BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:The Roots Of Impermanence\; Farm Life\, Labour\, And Migration On 
 The Zimbabwean-South African Border  - Dr Maxim Bolt\,  University of Birm
 ingham
DTSTART:20141027T170000Z
DTEND:20141027T180000Z
UID:TALK55565@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Judith Weik
DESCRIPTION:What is the role of settled\, residential workplaces on the ma
 rgins of contemporary South Africa? During the Zimbabwean crisis\, million
 s crossed through the South African apartheid-era border fence\, searching
  for ways to make ends meet. Many joined black farm-worker populations on 
 white-settler farms\, in turn shaped by the 'flexible' capital and crop fl
 ows of intercontinental export agriculture. Today's 'flexible capitalism' 
 is commonly seen in terms of ephemerality and perpetual change. Local arra
 ngements are commonly thought so ad-hoc and fleeting that contracts collap
 se into informality\, employment into entrepreneurialism. Acute crisis is 
 seen merely to hasten capitalism along its path. But on the Limpopo River\
 , amidst transience\, mass unemployment and short-term strategies of makin
 g do\, resident workforces are settings in which people strive for a provi
 sional permanence. This paper reveals how workforce hierarchies incorporat
 e transient people: regular labour migrants\; recent fugitives seeking wor
 k\; actual or would-be dependents\; and traders\, drawn by the lucrative m
 arkets represented by hundreds of waged workers. It argues that\, on the Z
 imbabwean-South African border\, migrants have long had manifold reasons f
 or moving\, and are made labour migrants through their social incorporatio
 n at places of employment. Amidst southern African upheavals and global ca
 pitalism\, workplaces are life places.
LOCATION:Seminar Room S1 Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road\, Cambridge
  CB3 9DT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR