An unsettled belonging: Zimbabwean farm workers in Limpopo Province, South Africa

Abstract

The emplacement of displaced Zimbabweans depends on the particular political economies and the modes of belonging operating at the sites at which they find themselves. This is shown by examining the situation of Zimbabweans working or seeking work on commercial farms in northern Limpopo Province, South Africa, in the border zone with Zimbabwe. As Zimbabweans flee their country in part to find a cash currency that has more value than the Zimbabwean dollar, their Zimbabwean citizenship gives them a particular symbolic currency in these jobs. Many of the border zone farmers are keen to employ them as their desperation for work typically predisposes them to work harder and often for lower wages than South Africans. Yet this latter currency is also shaped by public debates and institutional practices regarding ‘Zimbabweans’ in the wider political economy of South Africa, which in turn inform the circulation, conditions, and vulnerabilities of these Zimbabweans on the farms.