Research Report Global Labour University, Department of Sociology University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg September 26th, 2014 / This research report looks at the historic farm worker strikes and protests that took place during late 2012 and early 2013, involving thousands of farm workers and the rural poor in the Western Cape, with a view to answering: 1) why did the protests take place when they did; 2) how did the protests spread across the Western Cape; and 3) did the mass participation of the protests turn into formal organisation. The research was conducted primarily through in-depth interviews with participants and observers of the protests during field visits to the Western Cape in late 2013 and early 2014. The findings of the report suggest that farm owners, responding to top-down pressures of shifting global production standards and competition, along with increased government regulation and worker protections, continue to move toward a more seasonal, outsourced, and off-farm labour force; the transformation of the workforce is leading to a breakdown or re-negotiation of two of the major impediments to overt, confrontational, and collective action, namely paternalistic social construction and farm worker isolation. These longer-term trends combined with the spark of a small, successful strike and an increasing sense of tactics, strategy, and possibility to ignite a large-scale strike in one of the major farming towns in the area. With the help of television coverage featuring scenes of this protest and a clear demand by protestors themselves for an increase in the minimum wage, local organisations then served as “coordinating” units, alongside a range of more informal networks, to spread the protest and its easily replicable tactics to towns around the region. In part because farm workers do not have meaningful access to the more institutional vehicles for expressing their grievances, the protests took on a more bottom-up, “spontaneous” nature and spread, with the strategy of disruption and its emerging repertoires of contention serving as key sources of power. Because of the unique nature of the protests and the shifting nature of farm worker identities, most of the participating organisations were unsuccessful at translating the mass participation of the protests into greatly expanded levels of formal organisation. This challenge of turning participation into organisation was exacerbated by a major backlash by farm owners after the protest, as well as by some of the organising approaches of these organisations during and after the protests. The report concludes that there may be reasons for hope as the protests seem to have created some expanded confidence and leadership among farm workers, even if they did not primarily challenge power on the farms; the question remains as to whether this historic uprising can lead to further transformation from below.

The purpose of this study was to describe, explicate, and systematically analyze the culture care values, beliefs, and practices of migrant farm workers related to health promoting behaviors in context of their temporary living accommodations and work setting in two small towns in east central Indiana. The goal of this study was to generate knowledge regarding culture care values, beliefs, and practices of migrant farm workers related to health promoting behaviors. Such knowledge can be used by nurses to provide culturally congruent care which can influence migrant farm workers' health and well-being.The theoretical framework for the study was Leininger's Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality. The qualitative ethnonursing research method was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using both an ethnonursing inquiry guide and an ethno-demographic information guide developed by the researcher.Sixteen key informants and three general informants participated in the study. Informants were purposefully selected for knowledge of migrant farm life and willingness to share this knowledge with the researcher. Key informants were Mexican American migrant farm workers in east central Indiana for farm and tomato factory work from July through October, 2004. General informants were health and social service workers who provided care for the migrant farm workers. Three key informants were interviewed twice each. All other informants were interviewed once. Interviews took place in the informants' homes and at a local food pantry. Interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim.Four major themes were synthesized from the research data: (a) health promoting behaviors are recognized and valued by migrant farm workers but are influenced by economic and political/legal factors in the social structure; (b) traditional gender roles of migrant farm worker men and women influence health promoting behaviors; (c) professional caring is viewed by migrant farm workers as respect through the use of the Spanish language and acceptance of culture care values, beliefs, and practices; and (d) health promoting behavior of migrant farm workers is influenced both by traditional culture care values and beliefs and by knowledge acquired through diverse formal and informal education. Findings were discussed in relation to Leininger's three modes of culture care action for nurses: culture care preservation/maintenance, accommodation/negotiation, and repatterning/restructuring. / Department of Educational Studies

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-221). Also available via the Internet.