Farm workers and farm dwellers in Limpopo, South Africa: Struggles over tenure, livelihoods and justice

Abstract

Stories about farm workers and dwellers losing their homes, land and livelihoods are common in contemporary South Africa, and also in Limpopo Province. Around 1988, Grace M.1 and her children were evicted from a Limpopo farm, where she had lived for more than twenty years and given birth to seven children. Strictly speaking, it was the cattle owned by Grace and her husband that were evicted, as the landowner wanted to reserve all the grazing for his own stock. Grace took the livestock and the children to a nearby village, where she still lives, while her husband remained on the farm as a worker without his own stock. In the village the cattle died but the goats thrived. The children grew up with only intermittent contact with their father, who died on the farm.