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

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Lincoln Addison

Chiefs of the Plantation

Authority and Contestation on the South Africa-Zimbabwe Border

Lincoln Addison

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English

McGill-Queen's University Press
15 August 2019

Social & cultural anthropology; Agriculture & related industries; Industrial relations

South African agriculture is characterized by growing labour unrest, evinced in recent years by high-profile strikes, but little is known about the sources and forms of day-to-day struggle. In Chiefs of the Plantation Lincoln Addison examines how labour conflict is fuelled by changing management practices and how workers respond and resist across spatial, sexual, and spiritual domains.

Depicting, in rich ethnographic detail, daily life on a plantation, Addison describes how agriculture has been restructured in the post-apartheid era through a delegation of authority from white landowners to black intermediaries. He explains that while this labour regime enables the profitability of plantations, it gives rise to a fragile moral economy in which perceptions of what is tolerable and what is exploitation frequently clash. In this environment, transactional sex and Christian worship emerge as important terrains of gendered and spiritual contestation where women and low-ranking workers remain resilient in the face of unequal power relations. Meanwhile, plantations project an appearance of benevolent paternalism, particularly in the narratives and self-identity of white landowners. This book reveals how, in the everyday life of the community, both the plantation and the compound where the workers live serve as central grounds for the negotiation of labour relations.

A groundbreaking study that uncovers how migrant plantation workers challenge their exploitation, Chiefs of the Plantation is a rare glimpse into the often hidden world of labour struggle on contemporary plantations.

By: Lincoln Addison
Imprint: McGill-Queen's University Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780773558571
ISBN 10: 0773558578
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 15 August 2019
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lincoln Addison is assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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

This is an excellently executed study that demonstrates the power of this methodology to reveal deeper meanings behind day-to-day activity. While Addison's main focus is describing the labour regime on the plantation, the fieldwork reveals the critical roles of sexual economy and religion as sites of contestation and cultural expression. Allison Goebel, School of Environmental Studies, Queen's University