Local perspectives on how to improve living and working conditions in South African wine industry

Abstract: The aim of my study is to investigate how representatives of wine-farm workers' unions and wine-farm workers' support groups formulate their ideas about procedures aiming at achieving improved conditions. As sustainability work and ethical follow-up are terms which most often are used within companies, and not reflect methods, procedures instruments etc. for change, I have chosen to name them approaches. The study's data is collected between April and June 2016, through interviews with representatives for the farm workers' unions and farm workers' support groups in the Western Cape province (where most of the wine districts are located) in South Africa. The results are structured by using the theory around 'mapmaking', originally created by Smith (2005), and which Newman (2012) further developed in her theory known as 'working the spaces of power'. The various approaches on how to improve working and living conditions that the study will show, are structured in clusters according to where the spaces of power are created. This forms the first part of the analysis and its purpose is partly descriptive. The map that is formed, containing the various approaches to improve the farm workers' positions, shows the plurality of aspects in which improvement can be made. The second part of the analysis is based on the presented result's clusters, on which theories of governmentality then are used to place the study in a broader context.