- Title
- Lemons or Lemonade? Examining the economic and social outcomes of engaging in the export-driven citrus value chain of South Africa for selected commercial citrus farmers and farm workers in the Raymond Mhlaba Municipal District, Eastern Cape
- Creator
- Sizani, Simbulele
- Subject
- Uncatalogued
- Date Issued
- 2024-04-04
- Date
- 2024-04-04
- Type
- Academic theses
- Type
- Master's theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435553
- Identifier
- vital:73168
- Description
- This study examines the economic and social outcomes of participating in a global citrus value chain for selected commercial farmers and farm workers in Raymond Mhlaba Municipal District in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. A global chain refers to international production sharing through cross-border trade. Multilateral organizations (and some prominent global chain scholars) that support neoliberal economic globalization perceive global chains as ideal channels of economic and social upgrading for participants, particularly those from the global South. From the abovementioned perspective, global chains enhance efficiency through inter-firm relations that promote the distribution of technology and access to capital, thus leading to economic and social upgrading in developing countries. Economic upgrading, on the one hand, can briefly be described as the movement of supplier firms from lower to higher-value activities in global chains. Social upgrading, on the other hand, is the improvement of employment conditions and outcomes of workers employed by supplier firms at the production node of global chains. This study adopts the dual theoretical framework (Global Chain Framework and Labour Process Theory) proposed by Newsome, Taylor, Bair and Rainnie (2015) in their seminal book ‘Putting Labour in its Place: Labour Process Analysis and Global Value Chains’. This dual framework is ideal because it conceptualizes the spheres of trade exchange and production, which are the primary research sites of this study. Qualitative research methods were adopted and utilized to collect and analyse data in this study. These methods were ideal for this study, as they captured the subjective accounts of the selected commercial citrus farmers and farm workers in the Raymond Mhlaba Municipal District in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The findings in this study showed that the outcomes of these selected commercial citrus farmers and farm workers in this region are variegated, meaning that, there is evidence of economic upgrading, social upgrading and social downgrading as well. Amongst farm workers in the region, only a small group of (mostly older male) farm workers enjoyed social upgrading, whilst the majority of seasonal (mostly female) farm workers experiences social downgrading. The findings in this study showed that the variegated economic and social outcomes of the selected commercial farmers and farm workers were primarily determined by their economic class and position within the citrus value chain of South Africa. These findings highlight the importance of positionality in determining the fate of participants in global chains.
- Description
- Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2024
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (120 pages)
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Sizani, Simbulele
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike" License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)
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RU Department of Sociology
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | SIZANI-MA-TR24-62.pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |