Forgotten by the highway: Globalisation, adverse incorporation and chronic poverty in a commercial farming district

Abstract

This paper presents key findings from a livelihoods survey of households in four poor neighbourhoods in the Western Cape district of Ceres, one of the centres of South Africa’s deciduous fruit export industry (see Figure 1). It explores the nature and dynamics of the persistence of poverty in the context of continued and relatively sustained economic development and growth, and considers whether the concept of ‘social exclusion’ can help in making sense – especially policy sense – of these dynamics.