Rural Youth and Risk Society

Abstract

Research on deciduous fruit farms in South Africa has consistently identified low levels of mobility among farm workers. The daughters of farm workers who do manage to find employment in urban centers often return to the farm, whereas others never leave the farm. Based on focus group interviews conducted with 32 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 years, the article explores teenage girls' views and experiences of farm life and their expectations of the future. In examining their expectations and assessing their life chances, the concepts of risk society, late or reflexive modernity, and the individualization thesis put forward by Beck and Giddens are utilized. Teenage girls appear to reject farm life and foresee a future far removed from their working-class background. In assessing their life chances, the article suggests that social divisions and structural location continue to play a critical role in the distribution of risk within contemporary South African society.