- Title
- South Africa’s mohair value chain: institutional framework, governance and the perceptions of management and labour
- Creator
- Heald, Arisa Oka
- Subject
- Management -- Employee participation
- Subject
- Management -- Employee participation -- South Africa
- Subject
- Agriculture -- South Africa -- History
- Subject
- Mohair industry -- South Africa
- Subject
- Mohair industry -- South Africa -- Employees
- Date Issued
- 2020
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- text
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MSocSci
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164669
- Identifier
- vital:41153
- Description
- The primary objective of this research is to understand the ways in which the (working and living) conditions confronting employers and employees on mohair farms are the complex outcome of their position in the global mohair value chain, the nature of the labour process, and the ‘contours of voice’ (i.e., how and why employees voice). These three bodies of literature represent different levels of analysis: at the broadest level, the political economy of the mohair value chain is explained by drawing on the chain literature. This literature has been supplemented, at the level of the production process, by deploying the concepts of labour process theory (LPT), which focus on the control of work processes by management as well as workers’responses to this control. These responses were analysed by incorporating insights from the burgeoning research on employee voice (EV) in an effort to understand the practical ways in which workers on mohair farms articulate their needs and interests. The cross-collination of these three bodies of literature is, to my knowledge, a novel feature of this research on the mohair industry in South Africa, which, in turn, has itself been woefully under-researched. The research design consisted of a qualitative approach in which I used in-depth, semi-structured interviews and focus-group discussions as the primary sources of data collection. The secondary source of data was available publications and documents from the agriculture industry and mohair sector. A qualitative approach acknowledges and gives great insight and meaning into the research topic. Twenty participants were interviewed for my research: six from key organisations within the mohair industry, ten farmers, two mohair farm workers and two mohair shearers. The main findings of the research include the following: first, institutions in South Africa’s mohair industry not only determine (in part) the structure of the mohair value chain but also play a vital role in governing the chain. Each institution and actor plays a significant role in adding value to the mohair product that leads to economic upgrading. Second, understanding the actions of farmers (as employers) by drawing on LPT allows me to show how the systemic pressures of capitalist accumulation compel employers to continuously enhance their control over production – and, by extension, over workers – who, in turn, resist and/or accommodate to these impositions by management. Lastly, the research shows that employee voice at the farm level is complex and contested – not surprisingly, given South Africa’s troubled history – yet, it is increasingly exercised by farm workers and accepted by mohair farmers as a necessary and inescapable means of resolving issues that arise in the employment relationship at the workplace and remaining competitive in a global market.
- Format
- 269 pages
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Heald, Arisa Oka
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RU Department of Sociology
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | HEALD-MSC-TR20-371.pdf | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |