Based on evidence gathered from women farm workers currently resisting community evictions in the Cape Winelands, farm workers facing increasingly precarious terms of employment, and working knowledge of staff of the nongovernmental organisation, Women on Farms Project, this study elaborates on the changing nature of farm worker evictions and the intensifying precarity of women farm workers in the past decade. It demonstrates that both of these phenomena are rooted in the financialisation of land, a major new driver of vulnerability of women farm workers and dwellers. The ‘global financialisation of rural land’, beginning circa 2008, is formulated as part of ‘the financial expansion’ of Giovanni Arrighi’s (1994) ‘fourth (US) cycle of accumulation’ of historical capitalism.

For more information, contact Ms. Tshwarelo Sekhaulelo - [email protected] or 012 420 2330