Who Sits at the Table? A female farm activist’s experience during the De Doorns farm workers strike, South Africa

This journal article tells the story of a female farm activist and a leader in the De Doorns 2012/2013 farm workers’ strike i . In this small agricultural town in the Western Cape, South Africa, workers downed tools, disrupting the harvest of export grapes and demanded a minimum wage of R150 per day. ii Ethnographic data – interviews, participant observation and archival documents – is used to document the female farm worker’s journey into activism, her evolution and new consciousness of self through political work and participating in the strike. Rancière’s (1999) theory of the presumption of equality is used to understand the gains made and losses incurred by the farm workers during and after the strike.


Introduction
It is 4am in the summer of 2012.
Activist 1 takes a deep breath, exhales, and as loudly as she can, blows her whistle.
She is a woman in her early 50s who looks younger than her years, but all the same, the wrinkles on her face are deeply etched into her tanned skin. Forty years of hard labour on farms have burnt her skin a deep olive and although she has become physically strong, the years have also taken their toll on her body. One of her knees is damaged from farm work and she has had an operation on one handthe result of years of washing laundry by hand. As  (Andrews, 2014 andKleinbooi, 2013).
In South Africa, farm workers have experienced: a reduction in employment opportunities, an increase in the casualisation of labour (Greenberg, 2010) and insecure land tenure and insecurity (Bernstein, 2013). Wegerif, Russell and Grundling (2005)  On these farms, women experience these social injustices more acutely. They bear the brunt of the casualisation of labour (Greenberg, 2010), experience pay discrimination and often have no independent right to tenure or housing (Kehler, 2001 andHRW, 2011). This dependence makes women especially vulnerable to evictions, unfair labour practices and domestic violence (Shabodien, 2006 andHRW, 2011).
In De Doorns Activist 1, stands at the centre of the strike, at its place of origin, blowing her whistle to signal to her fellow workers that she is up and ready for another day of action. Little by little she begins to hear whistles reply. They start out slowly and gradually mount into a cacophony. From this response she knows that her compañeros stand in solidarity with her and that another day of rebellion in De Doorns has begun.

Her journey into activism
Activist 1 is the fifth of 16 children.
In Grade 5 her father was imprisoned, leaving her mother and her with the financial responsibility of sustaining the family. She left school to help her mother in the kitchen and began her career as a farm worker working in the vineyards. At the age of 15 her mother "rented" her out as a domestic servant to the boer's sister in a town near Cape Town. She was lonely, the work was hard, and she never saw her wages as they were paid directly to her mother. Five", of which Activist 1 was a member.
In addition to the women, two men were also included in this group. Together they held meetings, discussed issues and sent out mass text messages: "There was no forum; there was nothing. We just decided we were going to rise up and make our demands." The workers had a list of 10 demands, which included an end to: When the police arrived at the scene, they wanted to speak to the farm worker's leaders. The crowd said that they were all leaders, but the police randomly selected people who they recognised. This group became the farm worker's strike committee, of which Activist 1 was part.
The police-elected males on the committee dominated the proceedings and she had to fight for her voice to be heard:    (Rancière, 1999, p. 30 For him "politics" occurs when there is a disruption to this police order of domination (Rancière, 1999, p. 32).

Politics is any action that makes visible
what is meant to be unseen or makes meaning and logic from a speech that is supposed to be considered noise or inconsequential.
He argues that the presumption of equality to those who possess power is a radical act as it disrupts the natural order of domination.  Africa, continue to hang in the balance. In both regions, the urgent work of social justice and equality is still necessary.