Farm Workers and Farm Dwellers in L impopo Province, S outh A frica

One of the less studied legacies of settler colonialism and agrarian dualism in S outh A frica is the substantial population of people living and working on (still mostly) white‐owned commercial farms – a feature distinct from most other countries in S outhern A frica. Many farm workers and farm dwellers in S outh A frica experience precarious tenure, and poor housing and labour conditions. This paper explores what is happening to farm labour and to agricultural capital in L impopo province. Findings from field research on four horticultural and livestock/game farms illustrate how economic pressures, combined with land restitution and labour migration, have produced new and contested trajectories of agrarian change – largely cementing a historical shift from independent land tenure to wage labour but also prompting diversification of livelihoods. We explore the ways in which actors on farms – workers, dwellers, owners and managers – have responded with regard to three spheres of contestation: ownership, production and employment; tenure and livelihoods; and family, gender and children. We argue that, contrary to official visions of reform, long‐term processes of agrarian change predating political transition – proletarianization, casualization and the externalization of farm labour – are being accelerated. These processes, and the ways in which they are producing new contours of social differentiation, are illustrated at farm level.