattentive, prompting senior figures closer to the podium to call for silence, often during the prayer itself. When I asked workers what they think of the devotion, typical responses suggested disinterest: “People are not participating, they are not that interested … they take it for granted.” Another worker said: “The morning devotion is used for different things … People don’t see how it will benefit them. They think it is just for the top structure.” The morning devotion was not always used in this way; that is, as a tool to reinforce labour discipline. For several months in 2007, Philip preached regularly at the devotion alongside Arthur. Philip would read a passage from the Bible, and then give a brief reflection on how it applied to his life. Arthur read the same scripture in Shona and translated his message. This practice was started after Philip attended his first “Mighty Men” conference in 2006. His messages during this period were related not only to respect for authority – although I was told this was a prominent theme – but also to the idea that men should be faithful to their wives and support their families. Yet, after 2007, he stopped preaching to the workers. In an interview, Philip suggested that his born-again Christianity was incompatible with his need to discipline workers: “What I found difficult is that if I had to preach about forgiveness, and somebody has stepped over the line in a serious offence, say it’s the second or third time and I had to take action against that person, in firing him or whatever, it became difficult sort of to practice or to show that I am also conforming. It became difficult in that line, that’s why I encourage another guy to speak to them, like Malvin, who reads from the Bible and has a short message.”

The Interdenominational Worship Group

149

In the same season in 2007, Arthur not only was translator for Philip, but also regularly preached on his own at the morning devotion. He told me that he used the devotion to preach about the Holy Spirit. But eventually he came to feel a “rejection” from the other leaders. During one instance towards the end of the season, his morning prayer inspired several people to speak in tongues and fall on the ground. The following morning, a senior manager cut short the devotion by saying, “Just pray,” preventing Arthur from preaching. Since that day, Arthur never preached again at the morning devotion. According to him, he felt his strong messages offended the leaders: “I preached aggressively and for true repentance. But I always felt a tense atmosphere and rejection … They never asked me to do it again.” The senior managers on the plantation had other reasons to reject Arthur. During the same period, he had started a different church group, the Inter-D, which rapidly gained followers. His preaching at the morning devotion gave him an additional platform from which to attract people to his alternative group. Leaders of the Zion church felt threatened by his growing influence and sought to deliberately block it, as I explore below.

o r ig in s o f t he i nter-d The Inter-D was started in 2006 by Arthur and Peter, a friend of his who is no longer employed at the plantation. Initially, Arthur had been attending the Zion church, but felt he was not fitting in: “I was not used to the way they were doing things. They were not having time for prayer, not having time for preaching the word.” The fact that so much of the service consisted of dancing seemed to him inappropriate. He lacked spiritual fulfillment. At first, the group consisted only of Arthur, Peter, and a few others, and they would go off into the tomato fields near the compound to pray and sing. Arthur says that the Inter-D style of worship was unprecedented at the plantation: “Many people had never seen this kind of praying before, and they were surprised.” The model for the Inter-D came from prayer groups that Arthur and Peter were exposed to in urban areas of Zimbabwe. A summary of a typical service gives a sense of how this model is different from Zion. In contrast to the formal hierarchy of the Zion church, there are no official leaders of the Inter-D. Each service has a chairperson and one or two preachers, who in turn appoint the chairperson and

150

Chiefs of the Plantation

preachers for the subsequent service. Services begin with upbeat clapping and singing intended to signal to others that service is starting and, according to some participants, to put people in a “happy frame of mind.” The occasional use of English and the absence of drum, horn, and customary styles of dancing make the Inter-D services appear more Westernized than the Zion church. Following the songs, a person says “Amen!” and people yell “Amen!” in return, after which the gathering comes to order. The chairperson will also shout “Up, up!” and people reply collectively “Jesus!” followed by “Down, down!” and a reply of “Satan!” At this point the chairperson welcomes everyone and says an opening prayer, normally asking for God to be present and to respond to people’s needs. This introduction is followed by an unstructured prayer session in which each person prays out loud to him- or herself, creating a cacophony of voices for several minutes. As this winds down, the chairperson invites people to give testimonies, which can take the form of a song or statement, usually giving thanks to God for some helpful turn of events, such as gaining employment, safe passage travels from Zimbabwe, or recovery from an illness. After the testimonies, the speakers deliver their messages. Unlike with the Zion church, women preach during Inter-D services. Yet, similar to the Zion church, preachers adopt a didactic approach that rebukes people for sinning and implores them to behave more appropriately. While the Zion preaching is grounded in respect for “laws” and traditions from rural Zimbabwe, Inter-D preachers reference the apocalypse or “last days” in their calls for improved behaviour – as one women preacher suggests: “We are nearing the end of the world. We have to move forward. One step forward will result in one’s upbringing and closeness to God. God has a plan for you. We are getting paid little but one can buy a car … don’t cheat. Strange things happen in the compound4 and without God’s help we may end up in the wrong.” In addition to the didactic element, there is an emphasis on the individuality and exceptional status of worshippers, which is absent in the Zion church. As suggested by the next excerpt from an Inter-D member, preachers motivate their listeners by instructing them to be different than the dominant environment around them: “Let God be with us, God has a purpose for us. Let us not be affected by the environment. God overpowers everything, all the evil things are controlled by him. You may be angry but God has a purpose in your life. Let us touch Jesus’s garment and not rise and fall, but we have to be

The Interdenominational Worship Group

151

changed from stage to stage and not backsliding. Our plans cannot be fulfilled if we are not trustworthy.” Services conclude with a healing ritual, in which people with sicknesses kneel on the ground while others lay hands upon them while praying. Those praying sometimes speak in tongues, but unlike in the Zion group where only prophets and leaders perform healing prayers, anyone willing to pray does so in the Inter-D. Occasionally, people being prayed over will roll on the ground and scream unintelligibly. On several occasions I witnessed Mai Luka struggle with a demon. Her demon would typically manifest at the end of services, during prayers for the sick. She would be kneeling on the ground, along with others requesting prayers, when suddenly she would start yelling and sputtering unintelligibly. The more experienced preachers in the group would assist her, laying on hands and praying to cast out the demon. She would then fall over, twitching on the ground, or rise up and flail her arms, necessitating others to hold her while she was prayed over. The demon possession could continue for an hour, but most often lasted twenty or so minutes. When the demon was finally expelled, she would then rise up, seemingly refreshed and back to her normal self. As other church members confided in me, the demon was purportedly linked to her participation in the sexual economy. On one occasion, she publicly thanked the group during testimony time for helping her to fight the “prostitution demon.” This was something of an exceptional admission; church participants rarely made such an open confession. While there is nothing avowedly “political” about the Inter-D church – nothing in its worship practice explicitly criticizes the hierarchy of the plantation – it nevertheless came to be seen as a threat. When they first started the Inter-D, Arthur and Peter called themselves a “cell group,” to indicate that they were still under the rubric of the existing Zion church, and not forming an independent or separate church. They deliberately stayed away from the crèche shed, the space associated with the Zion group, sensing that to use this space for different worship practices could be interpreted as a threat to leadership. Despite their efforts to worship at some remove from crèche, Arthur and Peter still felt pressure from the Zion group. Arthur said, “Many people never liked it from the beginning. They were against the idea of doing an extra service and they questioned why we were doing it at night.” He also said that during the regular Zion services, leaders explicitly preached against Arthur and Peter, asking, “Why do some people select themselves out of others?”

152

Chiefs of the Plantation

Figure 5.2 Inter-D service, Mopane Estates

Arthur also encountered spiritual resistance. During one evening service of the Inter-D, Arthur made a very long prayer, which continued straight for several hours. During the prayer, several people slipped into tongues and spoke foreign languages. As he put it, “I did not know it then, but we were fighting against evil spirits.” That night, Arthur could not fall asleep. He heard strange sounds outside his room: “Then I heard someone outside my room, and I felt him come in. The sensation was … evil. It lay on top of me. Then it strangled me – I felt the fingers on my throat. It was only when I was able to say ‘Jesus Christ!’ that its grip loosened and finally was thrown out of the room.” The next day, Arthur had an extremely sore throat and, after reporting his experience to Peter, discovered he had a similar demonic encounter during the night. This event convinced Arthur that the Inter-D was embroiled in a spiritual war with evil spirits on the plantation. He could not say from where these spirits came, only that they were aligned with Satan. He speculated that that the spirits might be spatially and historically rooted to the plantation, or they could be new evil spirits that someone affiliated with the Zion church had sent to attack him and Peter. Arthur felt that God

The Interdenominational Worship Group

153

was with him, and he refused to give up. “We were afraid of this [of evil spirits], and of what people were saying about our group, but the Holy Spirit told us to be free. We prayed for the future and they could not manage to stop what we were doing.” The Inter-D grew significantly in 2007 and 2008. In 2008, they added a Sunday morning service between 6 and 9 a.m., again to avoid overlapping with the Zion group, (whose service started at 10 a.m.). The group also started to have its first all-night prayers in the back of the tomato fields. At one of these all-night prayers involving over fifty people, a small group of Zion supporters made an attempt to disrupt the service. They followed the group to the worship site, and shouted and taunted the group while they prayed. Arthur said, “There was a war of words between the two groups. They yelled at us and called us drunkards, but they had no points to make, just false witness.” According to Arthur, the prayer night was highly successful: “So many people were delivered from demons. So many people spoke tongues, some for the first time.” More broadly, 2007 and 2008 is when a “big change” occurred on the plantation. Some Zionists started “converting,” or at least attending the Inter-D services: “Even those who did not convert, they were changing, the whole place was changing.” How, I asked, were they changing? “The way they were preaching at their own services, the way they were living, the way they were praying and singing … People were starting to live in the fear of the Lord, it was a renewing of the mind, the people were scared to sin before the Lord.” However, starting in 2009 the Inter-D began a decline in membership and influence from which it has yet to recover. There are at least two reasons for this decline. The first reason is changing demographics on the plantation. The growth of the inter-D between 2006 and 2008 coincided with the peak of Zimbabwean “informal” migration to South Africa. If members left the plantation in search of higher-paying employment further south – as was the case with Arthur’s cofounder, Peter – the steadily increasing number of border jumpers seeking temporary refuge or employment at the plantation replaced them. In 2009, South Africa’s migration policies became less restrictive. Zimbabweans could now claim asylum at official border posts, allowing them entry even if they did not have documents or passports; moreover, a moratorium was placed on deportations of Zimbabweans (see chapter 1). Because of these changes, significantly fewer Zimbabwean migrants travelled

154

Chiefs of the Plantation

through Mopane Estates after 2008. Although this reduction was not extreme enough to cause a labour shortage, it did mean that the Inter-D had fewer potential recruits. Additionally, the composition of migration after 2008 was less favourable to the Inter-D: most new migrants were relatives of existing workers and from Mberengwa. More urbanized and educated Zimbabweans – those more likely predisposed to the Pentecostalism of the Inter-D – were entering South Africa through border posts, bypassing border plantations like Mopane Estates. A second reason for the decline of the Inter-D is that many members, in the words of Arthur, “fell.” To fall, in the context of the plantation, most often refers to sexual transgressions that violate the Pentecostal standard of morality. As Arthur explained, “Some of our members fell and became pregnant.” Falling applied to both men and women. Such people “became involved in prostitution” and stopped attending church. At least five of these former – now “fallen” – members (two of whom are women) were still employed at the plantation but did not attend services. When asked why they no longer attended, each pointed to a lack of time and being tired after work. When I asked Arthur, he gave a different reason: “You see, if someone is sinning, they do not want to attend church and repent, because they know people will be preaching against fornication. So they would rather not attend and talk badly about the church.” Arthur further explained why such people are not welcome in the services: “If someone is doing something funny, he can give us a bad name. We want these people, we want them to change, sometimes we encourage them. I visit them outside the services and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on guys, Jesus loves you.’ But we cannot change our lives, to change the way we are living, to create a happy place for sinners.” The requirement of moral purity placed tremendous pressure on the de facto “leader” of the Inter-D, Arthur. This pressure was more extreme than the sort Moses and Malvin confronted in the Zion church. For the latter, their positions and church were not fundamentally threatened by the fact that they were involved in the sexual economy. In contrast, Arthur’s Christian identity depended on being noticeably distinct from mainstream, sinful behaviour on the plantation. When he “backslid,” he felt he lost all legitimacy as leader of the Inter-D.

The Interdenominational Worship Group

155

a rt h u r ’ s f in a l testi mony “Lincoln, I have something important to discuss with you.” With these words, I sensed a new determination in Arthur’s voice indicating that he would finally address the ongoing rumours that he was the father of Eunice’s child. We were walking alongside the Limpopo River, having left the compound to have more privacy. We sat down on some rocks at the river edge. Arthur framed his tale by saying, “This is the testimony about how the devil attacks people, how evangelists are brought down.” His subsequent testimony spanned the entirety of his relationship with Eunice, from when he met her selling shoes in the compound to the present. From the very beginning, when she started attending Inter-D services and coming to wash and cook for him and his brother as a “Christian sister,” he suspected that she was trying to seduce him. “I said to myself I have to be careful, she is not just looking for Christian things. She is looking for a husband.” He described how she started flirting with him, falling asleep on his lap one day, placing her legs over his on another. He recognized this flirtation as temptation from the devil: “Perhaps because I was the role model of the farm, the devil was at my back. Something just happened as we were going on, she was arousing feelings in me … one of the days, I made a mistake and slept with her.” Before they had intercourse, Eunice told him that there was no risk of getting pregnant because she had made provisions for birth control in the form of an injection that was good for six months. Yet, a few months after they had sex, she informed him that the injection had failed and that she was pregnant. Eunice, who had two children at her parents’ homestead from previous relationships, said she was frightened at the prospect of informing her parents. She suggested that they get married. Although Arthur felt “guilty” for having slept with her, he refused to marry, stating that he was already engaged to another woman in Zimbabwe. He also doubted that the pregnancy was caused by him, suspecting Eunice of sleeping with other men on the plantation. Nevertheless, he advised her to get an abortion, a decision he came to regret: “Well, that was another sin again, a sin of killing.” For the next month until he returned to Zimbabwe for the Christmas period, Arthur removed himself from leadership roles in the Inter-D: “At this place I don’t want to disturb the word of God. I don’t want to let people down. So I decided to give bigger roles to people until things

156

Chiefs of the Plantation

are better. It was a very big blow in my life, a very striking blow.” He did not find any feeling of true forgiveness for his sin until he confessed to an evangelist preacher at his home church in Zimbabwe: “I told him the whole story and said I’m guilty of fornication and murder. He taught me a lot of things, and I felt delivered in my heart.” When he returned to the plantation in January, he had made up his mind that this would be his last season on the plantation. Ongoing gossip that held him responsible for Eunice’s pregnancy made him feel like his presence on the plantation undermined the word of God. He no longer felt legitimacy in the eyes of other workers: “It was a heavy thing inside me. I don’t want to see the word of God being blackened because of me. It’s now hard to save all these lost sheep … they will finally believe that everyone is in it.” His mission, as he saw it, was premised on leading a disciplined life of example and of abstaining from the plantation’s sexual economy. This abstinence made him an exceptional figure and allowed him to preach that it was possible to resist participating in the sexual economy. Now that he was widely known to have fallen, he could no longer claim this exceptional status upon which his mission was premised: “The theme that I was teaching to people is that it is a war. I was starting a war with the devil, and unfortunately I lost the war before God and the only thing that will help is his forgiveness.” He said that all he could do to rectify the situation was use this story as a “weapon to fight the devil,” but he felt strongly that this could not happen on the plantation. While it may have been possible in another context, he said, to publicly confess his sin and go on with the mission, the plantation is “too different.” He was unable to specify exactly why it is different, except to say for residents of the population, “what is in their minds that a Christian must never fall … They will believe that a Christian living sinfully is okay.” Arthur felt that he now had an unshakable affiliation with the sexual economy. The only solution as he saw it was to “find another place and go there.” Arthur was therefore already committed to eventually leaving the plantation when Emmanuel was arrested and beaten. The latter event made him leave much sooner than he planned, however. After Arthur and Emmanuel left, the Inter-D persisted with fewer than ten participants for the remainder of my research. My follow-up communication with people still working at the plantation suggested that the group disbanded entirely in 2012, and only the Zion church remained on the plantation.

The Interdenominational Worship Group

157

c o n c l u s i on In many ways, the labour regime of Mopane Estates curtails the role of Christianity on the plantation. At the most basic level, the labour regime requires people to work long hours and leaves them little time to perform reproductive labour or other recreational pursuits. Most Zimbabweans able to attend church participated in the Zion group. The worship practices in this church, especially the dancing, remind participants of home and help attenuate feelings of stress and insecurity. While spiritual practices in the church cannot be reduced to strategies of labour control, the church is deeply integrated with the management hierarchy and the messages of most preachers reinforce the authority of “top-structure” figures on the plantation. The morning devotion, which is largely controlled by the Zion church, similarly reflects how Christianity on the plantation is tied to the agenda of disciplining the labour force. The rise and fall of the Inter-D illustrates the limited space for alternatives to the Zion church. From its origins, the Inter-D was met with hostility by top-structure figures, who blocked Arthur’s participation in the morning devotion and spoke against it in Zion services. The marginality of the church is reflected in its services being held on the outskirts of the compound, rather than in the prominent centre of the crèche. The growth of the Inter-D between 2006 and 2008 reflects how more urbanized and middle-class Zimbabweans – people more likely to participate in Pentecostal rather than Zion worship – used the plantation as a crossing point into South Africa and a temporary space of employment. Yet, due to changing migration policies of South Africa, people of this background were less present on the plantation after 2008. Finally, the emphasis on sexual purity within Pentecostalism, as it manifested on the plantation, makes this denomination difficult to sustain in the plantation environment. The “fall” of Arthur and several other erstwhile members suggests that abstinence from relationships in the sexual economy is unlikely over a long period of time. As Arthur’s case suggests, once a member of this church is known to have “fallen,” he or she is unlikely to participate and is invalidated as a Pentecostal leader. This stands in contrast to the Zion church, where sexual transgressions are criticized but not condemned in such stark terms.

Conclusion

This book has demonstrated that Mopane Estates has adapted to the post-apartheid era and agricultural restructuring through a delegation of rule from white owners to black intermediaries. This delegation represents a core element that binds together other key facets of the labour regime: the growing casualization and externalization of labour, the partial compliance with private and public regulation, and the provisioning of accommodation and other means of subsistence. While this labour regime facilitates production and profitability, it creates a fragile and uneven moral economy. The fragility is evident in the fraught relations between most black workers and white management, and in the gendered and spiritual struggles within the workforce itself. In writing this book, I have sought to foreground the plantation as a space of contestation. This contestation has multiple and contradictory outcomes. To make sense of this diversity, I find it helpful to turn here to Cindi Katz’s (2004) framework for understanding the responses of marginal groups to economic restructuring and neoliberalism. Writing against a tendency in much literature to flatten all forms of oppositional practices as “resistance,” Katz differentiates such practices as resilience, reworking, and resistance. As she explains it, her goal is to “delineate between the admittedly overlapping material social practices that are loosely considered ‘resistance’ to distinguish those whose primary effect is autonomous initiative, recuperation, or resilience; those that are attempts to rework oppressive and unequal circumstances; and those that are intended to resist, subvert, or disrupt these conditions of exploitation and oppression” (Katz 2004, 242). She further explains that resistance

Conclusion

159

involves, in Marxist terms, a class moving from “in itself” to a class “for itself.” This shift suggests a process of consciousness-raising, whereby the non-dominant feel not only a sense of injustice in their relations with the dominant, but actually come to realize “the means through which these social relations are obscured or naturalized in their society” (ibid., 256). Only with this deeper awareness comes a “realization of the need for resistance, for undoing these power relations and undermining the means through which they are set in motion and enforced” (ibid., 256). The forms of worker contestation I examine in this book fall short of resistance in Katz’s strong sense. The examples I explore in chapters 2 and 3 of taking tomatoes, participating in smuggling networks, engaging in small-scale strikes, and stealing pesticides represent attempts to rework circumstances on the plantation. As “weapons of the weak” (Scott 1985), they typically avoid direct confrontation and hence potential reprisal. And, as I have illustrated, these subversive activities are motivated not so much by an oppositional consciousness that seeks to overthrow the structure of authority, as by a desire to support rural homesteads and a sense of injustice on the plantation. Even the pickers’ strike, arguably the most confrontational of the examples examined here, levelled only a modest demand – that Philip provide the expected minor increase to the piece rate for the season. In contrast to these acts of reworking, the sexual economy and church groups represent efforts to maintain resilience. While women occupy the lowest-ranking positions on the plantation, many of them gain additional income through transactional sex with male workers, enabling them to often return to Zimbabwe with greater income than their male counterparts. Yet, participation in the sexual economy also has negative consequences, such as increasing women’s domestic labour burden and exposure to hiv/aids, resulting in contradictory implications for their overall welfare. Worship practices afford Zimbabweans a measure of solace and comfort amidst abject living and working conditions, but on a broader organizational level the dominant church projects the interests of management. The formation of the Inter-D group represents an implicit challenge to management’s control of religious expression, but given its stringent emphasis on personal morality, the Inter-D ultimately collapses when its leadership becomes embroiled in stealing and the sexual economy.

160

Chiefs of the Plantation

In the end, then, this book paints a grim picture of the prospects for Zimbabweans to fundamentally transform working conditions on border plantations. Nonetheless, in presenting this picture, I have tried to abide by the Gramscian maxim, “pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will” (Gramsci 1971, 395; cf. Crehan 2002, 26). That is, I have confronted – without any idealistic pretensions – the realities of oppression on border plantations, precisely so that through a fuller understanding, they may one day be overcome. In spite of the bleak picture of resistance, my book has shown the plantation environment to be, in another sense, alive with personality and possibility. Through my ethnography, I have shown the sense of struggle and resilience that animates workers’ lives, and how these struggles become constitutive of power relations on the plantation. My book adds a new dimension to our understanding of border agriculture in South Africa. In particular, this study of Mopane Estates represents a crucial complement to the story of another border plantation in South Africa, Grootplaas, told by Maxim Bolt (2015). In a rich and nuanced ethnography, he traces how the border farm represents a space of relative stability amidst a wider context of transience and fragmentation. Bolt emphasizes how migrant workers seek security and strive for a “provisional permanence” through incorporation in the multifaceted hierarchies of Grootplaas. On Mopane Estates, migrant workers similarly strive for incorporation and security, but in so doing they frequently contest and subvert the hierarchies of the plantation. If we think of border plantations only as islands of relative stability, we risk minimizing these struggles and obfuscate how they shape the labour regime and migrant experience. Beyond the focus on the border, the analysis of Mopane informs the wider ethnography of large-scale agriculture in South Africa. This literature has been primarily concerned with conditions on grape and citrus producers in the Western Cape, a focus that has led to researchers largely ignoring the labour relations enmeshing migrant temporary workers. To the extent that such workers are discussed, they are often represented as being outside the “paternalistic contract.” My ethnography illustrates how such workers continue to be situated by paternalism – albeit a form in which moral or social obligations towards workers are minimized, while the scope for arbitrary decision-making by owners and management remains largely intact. If, as Doreen Atkinson (2007) suggests, white owners retain a “reservoir of goodwill and reciprocity” and “moral commitment to paternalism” in post-apartheid

Conclusion

161

South Africa, this commitment appears to be short-circuited by the pragmatic reliance farm owners have developed on intermediaries such as Clayton. My ethnography demonstrates that plantations can project a surface appearance of benevolent paternalism – particularly in the self-understanding and narratives offered by white owners and managers. Yet, when one digs deeper into the everyday life of the community, this sensibility amounts to a self-deception among whites, as most workers become divested – morally and emotionally – from this sense of the plantation as a family or collective enterprise. Ultimately, the wider significance of Mopane Estates does not lie in its “representativeness” of rural labour relations in South Africa. The circumstances across the countryside are too diverse. Rather, as a border plantation with a high degree of temporary labour, it allows for connections to be made between South African agriculture and other forms of enclave capitalism dependent on migrant labour throughout the world. Within such contexts, my ethnography has shown the importance of attending to what Tania Li (2009) terms the “series of agencies” through which workers come be recruited and stabilized in such zones of employment, and of including workers’ spatial, sexual, and religious practices within understandings of the labour process. In so doing, my ethnography illuminates how ostensibly “surplus” populations become connected with spaces of labour absorption, and how precarious workers are nevertheless able to shape the conditions of their employment. My aim is that this book serves as a model for other studies of plantations. Following sharp commodity price increases in the early 2000s, international investors have shown growing interest in acquiring land across the Global South for plantation agriculture. Between 5 and 7.5 per cent of all cultivated area in sub-Saharan Africa currently falls under large-scale agriculture. This number is likely to increase by over 50 per cent by 2021, as concessions for palm oil and ventures for high-value crop production come to fruition (Gibbon 2011). Following this “land grab” for large-scale agriculture, most scholarship has focused on the politics of land acquisition and the dispossession of smallholders and pastoralists (White et al. 2012). Less attention has been focused on the patterns of labour recruitment, stabilization, and management that has taken place in the aftermath of land grabs (Li 2018; Pye 2017). My case study of the labour practices at Mopane Estates helps address this lacuna, and in this sense contributes to critical agrarian studies.

162

Chiefs of the Plantation

Beyond the focus on labour practices, my study informs debate over the developmental impact of plantation agriculture. Referring to the upsurge of oil palm plantations, some argue that low levels of labour absorption relative to land size, precarious working conditions, and environmental degradation render them almost “antidevelopmental” (Rigg 2018, 339) – in the sense that they exacerbate inequality, do little to reduce poverty, and resist progressive reform (Li 2017; Castellanos-Navarrete, Tobar-Tomás, and López-Monzón 2018). From this perspective, plantations are beyond redemption; political struggle should be directed towards supporting alternative livelihoods and smallholder agriculture, rather than trying to improve conditions on plantations themselves. In contrast, others emphasize how plantations and other forms of rural wage employment provide a vital source of income for the poorest (often femaleheaded) households (Oya and Sender 2009). The key challenge, in this latter perspective, is how to “support the creation of rural wage labour opportunities, in contexts of an expanding labour supply, without exacerbating the levels of insecurity, casualization, and powerlessness” (Oya and Pontara 2015, 23). This debate has particular resonance in South Africa, where the anc faces a growing crisis of legitimacy due to high rates of inequality and unemployment. In this context, there is growing support for the state to expropriate land from white plantation owners without compensation and redistribute it to landless South Africans, similar to Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform in 2000. The delegation of authority and related exploitation I have described on Mopane Estates might be read as lending support to the view of plantations as anti-developmental. Yet, the aspirations of migrant workers on Mopane complicate such a perspective. While most workers are frustrated by low wages and the unequal authority structure, they do not wish for the plantation to collapse. Zimbabwean migrants depend on wages from plantations to pursue a range of desires related to kuvaka musha – from purchasing inputs for their own small-scale farming to paying bride wealth and school fees, among many other goals. Employment on Mopane exposes workers to multiple risks – such as injury, pesticides, and hiv/aids – but money brought home from the plantation also contributes to the survival of hundreds of households in Zimbabwe. The examples of contestation in this book, through which workers redefine the terms of their employment, challenge the view of plantations

Conclusion

163

as incapable of meaningful or progressive change. If we think of plantations as irredeemable, we risk reinforcing the marginalization of migrant workers, and foreclose potential efforts by unions and social movements to support their struggles. What does the future hold for Mopane Estates? Since 2010, I have maintained communication with workers and managers at the plantation. One significant development is that Philip no longer resides at the plantation. In previous years, he would spend only the summer months on an ocean-side property in Port Elizabeth, but now it appears he and his family have moved there permanently. Philip still returns to the plantation periodically, but he has in effect become an absentee owner. While his motivations for leaving are undoubtedly complex, I suspect that at least in part the politics of the plantation became too stressful. As much as he delegated authority to black chiefs, and in this way buffered himself against labour conflict, the basic sources of instability probably became too disruptive. Events similar to the struggles over tomatoes, cigarette smuggling, strikes, and chemical stealing likely continued to take place, forcing Philip to adopt the role of disciplinarian too often. In my final conversation with Philip, he foreshadowed his departure through reference to a wider sense of instability. I asked him if he hoped for his children to take over the ownership of Mopane Estates. “Yes, we hope for that,” he replied. But after pause, he qualified this aspiration: “But you can’t be too sentimental about the land in Africa today … It’s very difficult not to put your heart into the land that you put your sweat, blood, and guts into for most of your lifetime. It’s difficult not to think about one’s sons or daughters carrying on with the land, because deep down one might want that, but it’s dangerous. In Africa there is a great probability that it won’t happen.” Here Philip gestured not so much to the instability within his labour force, but rather a more generalized instability emanating from the South African state and the threat of confiscatory land reform. His comments revealed how the fear of land being taken away leads him to divest partially from the desire for his children to take over. Alongside this instability, there were few ways for Philip (and his wife and children) to find meaningful belonging on Mopane Estates. As I have described, Philip did not socialize with workers and even avoided white employees after work hours. In an isolated setting like Mopane Estates, such social distance is a recipe for loneliness. As

164

Chiefs of the Plantation

evidence of the anomie these conditions can generate among whites, all of the white managers I discuss in the book (Dolores, Logan, and Heinrik) eventually quit the plantation and found work elsewhere. Workers inform me that Philip still visits the plantation for brief interludes, but left another (new) white manager in charge of the plantation for most of the year. Even with the appointment of a new white manager, I am told that Clayton still “runs the farm.” If anything, the departure of Philip likely increases his autonomy and discretionary authority. I would stop short, however, of seeing in this shift the realization of what Mamdani (1996) calls “decentralized despotism.” Clayton is still constrained by a white presence living in close proximity, and the dynamics of racialized paternalism will continue to shape the labour system, albeit in an increasingly socially thin and authoritarian form.

Notes

i nt roduct i o n 1 2

3

To preserve the anonymity of the plantation and its workers, I have not used its real name here. While I use the term “plantation” to describe Mopane Estates, I occasionally use the words commercial farm, farm, or farmer throughout the text. I do this when describing literature that uses the term “farm,” or when working with informants’ own characterizations. As I noted, some senior figures on the plantation made this accusation about me to Philip, partly on the basis of this question about wages.

c ha p t e r o n e 1

2

3

What I refer to as the “eastern border” constitutes the border line east of Musina, stretching along the Limpopo until arriving at Madimbo Corridor military base. I do not consider the area between Madimbo corridor and Kruger Park as part of this designation, since it has historically been communal land or mining areas, and thus not as relevant for white farming. The history of the eastern border area is yet to be written up as a full monograph – though see the work of Wagner (1980), Murray (1995), Lahiff (2000), and Mulaudzi (2000) for valuable insights. I draw on these sources, archives, interviews with long term Venda residents in the surrounding area (including former farm workers) and local white inhabitants. The obstacles to white settlement along the northern frontier, in an earlier period, is also discussed by Wagner (1980). Mulaudzi (2000) discusses

166

4

5

Notes to pages 34–150

how conditions for white farming improved in northern Zoutpansberg District after 1930. Scrutton himself was an active trader in the northern Transvaal in the 1880s and 1890s, and had originally obtained the land from the Venda chief Makhado, before the latter was driven out of the Zoutpansberg District by an army detachment from Pretoria (see Mulaudzi 2000, 67–8). For further reading on the Zimbabwean crisis and its relationship to migration, see McGregor and Primorac (2010); Hammer, McGregor, and Landau (2010); and Derman and Kaarhus (2013).

c h a p t e r t wo 1 2 3

As I pointed out in chapter 1, during the 2009 to 2010 season nearly 40 per cent of the workforce was made up of first-time workers. See, for example, Dolores’ comments in chapter 1, in which she describes how Philip avoids paying workers minimum wage. The worker’s comment about a smuggler being “disturbed” referred to the possibility of compound residents potentially informing Philip or police when the smugglers are crossing.

c h a p t e r t h re e 1

Mushonga is the local (Shona) term for pesticides.

c ha p t e r f i ve 1

2 3 4

This requirement was strictly observed: on the few occasions that my wife, Christina, attended services, several church members insisted that she too cover her hair (and sit on the floor). The preachers were selected by the leadership committee of the church, made up of Moses, Malvin, and three other senior members of the church. Galatians 6:9 states, “let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” The woman refers to “strange things in the compound” rather than making more direct references to prostitution, drinking, and other perceived forms of immoral behaviour, in an observance of gendered norms of respectability. In contrast to men, women rarely spoke in explicit terms about these issues in the services.

References

Addison, Lincoln. 2006. “Frontier Farm Labour: The Neoliberal Restructuring of Agriculture and Zimbabwean Migrant Farm Workers in Limpopo Province, South Africa.” Master’s thesis, Carleton University. – 2008. “Fertile Ground: Possibilities for Unionization Among Zimbabwean Farm Workers in Limpopo.” South African Labour Bulletin 32, no. 3: 12–14. Atkinson, Doreen. 2007. Going for Broke: The Fate of Farm Workers in South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Bain, Carmen. 2010. “Structuring the Flexible and Feminized Labor Market: GlobalGAP Standards for Agricultural Labor in Chile.” Signs 35, no. 2: 343–70. Barrientos, Stephanie. 2011. “‘Labour Chains’: Analysing the Role of Labour Contractors in Global Production Networks.” Working paper 153, Brooks World Policy Institute, Manchester, UK. Barrientos, Stephanie, and Andrienetta Kritzinger. 2003. “Squaring the Circle: Global Production and the Informalization of Work in South African Fruit Exports.” Journal of International Development 16, no. 1: 81–92. Benson, Peter. 2011. Tobacco Capitalism: Growers, Migrant Workers and the Changing Face of a Global Industry. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bernstein, Henry. 1996. “South Africa’s Agrarian Question: Extreme and Exceptional?” In The Agrarian Question in South Africa, edited by Henry Bernstein, 1–44. London: Frank Cass. – 2010. Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change. Halifax: Fernwood. – 2013. “Commercial Agriculture in South Africa since 1994: “Natural, Simply Capitalism.” Journal of Agrarian Change 13, no. 1: 23–46.

168

References

Besky, Sarah. 2013. The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair Trade Tea Plantations. Berkeley: University of California Press. Binford, Leigh. 2012. Tomorrow We’re All Going to the Harvest: Temporary Foreign Worker Programs and Neoliberal Political Economy. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bolt, Maxim. 2010. “Camaraderie and its Discontents: Class Consciousness, Ethnicity and Divergent Masculinities among Zimbabwean Migrant Farm Workers in South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 36, no. 2: 377–93. – 2015. Zimbabwe’s Migrants on South Africa’s Border Farms: The Roots of Impermanence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. – 2016a. “Mediated Paternalism and Violent Incorporation: Enforcing Farm Hierarchies on the Zimbabwean-South African Border.” Journal of Southern African Studies 42, no. 5: 911–27. – 2016b. “Accidental Neoliberalism: Accidental Neoliberalism and the Performance of Management: Hierarchies in Export Agriculture on the Zimbabwean-South African Border.” Journal of International Development Studies 52, no. 4: 561–75. Bradford, Helen. 1987. A Taste of Freedom: The icu in Rural South Africa, 1924–1930. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. – 1993. “Getting Away With Murder: ‘Mealie Kings,’ the State and Foreigners in the Eastern Transvaal, c. 1918–1950.” In Apartheid’s Genesis 1935–1962, edited by Philip Bonner, Peter Delius, and Deborah Posel, 96–125. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand Press. Brown, Carolyn. 2003. ‘We Were All Slaves’: African Miners, Culture and Resistance at the Enugu Government Colliery. Oxford: James Currey. Buchan, Angus. 1998. Faith Like Potatoes: The Story of a Farmer Who Risked Everything for God. London: Monarch Books. Burawoy, Michael. 1985. The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes Under Capitalism and Socialism. London: Verso. Campbell, Stephen. 2018. Border Capitalism, Disrupted: Precarity and Struggle in a Southeast Asian Industrial Zone. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Castellanos-Navarrete, Antonio, William V. Tobar-Tomás, and Carlos E. López-Monzón. 2018. “Development without Change: Oil Palm Labour Regimes, Development Narratives, and Disputed Moral Economies in Mesoamerica.” Journal of Rural Studies. 27 September. Collinson, Mark, Brent Wolff, Stephen Tollman, and Kathleen Kahn. 2006. “Trends in Internal Labour Migration from Rural Limpopo Province, Male Risk Behaviour, and Implications for the Spread of hiv/aids in

References

169

Rural South Africa.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32, no. 4: 633–48. Comaroff, Jean. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Crapanzano, Vincent. 1985. Waiting: The Whites of South Africa. New York: Random House. Crehan, Kate. 2002. Gramsci, Culture and Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press. Crush, Jonathan. 1994. “Scripting the Compound: Power and Space in the South African Mining Industry.” Environment and Planning 12, no. 3: 301–24. Davis, Stephen. 1987. Apartheid’s Rebels: Inside South Africa’s Hidden War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. De La Torre, Cristina, Shane Khan, Eric Eckert, and Jennifer Luna. 2009. hiv /aids in Namibia: Behavioural and Contextual Factors Driving the Epidemic. Windhoek, Namibia: USAID. Derman, Bill, and Randi Kaarhus, eds. 2013. In the Shadow of a Conflict: Crisis in Zimbabwe and its Effects on Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. Harare, Zimbabwe: Weaver Press. Dube, Siphiwe. 2016. “Race, Whiteness and Transformation in the Promise Keepers America and the Mighty Men Conference: A Comparative Analysis.” HTS Theological Studies 72, no. 1: 1–8. Dunkle, Kristin, Rachel K. Jewkes, Heather C. Brown, Glenda E. Gray, James A. McIntryre, and Sioban Harlow. 2004. “Transactional Sex Among Women in Soweto, South Africa: Prevalence, Risk Factors and Association with hiv infection.” Social Science and Medicine 59: 1,581–92. Du Toit, Andries. 1993. “The Micro-Politics of Paternalism: the Discourses of Management and Resistance on South African Fruit and Wine Farms.” Journal of Southern African Studies 19, no. 2: 312–36. – 2005. “Forgotten by the Highway: Globalisation, Adverse Incorporation and Chronic Poverty in a Commercial Farming District.” Working paper 101, Centre for Social Science Research, Cape Town. Du Toit, Andries, and Fadeela Ally. 2003. “The Externalisation and Casualisation of Farm Labour in Western Cape Horticulture.” Research report 16, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies. Cape Town. Du Toit, Andries, Sandra Kruger, and Stefano Ponte. 2008. “Deracializing Exploitation?: ‘Black Economic Empowerment’ in the South African Wine Industry.” Journal of Agrarian Change 8, no. 1: 6–32.

170

References

Edelman, Marc. 2012. “E. P. Thompson and Moral Economies.” In A Companion to Moral Anthropology, edited by Didier Fassin, 49–66. Oxford: Wiley-Blackell. Epstein, Arnold. 1958. Politics in an Urban African Community. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Estabrook, Barry. 2010. Tomatoland: How Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel. Ewert, Joachim, and Andries Du Toit. 2005. “A Deepening Divide in the Countryside: Restructuring and Rural Livelihoods in the South African Wine Industry.” Journal of Southern African Studies 31, no. 2: 315–32. Ewert, Joachim, and Johann Hamman. 1996. “Labour Organization in Western Cape Agriculture: An Ethnic Corporatism?” In The Agrarian Question in South Africa, edited by Henry Bernstein, 146–65. London: Frank Cass. – 1999. “Why Paternalism Survives: Globalization, Democratization and Labour on South African Wine Farms.” Sociologia Ruralis 39, no. 2: 202–21. Ferguson, James. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press. – 2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham: Duke University Press. First, Ruth. 1959. The Farm Labour Scandal. Johannesburg: New Age. Forrest, Kally. 2015. “Rustenburg’s Labour Recruitment Regime: Shifts and New Meanings.” Review of African Political Economy 42, no. 146: 508–25. Genovese, Eugene. 1972. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage Books. Genovese, Eugene, and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. 2011. Fatal SelfDeception: Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gibbon, Peter. 2011. “Experience of Plantation and Large-Scale Farming in 20th Century Africa.” Working paper 20, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen. Gibbon, Peter, Benoit Daviron, and Stephanie Barral. 2014. “Lineages of Paternalism: An Introduction.” Journal of Agrarian Change 14, no. 2: 165–89. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quentin and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

References

171

Gray, Margaret. 2013. Labor and the Locavore: The Making of a Comprehensive Food Ethic. Berkeley: University of California Press. Guthman, Julie. 2004. Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hall, Ruth, Paul Wisborg, Shirhami Shirinda, and Phillani Zamchiya. 2013. “Farm Workers and Farm Dwellers in Limpopo Province, South Africa.” Journal of Agrarian Change 13, no. 1: 47–70. Hammer, Amanda, JoAnn McGregor, and Loren Landau. 2010. “Introduction: Displacing Zimbabwe: Crisis and Construction in Southern Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 36, no. 2: 263–83. Hart, Gillian. 2002. Disabling Globalization: Places of Power in PostApartheid South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hartnack, Andrew. 2016. Ordered Estates: Welfare, Power and Maternalism on Zimbabwe’s (Once White) Highveld. Harare, Zimbabwe: Weaver Press. Harvey, David. 1982. The Limits to Capital. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Herod, Andrew. 1997. “From a Geography of Labor to a Labor Geography: Labor’s Spatial Fix and the Geography of Capitalism.” Antipode 29, no. 1: 1–31. Holmes, Seth. 2013. Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press. Horton, Sarah. 2015. “Identity Loan: The Moral Economy of Migrant Document Exchange in California’s Central Valley.” American Ethnologist 42, no. 1: 55–67. Hughes, David. 2006. From Enslavement to Environmentalism: Politics on a Southern African Frontier. Seattle: University of Washington Press – 2010. Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race, Landscape, and the Problem of Belonging. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hunter, Marc. 2010. Love in the Time of aids : Inequality, Gender, and Rights in South Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. International Organization for Migration (iom). 2004. hiv /aids Vulnerability among Migrant Farm Workers on the South African– Mozambican Border. Pretoria, South Africa: International Organization for Migration. – 2010a. Integrated Biological and Behavioural Surveillance Survey in Commercial Agricultural Sector in South Africa. Pretoria, South Africa: International Organization for Migration. – 2010b. Country Assessment on hiv -Prevention Needs of Migrants and Mobile Populations: Swaziland. Pretoria, South Africa: International Organization for Migration.

172

References

Jackson, Paula. 2013. “Solms-Delta: Transformation or Neopaternalism?” In Winelands, Wealth and Work: Transformation in the Dwars River Valley, edited by Kees van der Waal, 82–105. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Jain, Shobita, and Rhoda Reddock. 1998. “Plantation Women: An Introduction.” In Women Plantation Workers: International Experiences, edited by Shobita Jain and Rhoda Reddock, 1–17. New York: Berg. Jeater, Diana. 1993. Marriage, Perversion and Power: The Construction of Moral Discourse in Southern Rhodesia. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jeeves, Alan. 1985. Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy: The Struggle for the Gold Mines Labour Supply, 1890–1920. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Jeeves, Alan, and Jonathan Crush. 1997. “Introduction.” In White Farms, Black Labor: The State and Agrarian Change in Southern Africa, 1910– 1950, edited by Alan Jeeves and Jonathan Crush, 1–28. Portsmouth, nh: Heinemann. Johnston, Deborah. 2007. “Who Needs Immigrant Farm Workers?: A South African Case Study.” Journal of Agrarian Change 7, no. 4: 495–526. Jones, Jeremy. 2010. “‘Nothing Is Straight in Zimbabwe’: The Rise of the Kukiya-kiya Economy, 2000–2008.” Journal of Southern African Studies 36, no. 2: 285–99. Katz, Cindi. 2004. Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kaur, Amarjit. 2004. “Labour Dynamics in the Plantation and Mining Sectors in Southeast Asia, 1840–1950: An Historical Perspective.” In Labour in Southeast Asia: Local Processes in a Globalised World, edited by Becky Elmhirst and Ratna Saptari, 47–76. London: Routledge. Keegan, Timothy. 1986. Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa: The Southern Highveld to 1914. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. Kritzinger, Andrienetta, and Jan Vorster. 1996. “Women Farm Workers on South African Deciduous Fruit Farms: Gender Relations and the Structuring of Work.” Journal of Rural Studies 12, no. 4: 339–51. Kuate-Defo, Barthelemy. 2004. “Young People’s Relationships with Sugar Daddies and Sugar Mummies: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?” African Journal of Reproductive Health 8, no. 2: 13–37. Kwena, Zachary, Elizabeth Bukusi, Enos Omondi, Musa Ng’ayo, and King Holmes. 2012. “Transactional Sex in the Fishing Communities along

References

173

Lake Victoria, Kenya: A Catalyst for the Spread of hiv.” African Journal of aids Research 11, no. 1: 9–15. Kynoch, Gary. 2008. “Urban Violence in Colonial Africa: A Case for South African Exceptionalism.” Journal of Southern African Studies 34, no. 3: 629–45. Lahiff, Edward. 2000. An Apartheid Oasis?: Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods in Venda. London: Frank Cass. Li, Tania. 2009. “To Make Live or Let Die?: Rural Dispossession and the Protection of Surplus Populations.” Antipode 41, no. 1: 66–93. – 2017. “The Price of Un/Freedom: Indonesia’s Colonial and Contemporary Plantation Labor Regimes.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 59, no. 2: 245–76. – 2018. “After the Land Grab: Infrastructural Violence and the ‘Mafia System’ in Indonesia’s Oil Palm Plantation Zones.” Geoforum 96: 328–37. Lowthers, Megan. 2018. “On Institutionalized Sexual Economies: Employment Sex, Transactional Sex and Sex Work in Kenya’s Cut Flower Industry.” Signs 43, no. 2: 449–72. Luke, Nancy, Rachel Goldberg, Blessing Mberu, and Eliya Zulu. 2011. “Social Exchange and Sexual Behaviour in Young Women’s Premarital Relationships in Kenya.” Journal of Marriage and Family 73: 1,048–64. Maliba, Alpheus. 1939. “The Conditions of the Venda People.” In South African Communists Speak, 1915–1980, edited by Yusuf Dadoo, 138–47. London: Inkululeko Publications. Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press. Marcus, Tessa. 1989. Modernizing Super-Exploitation: Restructuring South African Agriculture. London: Zed Books. Mark-Thiesen, Cassandra. 2012. “The ‘Bargain’ of Collaboration: African Intermediaries, Indirect Recruitment, and Indigenous Institutions in the Ghanaian Gold Mining Industry, 1900–1906.” International Review of Social History 57: 17–38. Mather, Charles, and Stephen Greenberg. 2003. “Market Liberalisation in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Restructuring of Citrus Exports after ‘Deregulation.’” Journal of Southern African Studies 29, no. 2: 393–412. Maxwell, David. 2005. “The Durawall of Faith: Pentecostal Spirituality in Neo-Liberal Zimbabwe.” Journal of Religion in Africa 35, no. 1: 4–32. Mayson, David. 1990. “The Rural Foundation, Management and Change:

174

References

A Case Study of Selected Farms in the Elgin Area.” Master’s thesis, University of Cape Town. McGregor, Joann. 2010. “The Making of Zimbabwe’s New Diaspora.” In Zimbabwe’s New Diaspora: Displacement and the Cultural Politics of Survival, edited by Joann McGregor and Ranka Primorac, 1–36. New York: Berghahn Books. McGregor, Joann, and Ranka Primorac, eds. 2010. Zimbabwe’s New Diaspora: Displacement and the Cultural Politics of Survival. New York: Berghahn Books. McWilliams, Carey. 1939. “Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California. Berkeley, ca: University of California Press. Mezzadri, Alessandra. 2016. The Sweatshop Regime: Labouring Bodies, Exploitation, and Garments Made in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, Donald. 1996. Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape. Minneapolis, mn: University of Minnesota Press. Moodie, Dunbar. 1994. Going for Gold: Men, Mines, and Migration. Berkeley, ca: University of California Press. Mulaudzi, Maanda. 2000. “U Shuma Bulasi”: Agrarian Transformation in the Zoutpansberg District of South Africa, Up to 1945. PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota. Muleya, Thupeyo. 2013. “Warrant of Arrest for Cigarette Smugglers.” Herald, 28 December. Murray, Martin. 1995. “Blackbirding at Crooks Corner: Illicit Labour Recruiting in the Northeast Transvaal, 1910–1940.” Journal of Southern African Studies 21, no. 3: 373–97. – 1997. “Factories in the Fields: Capitalist Farming in the Bethal District, c. 1910–1950.” In White Farms, Black Workers: Agrarian Transition in South Africa, 1910–1948, edited by Jonathan Crush and Alan Jeeves, 75–93. Portsmouth, nh: Heinemann. Nadar, Sarojini. 2009. “Palatable Patriarchy and Violence Against Wo/men in South Africa: Angus Buchan’s Mighty Men’s Conference as a Case Study of Masculinism.” Scriptura 102: 551–61. Nadar, Sarojini, and Cheryl Potgieter. 2010. “‘Liberated through Submission?’: The Worthy Woman’s Conference (WWC) as a Case Study of Formenism.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 26, no. 2: 163–73. Nasson, Bill. 1984. “Bitter Harvest: Farm Schooling for Black South Africans.” Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in South Africa, 97. Cape Town.

References

175

Netsianda, Mashudu. 2017. “Cigarette Smugglers on Trial in Zim for Murder.” Chronicle. 31 May. Newby, Howard. 1977. The Deferential Worker: A Study of Farm Workers in East Anglia. Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press. Ngai, Pun, and Chris Smith. 2007. “Putting Transnational Labour Process in Its Place: The Dormitory Labour Regime in Post-Socialist China.” Work, Employment and Society 21, no. 77: 27–45. Norris, Alison, and Eric Worby. 2012. “The Sexual Economy of a Sugar Plantation: Privatization and Social Welfare in Northern Tanzania.” American Ethnologist 39, no. 2: 354–70. Ortiz, Sutti, and Susana Aparicio. 2010. “How Labourers Fare in Fresh Fruit Export Industries: Lemon Production in Northern Argentina.” Journal of Agrarian Change 7, no. 3: 382–404. Orton, Liz, Stephanie Barrientos, and Sharon McClenaghan. 2001. “Paternalism and Gender in South African Fruit: Change and Continuity,” Women’s Studies International Forum 24, no. 3–4: 469–78. O’Toole, Sean, and Paul Botes. 2011. “Porous Border is Smugglers Paradise.” Mail and Guardian, 4 April. Oya, Carlos, and Nicola Pontara. 2015. “Introduction: Understanding Rural Wage Employment in Developing Countries.” In Rural Wage Employment in Developing Countries: Theory, Evidence, and Policy, edited by Carlos Oya and Nicola Pontara, 1–34. New York: Routledge. Oya, Carlos, and John Sender. 2009. “Divorced, Separated and Widowed Women Workers in Rural Mozambique.” Feminist Economics 15, no. 2: 1–31. Palomera, Jamie, and Theodora Vetta. 2016. “Moral Economy: Rethinking a Radical Concept.” Anthropological Theory 16, no. 4: 413–32. Prince, Ruth. 2012. “hiv and the Moral Economy of Survival in an East African City.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 26, no. 4: 534–56. Pye, Oliver. 2017. “A Plantation Precariat: Fragmentation and Organizing Potential in the Palm Oil Global Production Network.” Development and Change 48, no. 5: 942–64. Redfield, Peter. 2008. “Doctors Without Borders and the Moral Economy of Pharmaceuticals.” In Human Rights in Crisis, edited by Alice Bullard, 129–43. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Rigg, Jonathan. 2018. “Possibilities for Redemption and Alternatives in Tania Li’s Indonesian Plantation ‘Mafia System.’” Geoforum 96: 338–40. Rutherford, Blair. 2001. Working on the Margins: Black Labour, White Farmers in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe. London: Zed Books.

176

References

– 2008. “Conditional Belonging: Farm Workers and the Cultural Politics of Recognition in Zimbabwe.” Development and Change 39, no. 1: 73–99. – 2016. Farm Labour Struggles in Zimbabwe: The Ground of Politics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Rutherford, Blair, and Lincoln Addison. 2007. “Zimbabwean Farm Workers in Northern South Africa.” Review of African Political Economy 34, no. 114: 617–33. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley, ca: University of California Press. Scott, James. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, ct: Yale University Press. – 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, ct: Yale University Press. Scully, Pamela. 1997. Liberating the Family?: Gender and British Slave Emancipation in the Rural Western Cape, South Africa, 1823–1853. Portsmouth, nh: Heinemann. Segal, Lauren. 1991. A Brutal Harvest: The Roots and Legitimation of Violence on Farms in South Africa. Cape Town: Black Sash. Seidman, Gay. 1999. “Is South Africa Different?: Sociological Comparisons and Theoretical Contributions from the Land of Apartheid.” Annual Review of Sociology 25: 419–40. Selwyn, Ben. 2014. “Capital-Labour and State Dynamics in Export Horticulture in North-east Brazil.” Development and Change 45, no. 5: 1,019–36. Sen, Debarati. 2017. Everyday Sustainability: Gender Justice and Fair Trade Tea in Darjeeling. Albany, ny: State University of New York Press. Sender, John, Carlos Oya, and Christopher Cramer. 2006. “Women Working for Wages: Putting the Bones on the Flesh of a Rural Labour Market Survey in Mozambique.” Journal of Southern African Studies 32, no. 2: 313–33. Shishana, Olive, and Leickness Simbayi. 2002. Nelson Mandela/HSRC Study of hiv /aids Household Survey, 2002. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council. Smith, Chris, and Pun Ngai. 2006. “The Dormitory Labour Regime in China as a Site for Control and Resistance.” International Journal of Human Resources Management 17, no. 8: 1,456–70. Smith, Daniel Jordan. 2014. aids Doesn’t Show Its Face: Inequality, Morality, and Social Change in Nigeria. Chicago, il: University of Chicago Press.

References

177

Spierenburg, Marja, and Shirley Brooks. 2014. “Private Game Farming and Its Social Consequences in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Contestations over Wildlife, Property and Agrarian Futures.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 32, no. 2: 151–72. Thompson, E. P. 1971. “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.” Past and Present 50: 76–136. – 1991. “The Moral Economy Reviewed.” In Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture, edited by E. P. Thompson, 259–351. London: Penguin Books. Urban-Mead, Wendy. 2015. The Gender of Piety: Family, Faith, and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Athens, oh: Ohio University Press. van Onselen, Charles. 1976. Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1933. London: Pluto Press. – 1992. “The Social and Economic Underpinning of Paternalism and Violence on the Maize Farms of the South-Western Transvaal, 1900–1950.” Journal of Historical Sociology 5, no. 2: 127–60. Visser, Margaret, and Stuart Ferrer. 2015. Farm Workers’ Living and Working Conditions in South Africa: Key Trends, Emergent Issues, and Underlying and Structural Problems. Report Commissioned by the Pretoria Office of the International Labour Organization, Pretoria, South Africa. von Oppen, Achim, and Silke Strickrodt. 2012. “Introduction: Religious Biography – Transcending Boundaries.” Journal of Southern African Studies 38, no. 3: 429–32. Wagner, Richard. 1980. “Zoutpansberg: The Dynamics of a Hunting Frontier, 1848–1867.” In Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa, edited by Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore, 313–39. London: Longman. Waldman, Linda. 1996. “Monkey in a Spiderweb: The Dynamics of Farmer Control and Paternalism.” African Studies 55, no. 1: 62–86. Wamoyi, Joyce, Daniel Wight, Mary Plummer, Gerry Mshana, and David Ross. 2010. “Transactional Sex Amongst Young People in Rural Northern Tanzania: An Ethnography of Young Women’s Motivations and Negotiation.” Reproductive Health 7, no. 2: 1–18. Webb, Christopher. 2017. “Between Precarity and Paternalism: Farm Workers and Trade Unions in South Africa’s Western Cape Province.” Global Labour Journal 8, no. 1: 49–64. Wegerif, Marc, Beverely Russell, and Irma Grundling. 2005. Still Searching for Security: The Reality of Farm Dweller Evictions in South Africa.

178

References

Pretoria, South Africa: Nkuzi Development Association and Social Surveys. Wells, Miriam. 1996. Strawberry Fields: Politics, Class and Work in California Agriculture. Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press. Werbner, Richard. 1984. “The Manchester School in South-Central Africa.” Annual Review of Anthropology 13: 157–85. White, Ben, Saturnino Borras Jr., Ruth Hall, Ian Scoones, and Wendy Wolford. 2012. “The New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals.” Journal of Peasant Studies 39, no. 4: 619–47. Wilderman, Jesse. 2017. “From Flexible Work to Mass Uprising: The Western Cape Farm Workers’ Struggle.” In Crossing the Divide: Precarious Work and the Future of Labour, edited by Eddie Webster and Akua Britwum, 74–96. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZuluNatal Press. Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zamchiya, Phillan. 2008. “Changing Labour, Land and Social Relations on Commercial Farms: A Case Study from Limpopo, South Africa.” Master’s thesis, University of Western Cape.

Index

abortion, 132, 154–5 accommodation. See compound; compound residences activism, 4, 137 adultery, 96, 123, 127, 142, 144; accusations of, 96, 123 Africa, 6, 7, 19, 39, 53, 59, 101, 117–18, 120, 124, 130, 137, 140, 149, 161, 163 African National Congress (anc), 10, 36, 43, 123, 162 Africans, 18–19, 33, 40, 53, 117, 120–4; white perceptions of, 19, 53, 121–4 Afrikaans, 35 agrarian imaginary, 7–8 agricultural production, 3, 5, 7–8, 10, 12–13, 32, 37–8, 40, 42–3, 65, 68, 90, 98, 117, 120, 134, 158, 161; changes in, 5, 37–8; costs of, 10, 13, 45–6, 48–9, 63, 65, 68, 72, 91, 93, 99, 108; export orientation of, 7, 46, 120; global context of, 7–8, 46, 161; labour forces in, 7, 12–13, 90; mono-crop specialization in, 7; plantations as units of, 7–8;

restructuring of, 5, 38, 43, 65, 118–20, 158; targets of, 69, 98 agricultural subsidies, 10, 33, 36–8, 43, 118–19; during apartheid era, 10, 36, 118; removal of, 10, 33, 37–8, 43, 119 agriculture. See commercial agriculture alcohol, 26–7, 32, 35, 48, 50, 54, 57, 60–2, 66, 80–2, 84–5, 123–4, 127, 136, 153, 166n4; consumption of, 26, 32, 57, 61–2, 66, 80–2, 84–5, 123–4, 127, 136, 166n4; selling of, 50, 54, 57, 60, 81–2 anthropology, 14, 18, 23 anxiety, 16–17, 19, 26, 69, 77, 126, 128–30, 145; of chiefs, 61–2; in white community, 16–17, 19, 145; of workers, 17, 26, 69, 77, 126, 128–30 apartheid era, 4, 8–10, 17, 19, 33, 35–7, 43, 46, 103, 118, 124, 137, 145–6; resistance to, 36 arrests, 17, 23, 29, 78, 102–3, 105, 107, 110–13, 132, 156; risk of, 17, 78

180

Index

authority, 4–6, 9–12, 29, 33–6, 39, 45, 54, 56–61, 63, 68–9, 76–7, 83, 96, 119, 121–2, 140, 144, 148, 157, 159, 162–4. See also delegation of rule; paternalism babies. See infants baboon scouting, 40, 86 bad luck, 116, 125 Basic Conditions of Employment Act (bcea), 43–4, 48 beatings, 9, 23, 29, 93–4, 97, 102– 4, 106, 108–10, 112–13, 132, 156; of women, 48, 123, 129; worker denials of, 109 Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, 42, 83 benefits. See subsistence benevolence, 9, 29, 33, 35, 49, 63, 67, 121, 161; potential for, 29, 33, 63 Bethal, South Africa, 9 Bible, 20, 56, 98–9, 136, 141, 145– 8; King James, 136; readings of, 56, 141, 145–8; study of, 146–7 black intermediaries, 5–7, 9, 11, 18, 20, 26, 28–9, 31–3, 39, 47, 54–5, 58–60, 62–3, 65, 68, 76–7, 80–1, 86, 100–1, 103, 120, 122, 125, 130, 135, 149, 158, 161, 163. See also chiefs black managers. See black intermediaries black middle managers, 20–3, 26, 29–32, 62, 93–114, 131–3, 135– 6, 138, 148–9, 151–7; access to plantation resources, 29, 94, 102, 113; accountability of, 95–7; grievances of, 97, 101–2, 113; insecurity of, 96–7, 102, 113; in relation to plantation owner, 94,

96–102, 109–10, 112; as sources of instability, 29, 93–114, 163 black supervisors, 9, 12, 21, 24, 38, 47, 63, 73, 93, 95, 117, 120, 135, 140; as akin to shop steward role, 47 black workers, 3–13, 15–20, 22–33, 35–7, 39, 66–8, 134–40, 146–8, 154–64; construction as children, 8, 89, 113, 146; individual goals of, 64, 69–70, 72, 84, 91, 162; origins of, 10, 42, 44; permanent, 11, 16, 35, 44, 53, 67, 120, 124, 134; skilled, 11, 31, 50, 55, 68; temporary, 5, 10–12, 16, 28, 35, 37, 41–2, 44, 60, 68, 83, 119–20, 157, 160–1; Zimbabwean, 3, 15, 18, 23–4, 26, 28–9, 31–3, 37–41, 43–4, 53, 57, 61–2, 66–7, 69–73, 79, 82, 86–7, 94, 103, 105, 109–10, 116–17, 122, 124–5, 128, 133–4, 153–4, 157, 159–60, 162 black workforce, 10–11, 13, 15, 17–18, 27–30, 32–3, 40–2, 44–5, 50, 54, 59–63, 65–8, 72, 74, 76, 82, 96, 98, 101, 108, 125, 146, 148, 158, 166n1; composition of, 10, 28, 32–3, 40–1, 63 blood mixing, 116–18, 125–26, 129–30, 133; accusations of, 116, 125, 129, 133; as commentary on women’s behaviour, 118; in context of sexual economy, 118, 126, 130; as indicative of male economic anxieties, 116, 118, 126, 129–30 bonuses. See incentives border farms (contemporary). See plantations (general)

Index border farms (historical), 20, 32–7, 54–5, 67, 118–19, 137, 146 border farmers (contemporary). See plantation owners border farmers (historical), 9, 33–7, 43, 46, 54, 62, 67, 103, 118–19, 146; authority of, 36–7, 43, 103; and farming lifestyle, 36–7; financial difficulties of, 36–7; image of, 46; nostalgia for, 36–7; and patriarchal agreements, 118–19 border plantations. See plantations (general) border territory. See eastern border bossboys, 6; portrayals of, 6 breastfeeding, 115, 124 bribery, 20, 57–60, 80–1, 98, 101, 122, 132, 134; rationalization of, 59 Buchan, Angus, 144–5, 148 bushveld, 33 California, 8 Canada, 18, 22 capitalism, 7, 13–15, 161; and accumulation process, 13; agrarian, 7; flexible, 14; and space, 13 capitalists, 13 casualization, 4, 10–11, 94–7, 113, 119, 134, 158, 162 charity, 67–8, 147 Chávez, César, 137 chemicals. See pesticides chiback, 126–30, 133. See also prostitution Chief Manenzhe, 33 chiefs, 6–7, 16, 18, 21–2, 24, 27–8, 31–2, 37–9, 42, 45, 47, 49–50, 54–65, 68–9, 71–4, 76–7, 79–82,

181

85–91, 93, 96, 98, 102, 105–7, 113, 115, 117, 121–5, 131, 134– 5, 139–40, 142, 161, 163–4; as alternative centres of power, 56, 60; businesses of, 61, 81–2; colonial role of, 6–7, 166n4; as conduits of plantation owner authority, 56, 59; contemporary plantation role of, 6–7, 16, 21, 56, 63; delegation of rule to, 28, 63; discipline of workers by, 7, 58; dispute settlement by, 7, 47; as face of plantation, 32; inequalities between workers and, 98–101; as labour brokers, 7, 32, 38–9, 57, 63; participation in decision-making, 32, 62; privileges of, 32, 49, 63, 98; responsibilities of, 32, 59, 63; sexual competition amongst, 61; and signifiers of power, 32, 61; and signifiers of wealth, 32, 61; transgressions by, 29, 55, 59–60 childcare, 49 children, 36, 71, 115–16, 119, 122, 124–7, 130–4, 155, 163 Chivi, Zimbabwe, 42 Christianity, 6, 13, 19–20, 22, 30, 97, 106, 131–2, 135–57; as coping strategy, 137; and employer– worker relations, 137, 145–6; neoliberal dislocations of, 137; progressive role of, 137, and racial superiority, 145; and spiritual equality, 145; white articulations of, 144–9 Christmas, 35, 40, 53, 56, 132, 155, 163 churches, 13, 20, 22–3, 25–6, 28, 30–2, 56, 71, 74, 95, 128,

182

Index

131–2, 135–57, 159, 166n1, 166n2; African-initiated, 137–40, 151; integration with management hierarchy, 140, 157; labour regime limits on, 138; as largest form of plantation collective organization, 139; reasons for low participation in, 138–9, 154, 157; role in apartheid of, 137; sermons in, 139, 141–4, 148; services at, 20, 22–3, 26, 31–2, 71, 74, 95, 131–2, 139– 45, 147, 149–55, 157, 166n1; spatial use of, 140–1, 151, 157; testimonial practices in, 26, 150–1. See also Christianity; Inter-D; Pentecostalism; Zion church leaders, 30, 137–9, 142–3, 149, 151, 154–7; authority of, 138; legitimacy of, 138, 154, 156; and sexual economy, 138, 142, 154, 156–7 cigarettes, 64, 79–81, 139; as bribes, 81; Zimbabwean, 79 cigarette smugglers, 42, 78–84, 166n3; base camp of, 79–80, 83–4; as entrepreneurs, 83; noncompliance with ban from plantation, 80–2 cigarette smuggling, 29, 64, 77–85, 93–4, 159, 163; syndicates, 77, 79, 83, 159 class, 4, 14–15, 135, 157, 159; inequalities, 135; relations, 14 climate, 33, 40, 82 coercion, 9, 14, 117, 122, 125 collective action, 48, 65, 72, 76, 91, 135, 139 collective bargaining rights, 43–4

colonial era, 6–7, 33, 39; European officials in, 6–7; rule during, 6–7 commercial agriculture, 3–4, 7–8, 10, 12, 31–4, 37–8, 49, 83, 116– 17, 120, 137, 160–2; as a business, 37; versus smallholder, 117, 162 commercial farms. See plantations (general) commodification, 4, 14, 135, 161 communities, 4–5, 9, 15–17, 21–2, 26, 28, 35–6, 38, 49, 53, 94, 106, 110, 130, 135, 137, 161; white, 15–17, 21–2, 36 complaints. See grievances compound, 3–4, 7, 10–11, 13, 15–16, 18, 20–2, 24–6, 31–2, 41–2, 49–57, 60–7, 73–5, 79–81, 90–1, 94–6, 99–103, 106, 108, 110–12, 122–3, 125–6, 128–33, 136, 139–40, 144–5, 147–50, 155, 157, 166n3, 166n4; as black-only space, 21; contributions to social divisions within, 54; culture of surveillance in, 54; map of, 50, 52; patterns of residence in, 50, 54 compound residences, 3, 7, 22, 32, 26–7, 31–2, 49–53, 67, 69–70, 99, 102, 108, 110, 112, 126, 131–3, 136, 152; absence of beds in, 49, 53; absence of electricity in, 22, 32, 49–50, 67; distinct communities within, 53; lack of privacy in, 49; mud huts, 3, 27, 32, 49–51, 53, 69–70, 126, 131–3; new brick building rooms, 3, 26, 31–2, 49–51, 53, 69, 94–5, 99, 102, 108, 110, 112, 126, 131, 136, 152; proximity to chiefs’ houses, 32,

Index 50; proximity to white managers’ houses, 50; proximity to white owner’s home, 7, 50 confessions, 102, 112, 132, 138, 151, 156 conflict, 8, 12, 15, 29, 34, 64, 79, 81–2, 93–4, 108, 123, 126, 134, 163 conglomerates, 37, 65 conservation parks, 3, 7 contestation, 6, 12–13, 29–30, 65, 77, 91–2, 94, 119, 135, 138, 158–60, 162; domains of, 6, 13 corporate social responsibility, 46 counter-hegemony, 137 country. See state crop rotation, 48 crops, 7, 10, 40–1, 48, 70, 74, 76, 94–5, 136, 161; citrus, 3, 17, 160; fruit, 3, 33–4, 40–1, 47–8; grapes, 160; vegetables, 3, 33–4, 40–1. See also tomatoes culture, 18–19, 21, 53–4, 57, 122– 4; white constructions of, 19, 21, 53–4 dancing, 19, 26, 85, 139–41, 143, 149–50, 157; in worship context, 26, 139–41, 143, 149–50, 157 death, 27, 29, 115–18, 121, 124, 128, 131, 134 decentralization. See delegation of rule decentralized despotism, 6–7, 164 delegation of rule, 5–7, 21, 28, 33, 55–63, 68, 83, 92, 113, 121–2, 158, 162–3; as indirect rule, 7, 122; as key dimension of labour regime, 63 demons, 151–3. See also evil spirits

183

Department of Home Affairs, 44 Department of Labour, 43, 45; assessments by, 43; observations by, 43, 45; plantation compliance with standards of, 43, 45 deportation, 44, 109, 153 deregulation, 10, 32, 43; by governments, 32; by private sector retailer, 32 detention centres, 44 development workers, 20 devil, 132, 136, 155–6. See also Satan digging, 40, 86 disease, 47, 118, 128–30, 139 distributors, 40, 46, 49, 72, 74 Diti, Zimbabwe, 42, 83 Doctors Without Borders, 20, 121, 135, 147 domestic workers, 50 drinking. See alcohol Durban, South Africa, 40, 85 eastern border, 17, 33–7, 41, 82, 104, 118, 165n1, 165n2; geographical significance of, 41; sale of lands in, 34 economic restructuring, 4, 8, 10, 33, 158; marginal groups’ responses to, 158 education, 27, 39–40, 42, 71, 121– 2, 135, 154 England, 14, 137; bread riots in, 14; farm labourers in, 137; Methodism in, 137; unionization in, 137 English, 18, 23, 32, 97, 150 entitlements, 6, 14, 29, 35, 49, 63–4, 69, 72, 75–6, 91–2, 120, 122; defence of, 14, 63–92;

184

Index

withdrawal of, 29, 49, 63–92, 120. See also subsistence environmental degradation, 48, 162 environmental protection, 46 ethnic corporatism, 11 ethnographer, 5, 110–14 ethnography, 4, 16–17, 94, 113–14, 160–1 Europe, 46 eviction, 10, 20, 29, 35, 38, 43, 93, 110–14; mass, 38; of researcher, 20, 29, 93, 110–14 evil, 143, 150. See also sin evil spirits, 116, 139, 152–3 exceptionalism, 8, 37; and apartheid, 8 exploitation, 5–6, 8, 13–14, 29, 63, 69, 134, 137, 147, 158, 162 expulsion. See eviction Extension of Security of Tenure Act (esta), 43–4 externalization, 10–11, 119, 158 extortion, 4, 122

fields, 3, 7, 25, 40–2, 47, 49, 73–6, 79, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 98, 115, 133, 136, 139, 149, 153 fighting, 7, 57, 81, 93, 95–6, 123 firings, 18, 48, 54, 78–81, 90, 107, 109, 119, 123, 136, 148; threat of, 54, 78–81, 90, 107 Florida, United States, 137; Coalition of Immokalee Workers in, 137 Food and Agricultural Workers Union, (fawu), 44 food quality, 4, 40, 43, 45–6, 48, 59, 72, 120 food safety, 46, 47; communicable diseases and, 47; perspiration control for, 47 foremen, 3, 6, 31, 41, 45, 50, 56–8, 85–6, 103, 107, 122, 140, 142 forgiveness, 148–9, 156 formula, 115, 117, 121–2, 124; donation of, 115, 121–2, 124; rejection of, 124 Freshmark, 40, 46, 49, 72, 74

family, 4, 8, 15, 22–4, 29, 31, 34–8, 55–6, 60, 70–1, 76, 83–4, 94, 97, 101–2, 108, 112–14, 117, 119– 20, 126–32, 134, 136, 140, 142, 144–5, 148, 154–5, 161, 163; construction of plantation as, 4, 8, 65–6, 161; as unit of employment, 117, 120 farmers. See plantation owners farm management movement, 9 farms. See plantations (general) fathers, 115, 122, 125, 131–2, 155 females. See women fertilization, 55, 72 fertilizers, 48, 59; application of, 48

game farming, 10, 80 game ranching, 3, 10 gardeners, 50 Gates, Bill, 99 gender ideologies, 120 gender relations, 4, 6, 13, 27, 29, 54, 115–36, 145, 158, 166n4; boundaries in, 54 Global Gap, 43, 45–8, 103; auditing by, 46; certification by, 46; major musts of, 46–7; minor musts of, 46; observations by, 43, 103; plantation compliance with, 43, 45, 47–8; plantation documentation for, 43, 45;

Index quality standards under, 43; well-being of workers standards under, 43, 45, 48 Global South, 46, 161 God, 98–9, 136, 141, 143–4, 146– 7, 150, 152–3, 155–6 gossip, 24, 27–8, 54, 56, 116, 131– 2, 143–4, 156 government. See state government agents. See state authorities government inspectors. See state authorities grazing, 9, 34–5; rights, 9, 34–5 grievances, 16, 46–8, 85, 89, 97–8, 101–2; documentation of, 46–7; procedures for, 46–8; voicing of, 16, 48, 85 Grootplaas, South Africa, 160 guard room, 56 guerrillas, 36 guides, 20–1; as buffer, 21; community interpretations of, 21; relationship with, 21 handwashing, 47, 115; facilities for, 47 Harare, Zimbabwe, 42, 79 harvesting, 36, 39–41, 47, 64, 119 health, 25, 43, 121–2, 130, 132, 134–5; plantation nurse (de facto), 121 hegemony, 14; dominant groups in, 15, 159; non-dominant groups in, 14–15, 159 hierarchy, 7, 13, 15, 48, 55, 65–6, 72, 94, 97, 101–2, 113, 127, 138, 140, 149, 151, 157, 160; church, 149; occupational, 7, 65, 94, 97, 127, 138, 140, 157;

185

plantation, 13, 48, 55, 72, 98, 101–2, 151, 160; racial, 15, 66 hiv/aids, 30, 47, 115–17, 123–4, 130, 135, 159, 162; and breastfeeding, 115; testing for, 115 homesteads. See rural homesteads hope, 19, 26, 67, 69, 109, 139, 163; of migrants, 69, 84, 109; of plantation owners, 19, 163; of white managers, 67; of workers, 26, 69, 84, 109, 139 housing. See compound residences humanitarian work, 147; and inequality, 147; and power structure, 147 human rights campaigners, 19 hunters, 33 hunting, 34, 48 hygiene, 40, 47, 115–16, 121, 124; documentation of, 47; procedures for, 47; white perceptions of, 40, 115–16, 121, 124 illness, 45, 47, 116, 133–4, 139, 143, 150–1 immigration policy. See migration policy immorality, 54, 84, 105, 129, 166n4 incentives, 11, 32, 36, 63, 76, 94, 98–101, 113 income, 30, 59, 84, 98–9, 101, 105, 117, 125, 127–8, 130, 132–3, 159, 162; loss of as means of discipline, 59 India, 39 induna, 6; portrayals of, 6 industrial agriculture. See commercial agriculture

186

Index

Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (icu), 137; and South African independent churches, 137 infant death. See infant mortality infanticide, 116, 118, 131, 134 infant mortality, 27, 29, 115–18, 121, 124, 133–4; implication of plantation conditions in, 124; as individual responsibility of mother, 115–16, 121, 124; public interpretations of, 116 infants, 115–16, 121–2, 125, 133–4 infidelity. See adultery informal economy, 98, 139 informants, 20, 22, 26–8, 34–5, 39, 54, 71, 73, 84, 100, 116, 125, 127–9, 133 information, 18, 29, 54–5, 63, 65, 73, 76, 91, 95–8, 102, 111, 113; as resource, 29, 54–5, 63, 76, 95–8 informers, 54–5, 91, 105–6 injuries, 45–6, 162; compensation for, 45–6; during off-work hours, 45; during work hours, 45–6 insecurity, 94–7, 109, 157, 162. See also precarity inspectors, 16, 28, 45, 103; thirdparty, 28, 103 Interdenominational Worship Group (Inter-D), 26, 30, 97, 136–40, 144, 148–57, 159; and apocalypse, 150; chairperson role in, 149–50; didacticism of, 150; individual responsibility focus of, 150; lack of critique of plantation hierarchy in, 151; marginalization of, 138; as threat to power structure, 138,

151; women preachers in, 150. See also churches; Pentecostalism International Organization for Migration (iom), 116, 147 interpreters. See translators interracial relationships, 123 interracial worship, 145 interviewees. See informants interviews, 17, 20, 22, 24–7, 38–9, 48, 54, 65, 82, 86, 131, 142, 148, 165n2; participant permission for, 54; participant refusal of, 54; semi-structured, 26–7; unstructured, 26–7 introverted politics, 135 irrigation, 40–1, 48, 55, 66 irrigation workers, 41, 105 job seekers, 56–8; hiring lines for, 58 Johannesburg, South Africa, 34, 38, 85, 110, 125 journalists, 4, 16, 19, 22, 27, 55 Kruger National Park, South Africa, 33 kuchaya mapoto, 126–8, 130–1, 133, 136, 139, 142 kudiza, 57–9, 122. See also bribery kusanganisa ropa. See blood mixing kuvaka musha, 15, 69–72, 84–5, 91, 128–9, 139, 162; plantation as, 69–72 KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 97 labour. See black workforce labour brokers, 10, 60. See also third-party contractors

Index labour conditions. See working conditions labour contracts, 9, 38, 44, 54, 68 labour control. See labour discipline labour discipline, 5–6, 11–13, 24, 30, 59, 62–3, 71, 79, 95, 103, 117, 148, 157, 159 labour force. See black workforce labour geography, 13 labour inspectors. See state authorities labour markets, 10, 80, 119; regulation of, 10, 119 labour organizers, 14, 19–20. See also unionization labour recruitment, 7, 12, 32, 34–5, 37–9, 55, 63, 161; changes in, 38, 161; historical patterns of, 35, 37, 39; methods of, 34, 38, 63 labour regime, 5, 8, 12–13, 28–31, 33, 55, 63–5, 92, 94, 96, 106, 114, 117, 124–5, 134, 137–40, 157–8, 160; as contested, 12, 64–5, 92, 138; contribution to workers’ sense of injustice, 94, 106; definition of, 12; dependence on migrant labour, 29, 33, 96, 160; as facilitator of profit, 5, 63, 158; institutional context of, 12; as lens of analysis, 13; as reproduction of racialized paternalism, 29; role of Christianity within, 30, 137–40, 157; role in sexual economy, 29, 124–25, 134; as transformative, 28–9, 33, 117, 134; and work–residence nexus, 13, 33, 63, 158 labour relations, 4–5, 7, 9, 11–12, 31, 35–7, 47, 134, 160–1; under

187

changing historical circumstances, 4, 31, 35–7; consequences of paternalism for, 12, 36; instability of, 94; as racialized, 36; unequal, 7, 36, 134 labour shortages, 9, 154 labour tenancy, 34–5, 118–19, 137; abolition of, 119, evictions from, 35; lack of enforcement mechanisms for, 34; negotiations of, 34; shifting meaning of, 34, 118–19 land, 10, 15, 33–5, 40, 161–3; claims, 10; communal, 165n1; connections to, 15, 35, 53; history of, 33–4; politics of acquisition of, 161; redistribution of, 162–3; speculation, 34 land reform, 16, 38, 162–3 land tenure, 10, 38, 43; security of, 10, 38, 43 Latin America, 10 layoffs, 39, 44 legislation, 4, 10, 12, 38, 43–6, 48; labour, 4, 10, 12, 38, 43–6, 48; tenure security, 38 leverage, 63–5, 90–1 liberalization, 36 Limpopo Province, 3–5, 35, 40, 44, 116, 118–20, 135 Limpopo River, 3, 15, 24, 33–6, 38, 41–2, 49, 53, 66, 74, 77, 79, 81–3, 87, 90–1, 118, 131, 147, 155, 165n1; in popular imagination, 3 Limpopo Valley, 17, 28, 35, 37, 40–1, 117–20, 134, 137 loaders, 24 loading, 24–5, 40, 56, 81, 93, 95, 140, loading zone, 56

188

Index

Madongini, 50, 53, 95; association with prostitution, 53; as squatters’ camp, 53 magumaguma, 83–4 mahure. See sex workers Malaya, 39 males. See men managers. See black middle managers; black intermediaries; chiefs; white managers Maranda, Zimbabwe, 42 marriage, 50, 60, 84, 96, 122, 126– 7, 132, 142, 155; and extramarital liaisons, 126; perceptions as failed institution, 127; polygamous, 122, 127, 142 masculinity, 71, 145 Master and Servant Act, 8 masters, 8–9, 35; and criminal punishment of servants, 9; gifts from, 35, and physical punishment of servants, 9 Mberengwa, Zimbabwe, 24, 38, 42, 57, 60, 71, 125, 154 media, 17, 19, 83 men, 18, 20, 24, 26–8, 30, 32, 36, 39, 42, 48–54, 56, 60–2, 69, 71, 78–9, 81–2, 86–7, 89, 91, 96, 104, 110–11, 116–20, 122–30, 132–4, 136, 139, 141–46, 148, 154–5, 159, 166n4; young, 24, 32, 60–1, 69, 79, 126, 129, 139; and kuvaka musha anxieties, 128–30 Mighty Men Conference, 144, 148 migrant workers, 10–11, 15, 24, 28, 34, 37–9, 42–4, 49, 63, 67, 69, 71, 76, 83, 86, 90, 92, 109, 117, 119–20, 124, 153–4, 160–3

migration, 24, 27, 38, 40, 76, 82, 116–17, 153–4, 166n5 migration policy, 44, 153, 157 military, 36, 84, 103–4, 118, 165n1 mines, 15, 32, 34, 80, 101, 165n1; governance of life in, 32 missionaries, 19–20, 26, 131, 136; as research role, 19–20 Mopane Estates (pseudonym). See plantation (research site) moral economy, 6, 8, 12, 14–15, 29, 49–50, 63, 65, 91–2, 94, 102, 104–5, 114, 158; definition of, 14; as discordant, 6, 65, 102, 104–5, 158; fragility of, 6, 29, 91–2, 94, 114, 158; negotiations within, 14, 29; resistance to, 14, 29, 65; and subsistence ethic, 14, 50, 63 morality, 9, 11, 15, 29–30, 64, 68, 71, 83–5, 91, 109, 114, 124, 138, 154, 159–61; divergent understandings of, 29, 83, 64; geography of, 15 morning devotion, 144–5, 148–9, 157; as interracial worship, 145; as labour discipline tool, 148, 157; and themes of respect for authority, 148, 157 morning roll call. See roll call motherhood, 116, 133–4; and mortal neglect, 134; in plantation context, 110; and pragmatics, 134 mothers, 115–16, 118, 121–2, 124– 5, 130, 133–4 Mozambique, 40, 77–9, 85; buyers from, 78–9; tomato market in, 74, 85; truck drivers from, 77

Index Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, 116 mushonga, 95, 102, 107, 166n1. See also pesticides Musina, South Africa, 3, 20, 31, 33, 36, 44, 61, 74, 80, 88, 102–3, 105, 108, 110, 165n1; plantation office in, 44 mutengesi, 23, 55, 60, 77 Mwenezi, Zimbabwe, 42 narratives, 28–9, 39, 107, 112, 115– 16, 118, 126, 129–30, 156, 160–1 National Party, 9 native authority, 6–7; administrative functions of, 6–7; economic functions of, 6–7; judicial functions of, 6–7 native reserves, 6–7; and customary law, 6; and segregation, 6 neoliberalism, 4, 137, 158 New Year, 40, 132 Nongovernmental Organizations (ngos), 4, 20 norms, 14–15, 30, 68, 122, 137, 141, 166n4 Nwanedi, South Africa, 17, 20, 35 Nzhelele Valley, South Africa, 34 oppression, 3–4, 158, 160 outsiders, 4, 17, 26, 60, 110; employer suspicion of, 17; as visitors, 17, 19, 60; worker suspicion of, 17, 26 packing, 3, 40 participative management, 9–10 pass laws, 9 pastors, 26, 56, 84, 97, 140–1, 143–4

189

paternalism, 4, 7–12, 15, 20–1, 29, 32–3, 35–7, 49, 56, 60, 63, 65, 77, 97–8, 100, 102–9, 117–22, 124, 134, 160–1, 164; authority of, 56, 60, 63, 77, 119; benefits of, 10, 36, 49, 121; legacies of, 7, 33; racialized, 4, 29, 36, 119, 164; relationships, 21, 35, 97–8, 100, 104, 109, 160; reproduction of, 4, 33, 108; restructuring of, 4, 8–12, 32–3, 119, 124, 134, 160; as self-identity, 11–12, 15, 106, 122, 161; traditional, 8–9, 11, 33, 35–6, 65, 117–20; and violence, 35, 102–8 patriarchal agreement, 118–20, 124, 134; contestation of, 119; income dependency under, 119– 20; male heads of households in, 118–20, 124, 134; and status of women, 118, 120 pension payouts, 44 Pentecostalism, 20–1, 23, 26–7, 31, 131, 136–8, 144, 148, 154, 157 pest control, 55 pesticides, 22–5, 29, 41, 48, 72, 76, 92–3, 95–7, 100–2, 105–6, 113, 136, 159; spraying of, 25, 41, 48, 95–6, 100–1; stealing of, 23, 29, 41, 45, 72, 76, 92–3, 95–7, 100– 2, 105–6, 113, 136, 159; worker exposure to, 25, 41, 45, 101, 162 pest scouts, 79, 94–5, 97–100, 113, 136 Pick and Pay, 40 pickers, 24–5, 39–41, 45, 64–5, 67, 85–91, 97, 107, 140, 159 picking, 4, 25, 40, 59, 67, 72, 79, 84–6, 88–9, 98, 138–40

190

Index

piece rate, 29, 41, 45, 47, 64, 79, 85, 92, 159 plantation (research site), 3–6, 12–28, 33–63, 158–64, 165n1, 165n2, 165n3; construction as family, 65 plantation crèche, 49, 60, 74, 140– 1, 143, 151, 157 plantation culture, 18, 54, 57 plantation hierarchy, 13, 48, 55, 98, 101, 138; workers’ committee and, 48 plantation life, 4, 7, 13, 16, 21, 24, 27, 54, 147; as cultureless, 54; harshness of, 147 plantation office, 7, 18, 23, 41, 47, 67, 78, 89, 99, 102–3, 105, 111– 12, 115, 121, 123–4, 146 plantation owner (research site), 15–16, 18–23, 25–7, 29, 31–2, 36–9, 42, 44–50, 53–60, 63–9, 72–85, 87–9, 91–117, 121–5, 131–2, 135, 138, 144–9, 159– 61, 163–4, 165n3, 166n2, 166n3; construction as father, 65–6, 108, 161; construction as neutral arbiter, 68; detachment of, 15, 124; emotional responses to intermediary transgressions, 108, 113; and ethic of the farm, 68, 89, 113; justifications for violence, 112–13; labour exclusivity expectations of, 79; violent responses to worker transgressions, 23, 29, 93–7, 102–10, 113, 146, 156 plantation owners (general), 6–11, 15–17, 19, 33, 36–49, 60, 63, 103–4, 113, 120, 158, 160–2; anxieties of, 19; as fatherly

obligations of, 9, 35; isolation of, 19; and management ethos, 10; and physical violence, 103–4, 113; public images of, 17; racialized sensibilities of, 9 plantation pack shed, 24–5, 40, 73–4, 76, 85 plantation roster, 44 plantations (general), 3–5, 7–13, 16–18, 20, 26, 28, 30, 32–4, 37, 39–40, 44, 48, 50, 59–60, 62, 97, 101, 103, 110, 116–21, 137, 139, 154, 158, 160–3; legitimacy of, 106; as private spaces, 4, 16–17, 37; as production units, 7–8; reforms to, 9–10 plantation workshop, 22, 24, 56–7, 88, 93, 101–3, 107 planting, 40–1, 48, 67 police, 44, 54, 80, 82–4, 102–03, 105, 109, 166n3 political dissent, 54, 135; minimization of, 54 post-apartheid era, 4–5, 28, 33, 37, 49, 83, 104, 113, 145, 158, 160 poverty, 117, 134, 162; alleviation of, 117 powerlessness, 162 power structures, 6, 29, 32–3, 56, 58, 60–2, 124, 135, 138, 147, 159–60, 162; inequality within, 6, 124, 135, 147, 159 practices, 116, 134; environmental, 48; hygiene, 116; labour, 4, 10, 39, 43, 47, 65, 82, 161–2, management, 4–12, 20, 24, 75, 58, 60, 63, 90, 103, 107, 134; migration, 24; oppositional, 71, 75, 77, 81, 84, 98, 101, 105–6, 158, religious, 30, 137–8, 140, 148, 151,

Index 157, 159, 161; social, 4, 26, 158; spatial, 161 praying, 18, 20, 24, 26, 28, 32, 56, 107, 136, 139–41, 143, 144, 148–53; and enthusiasm for work, 56; morning, 20, 56; and subservience to superiors, 56; and work relations, 56 preachers, 128–30, 140–44, 149– 51, 156–7 , 166n2 preaching, 26, 28, 56, 139–41, 145, 148–9, 150–1, 153–4, 156 precarity, 13, 63, 161–2 pregnancy, 30, 116, 118, 125, 130– 4, 135, 154–6; absence of employment leave during, 133–4; lack of financial support during, 118, 132–3; unwanted, 30, 130, 135, 155 prison labour, 9, 119 privatization, 10, 121 profitability, 63, 68, 82, 158 profit-sharing, 9, 62 promotions, 16, 62, 69 prophetesses, 140 prophets, 140–1, 143–4, 151 prospecting, 34 prostitutes. See sex workers prostitution. See sexual labour race, 4, 19, 24, 145 racial boundaries, 25, 50, 54, 57; transgression of, 25 racialization, 4, 15, 17, 21, 29, 36, 65–7, 119, 147, 164 racism, 9, 110, 113, 122–23, 145 regulation, 7, 10, 13, 28, 33, 43–9, 54, 63, 119; compliance with, 43, 45–7, 54, 63, 158;

191

private-sector, 28, 43–9, 47–8, 158; public-sector, 28, 43–9, 158 regulative architecture, 33, 37 religious biography, 138 reproduction, 13, 15, 135; biological, 13; daily, 13, 135; generational, 13; social, 13, 15 reproductive labour, 49, 80, 119, 126, 131, 136, 139, 157, 159 reregulation, 32, 43; by government, 32; by private sector retailers, 32 research, 5, 12, 16–29, 34, 45–7, 74, 79, 81, 93, 104, 112, 115, 117, 124, 131, 141–2, 145, 156, 160–2; as case study, 161; consent to, 17; fieldwork, 16, 19, 21, 23–4, 27, 29, 45–7, 74, 79, 81, 104, 112, 115, 124, 131, 141–2, 145; methodology, 5, 16–28; plantation owner regulation of, 20–1, 31; theoretical approach of, 12–16; use of information from, 17–18 research activities, 17, 22–4, 28, 47; data gathering, 22, 24; journalling, 23; note-taking, 23, 25; observations, 23–4, 28, 47; rapport-building, 25. See also interviews research assistants, 21, 23–4, 28, 54, 93, 110; collaboration with, 24 researcher, 4–7, 12–19, 31–2, 34, 41, 45–8, 53–5, 57–62, 65–8, 73–5, 78–9, 81–4, 86–7, 93–102, 104–6, 108–15, 121–9, 131–34, 139, 142, 145–8, 151, 154–6, 160–4; as Christian, 19–20, 26; as church-life participant-

192

Index

observer, 25, 31–2; as compound resident, 21–2, 24–5; as married person, 18, 22–4, 111–12, 166n1; as missionary, 19–20, 26; in patron–client relationship with chiefs, 61–2; relationship with plantation owner of, 21–3; as soccer participant, 26, 81; as social-life participant-observer, 24; social role of, 19–20, 61; temporary eviction of, 22–3, 29, 55, 93, 111–12, 114; as white person, 17, 19, 21, 54, 61; as witness, 24, 57, 60, 96, 151; as work-life participant-observer, 24–5 resilience, 4, 6, 158–60 resistance, 12, 14, 36, 76, 87, 103, 118, 152, 158–60; everyday forms of, 12; spiritual, 152 respect, 20, 54, 60–1, 66–7, 72, 82–3, 100, 143, 147–8, 150 respectability, 132, 136, 166n4 respondents. See informants retailer certification programs, 12, 46–7; assessment criteria of, 46; compliance and, 46; major musts of, 46; minor musts of, 46 retailers, 4, 12, 28, 32, 45–6; European, 45–6; high-end, 46 Rhodesia, 35, 119 rituals, 24, 151; daily, 24; healing, 151 roll call, 18–21, 24, 26, 31, 47–8, 56–8, 72, 77, 79–80, 85, 87–9, 93, 105, 107–8, 113, 115, 125, 148; announcements at, 24, 47, 57, 72, 115; attendance-taking at, 24, 27, 57, 78, 105, 107;

spatial staging of, 56. See also morning devotion rope tiers, 41 rumours, 27, 110–11, 116, 131, 155 rural areas, 19, 38, 42, 127–9, 135, 141, 150; young people in, 38 Rural Foundation, 9 rural homesteads, 15, 40, 42, 53–4, 69–71, 84, 91, 98, 100, 126–30, 132, 155, 159 rural wage employment, 116, 162 Satan, 150, 152 Save the Children, 147 scorpions, 41, 45 Scrutton’s Lease, 34, 166n4 seasons, 4, 16, 32–3, 36, 40–2, 48, 72, 82, 84–5, 93, 97–8, 108, 132, 138–40, 149, 156, 159, 163, 166n1 Sectoral Determination, 43 security guards, 16, 22, 56, 80–2, 94, 101–3, 107, 109, 111, 123, 129, 133 self-employment, 70–1, 117, 134 sellouts. See mutengesi seniority, 37 sex, 6, 13, 27–9, 57, 116–17, 121– 6, 130, 132–4, 142–3, 154–6, 159; as alternative to bribes, 57, 122, 134; and birth control, 130, 135, 155; as domain of contestation, 13; and number of partners, 28; as part of relationships, 27–28; transactional, 6, 13, 27–8, 11 7, 121–2, 125–8, 133; and work-related benefits, 122 sexual economy, 13, 27–30, 96, 116–18, 120–36, 138, 151, 154,

Index 156–7, 159; cash payments within, 30, 125–30, 133; contradictory opportunities of, 120; differential economic impacts of, 116–18, 122–9, 135; domestic labour within, 126, 130, 133; in-kind payments within, 30, 125–31, 133; implication of plantation in, 124; individual livelihood strategies within, 135; and introverted politics, 135; multi-scalar causes of, 117; as reinforcement of worker divisions, 134; risks of participation in, 30, 117, 130, 135, 159, 162 as secondary economy, 125, 129–30; and status of women, 30, 118, 131, 135. See also kuchaya mapoto; chiback sexual exploitation, 4, 29, 120–2, 125, 134–5; and sexual favours, 121–2, 125, 135 sexual freedom, 120, 130 sexual labour, 53, 136, 142, 151, 154, 166n4 sexual promiscuity, 20, 27, 122–5, 129; as chiefly example, 125; through the white lens of culture, 124 sexual purity, 136, 138, 154, 157; violations of, 154, 157 sexual relationships, 27–8, 61, 80, 116, 122, 125, 127–8, 142; comparison with Zimbabwe context, 28, 127; as consensual, 125; non-marital, 127; patron–client ties in, 61; worker categorizations of, 28 sex workers, 27, 126, 128–9

193

Shalom Ministries, 144–5, 148; as born again, 144, 148; as Christian right movement, 145; and restoration of white masculinity, 145 Shona, 16, 18–19, 24, 32, 37–9, 53–4, 56–8, 96, 115, 148, 166n1; people, 16, 37–9, 53–4; language, 16, 18–19, 24, 37–9, 53, 56–8, 96, 115, 148, 166n1 Shurugwi, Zimbabwe, 42 sickness. See illness sin, 30, 136, 142–3, 150, 153–6 singing, 26, 85, 139, 141, 143, 150, 153; in worship context, 26, 139–41, 143, 149–50, 153 slavery, 8, 103, 106, 137 snakes, 41 soccer, 26, 62, 65, 81, 139 soil fertility, 33, 48, 82 soldiers. See military solidarity economies, 14 South Africa, 3–5, 7, 9, 11–12, 15–16, 20, 23, 32, 35–40, 43–4, 46, 49, 61–2, 67, 79, 82–3, 87, 98, 103, 113, 116–18, 135, 137, 144–5, 153–4, 157, 160–3; and exceptionalism, 8 South Africa–Zimbabwe border, 3, 15–17, 34, 36–7, 39, 41–2, 50, 64, 72, 77–80, 82–4, 104, 118, 153–4, 160, 165n1, 165n2 Southeast Asia, 14, 39; and head money, 39; and Indian migrants, 39; kangani system in, 39; plantations in, 39 spaces, 7, 13, 15–16, 21, 37, 61, 66, 68, 83, 91, 137, 151, 157–8, 160–1; capitalism and, 13; of contestation, 158, 160; and

194

Index

historical time, 15; interstitial, 83, 91; of labour absorption, 161; plantations as private, 16, 37; as reflections of racial hierarchy, 21, 61, 66, 68; religious, 30, 137, 151, 157; of stability, 160; symbolism of, 7 spatial fix, 13 speaking in tongues, 143, 149, 151–3 spies, 21, 54, 76 spraying, 25, 40–1, 48, 72, 95 spray team, 45, 93, 95–6, 101–02, 105; illnesses of, 45 standards, 4, 43, 45–6, 59; environmental protection, 46; ethical, 4; food safety, 46; health and safety, 43; quality, 4, 43, 59; wage, 45; worker welfare, 43, 46 state, 8–10, 12, 18–19, 27–8, 32–3, 35–6, 39–40, 43–5, 48, 103, 118, 123, 135, 162–3; apartheid, 9, 35; colonial, 33, 39; and confiscatory land reform, 162–3; intervention of, 33, 43, 103; post-apartheid, 28; postcolonial, 8; subsidies, 10, 36, 118 state authorities, 16, 19, 22, 27, 44–5 stealing, 16, 23, 29, 54, 57, 64, 67–8, 76–7, 81, 92–8, 100–8, 111–13, 136, 159, 163 store man, 101, 107 stories. See narratives stress, 62, 139, 157, 163 strikes, 17, 27, 54, 64–5, 85–91, 93, 159, 163; plantation vulnerability to, 64 structure of feeling, 66

struggles, 13, 29–30, 36–7, 56, 63–92, 135, 138, 148, 158, 160, 162–3; collective, 135; spatial, 13, 29, 63–92 subsidies, 10, 36–8, 43, 118–19; equipment, 36; military training, 36; monthly stipends, 36; removal of, 36–8, 119 subsistence, 12, 14, 28, 33, 49–50, 63, 158; accommodation as, 28, 33, 49–50, 63; childcare as, 49; entrenchment of social divisions by, 49; firewood as, 49–50; fishing as, 49–50; intangible, 50; monetization of, 50; running water as, 49–50; tangible, 50; terms of access to, 50; threats to withdraw, 49; tomatoes as, 49–50; transportation to town as, 49; trend away from, 49; worker claims to, 50 suffering, 67, 137, 147 suicide, 27 Sundays, 26, 45, 49, 56, 139–41, 153; as reproductive labour time, 139; as romance time, 139 supervisors. See black supervisors surveillance, 21, 54, 90; culture of, 54 survival strategies, 11, 134, 162 Tanzania, 121; sugar plantations in, 121 television, 32, 50, 60–2, 69, 80, 139 temptation, 132, 138–9, 155 territory. See land third-party contractors, 10–11, 39, 60 tomatoes, 3–4, 6, 17, 25, 29, 33, 40–1, 45–6, 49–50, 59, 63–4,

Index 67–8, 72–9, 82, 85–6, 90–4, 97, 100, 105, 107–8, 136, 140, 149, 153, 159, 163; as entitlement, 73–77, higher-quality, 40–1, 74; lower-quality, 40–1, 74; middle-grade, 40 top structures, 6, 16, 30, 45, 59, 69, 99, 122, 148, 157; use of term, 6 tourism, 7 tractor drivers, 38, 45, 56, 85, 93–4, 102, 146 traders, 33, 42, 60, 62, 166n4; ivory, 33; as plantation visitors, 42 trances, 143 translation, 18, 23–4, 72, 107, 115, 148 translators, 18, 20–1, 23–4, 72, 107, 115, 148–9 trust, 17, 20–1, 55, 68, 72, 84, 89, 106–7, 113, 151 Tshipise, South Africa, 34–5 unemployment, 38, 117, 162 unionists. See labour organizers unionization, 9–10, 16, 38, 40, 44, 54, 137; challenges of, 44, 54 unions, 4, 12, 16, 20, 44, 54, 137, 163 United African Apostolic Church (uaac), 137, 140–1; similarities with zcc, 140. See also churches, African-initiated United States, 20, 111, 137, 145; and Catholic Church, 137; Latino community in, 137; plantation slavery in, 106, 137; and progressive role of Christianity, 137; social movements in, 137;

195 unionization in, 137; and United Farm Workers of America, 137

vacation payouts, 44 values, 14–15, 46, 66; anti-market, 14; orientations towards, 15; regimes of, 15; technoscientific, 46 Venda, 15, 17–18, 20, 33–9, 42, 53–6, 60, 62, 117–20, 165n2, 166n4; agriculturalists, 33; commercial farmers, 17; homeland, 35, 166n4; as labour tenants, 117–18; language, 15, 33, 35, 53–6; as original inhabitants, 33, 35, 53, 118, 166n4; people, 15, 18, 20, 33–9, 42, 53–4, 60, 62, 117–20, 165n2, 166n4 vendors. See traders violence, 4, 7, 16, 29, 35, 38, 72, 83, 93, 96, 101–4, 106, 108–9, 113, 146–7; by plantation owners, 29, 35, 72, 101–4, 106, 109, 113, 146–7 wage labour, 119, 162 wages, 3–4, 7, 10, 12–13, 15–17, 27, 34, 41, 43, 45, 48, 50, 55, 57, 63–4, 67, 72–3, 76, 78–9, 84–5, 87, 89, 91, 98, 105, 117, 119, 124, 126–8, 134–5, 146, 162, 165n3, 166n2; customary increases in, 64, 72, 85–6, 91, 105, 159; deductions from, 10, 45, 49–50; minimum, 10, 12, 43, 45, 48, 50, 166n2 weeding, 24–5, 40–1, 79, 86; in groups, 24, 79 Western Cape, South Africa, 11–12, 160

196

Index

white managers, 3, 5–7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 22–5, 28, 41, 44–9, 53, 57–8, 63, 66–7, 72–3, 94, 104–7, 111, 113, 116, 121–4, 138, 144– 8, 158, 164, 166n2; arbitrary decision-making of, 63, 160; privileges of, 49; residences of, 22, 24, 26, 41, 66, 104, 111, 123 whiteness, 12, 15, 57, 65–6, 69, 122–4, 138, 144–8; and detachment, 12, 15, 57, 65–6, 104, 138, 144, 148; and lack of solidarity with black workers, 146–7; and legitimacy of plantation, 69, 105; and structure of feeling, 66 women, 6, 13, 18, 24, 26–7, 29–30, 41–3, 49–50, 54, 56–7, 61, 70–1, 80–1, 86–7, 89, 91, 115–36, 140–44, 150, 154, 159, 162, 166n4; independent, 29, 119–20, 134; and kuvaka musha status, 130, 134; support of children by, 127–8, 130; support of homesteads by, 118, 127–8, 134; support of family by, 127–8 worker consent, 12–14, 17, 68 worker-households. See compound residences worker permits, 44; asylum, 44; corporate, 44 workers. See black workers workers’ committee, 9, 48; plantation owner perception of, 48 workforce. See black workforce working conditions, 3–4, 9–10, 12–13, 15–16, 24–5, 28, 38, 43, 48, 69, 72, 76, 87, 103, 116, 124–5, 135, 146, 158–64. See also exploitation work–residence nexus, 13–14

World Cup, 62 Worthy Women Conference, 144 zanu-pf, 85–7; transposition to plantation strike context, 85–7 Zimbabwe, 4, 15–16, 23–4, 28, 33, 38, 40, 42, 44–5, 53–4, 70–2, 74, 80, 82–5, 87, 91, 97–8, 100, 103, 109, 119–20, 125–30, 132–3, 135, 137, 139– 41, 149–50, 153, 155–6, 159, 162, 166n5; central intelligence organization in, 54; economic crisis in, 38, 166n5; land reforms in, 16, 38, 162; political violence in, 38; resettlement areas in, 23–4, 70, 87; unemployment in, 38 Zion, 26, 30, 56, 74, 137–44, 148– 54, 156–7; absence of women of prophetesses in, 140; as branch of uaac, 140; and focus on appropriate behaviour, 139, 141–4; 148; formal hierarchy in, 149; as opportunity to build power relationships, 139–40; relationship with white Christianity, 137–8, 140, 144, 148, 157; and respect for Zimbabwean traditions, 141, 150; and sermon criticism of plantation leaders, 142–3, 157. See also churches, African-initiated Zion Christian Church (zcc), 140; similarities with uaac, 140. See also churches, African-initiated Zoutpansberg, South Africa, 34, 118, 166n3, 166n4 Zvishavane, Zimbabwe, 42