Child agricultural work in South Africa: a contested space

Book section

Children grow up in multiple socio-cultural spaces that structure activities and learning according to local notions of what is appropriate for their development (Super and Harkness 1986; Miller and Goodnow 1995; Rogoff 2003: 18–24). Contradictions across these spaces may be particularly sharp in modernizing societies where long-standing local ‘traditional’ practices and ideologies, such as the duty to contribute to family economic well-being, confront modern rights-based ideologies embedded in instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. While they seek to advance the rights of all children to protection and development, these instruments are also forces for the globalization of the state of childhood and child rights (Myers 2001: 39; Boyden 1990: 194). The purpose of this chapter is to explore the experience of children who engage in agricultural work in South Africa as they grapple with the challenges of rural poverty, obligations to support kin and community, and the demands of school (Bourdillon 2009).

Authors: Dawes, A; Streak, J; Levine, S; Ewing, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Host title: Childhood Poverty: Multidisciplinary Approaches
• Pages: 283-297
• Publication date: 2012-01-01
• DOI: 10.1057/9780230362796
• ISBN-10: 0230319246
• ISBN-13: 9780230319240
• Subjects: Political Science