ABSTRACT
Transformation, empowerment and development are intertwined practices that are essential for a resilient, successful and responsive South Africa. Wine farmworkers remain one of the most marginalised and socially excluded populations in South Africa. Lack of education, the link between housing tenure and on-farm employment, exploitative power relations, a pressurised industry and a changing local economy are just some of the structural constraints that continue to govern their everyday lives and the practices of empowerment in the wine industry. Fairhills and Bosman both were faced with dilemmas over the Fairtrade social premium and the position of the FPC, seemingly torn between enacting, empowering mentoring and facilitating, or disempowering authoritarian relations. The development sector has long been grappling with questions of how best to support empowerment initiatives, with the various incarnations of development agents – whether as rescuer, provider, moderniser, liberator, catalyst, facilitator, ally or advocate – offering differing discourses, and challenges, for action.
