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- Convenor:
-
Dzodzi Tsikata
(SOAS University of London)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Akosua Darkwah
(University of Ghana)
- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Labour, incomes and precarity in development
- Location:
- S312
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 26 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel will examine the specificities of precarious work in Africa by drawing on papers from various countries representing different work sectors, regions and social groups to highlight how differences in colonial and post-colonial economic and labour restructuring have shaped work precarity.
Long Abstract:
Precarious work in the Global South has once again become a topical issue with the recent debates on precarity in the Global North. The point of departure of current research in the Global South has been the endemic nature of work precarity, which is linked with the colonial and post-colonial positioning of economies within the global production systems as sources of primary commodities from agriculture and extractive industries and cheap labour. This panel, which is inspired by the findings of a three-year study on precarious work in Egypt, Ghana, and Kenya, will examine in empirical and theoretical terms the specificities of precarious work in Africa by drawing on papers from various countries that represent work sectors, regions and social groups to highlight differences in colonial experiences and post-colonial economic and labour market restructuring. The panel will draw on the literature on gendered labour and social reproduction for elaborating the social, political and economic dimensions of precarity in work sectors still largely structured by colonial logics of labour incorporation and the far-reaching effects of five decades of economic liberalisation. The panel will explore themes such as the role of the post-colonial state and employers in shaping work precarity; sector characteristics and location in the global economy; questions of place and migration; class, gender and worker identities in work precarity; and the nature of the social contracts that would address the precarity of work in different sectors and for different categories of workers and restore the substantive citizenship of working people.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 26 June, 2024, -Abdoulie Kurang (SOAS University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This ethnographic research offers distinctive insights into the hyper-precarious livelihood strategies besetting ‘beach boys’ as low tier informal vendors of tourism products and services amidst continued dehumanisation as sex predators and swindlers in the Gambia’s tourism industry.
Paper long abstract:
The popularity of the Gambia as a tourism hotspot in West Africa has been accompanied by the proliferation of media and research attention on ‘beach boys’. Mainstream conversations on tourist-local relations in the country goes without citing beach boys as nuisance and sex predators in the tourism industry. Formal discourse describes this group of workers as low skilled, semi or uneducated young able-bodied men whose predominant livelihood strategy is tied to befriending (western) tourists with the aim of swindling and/or engaging in transactional sex for monetary/material and/or travel opportunities to the West. This paternalistic framing continues to overshadow and suppress discourses on the hyper-precarity of beach boys as low tier informal vendors and service providers in the industry. The ascendancy and potency of such derogatory characterisation has been the longstanding economic marginalisation, vulnerability and disposability of such precarious workers in the industry. Elements of dehumanisation stems from social stigma, state-sanction profiling, criminalising and securitising of this group. With insights from my field ethnography of beach boys, I sought to deconstruct the livelihood strategies and situate discussions of this group within the political economy of tourism as opposed to the reductionist, apolitical and derogatory homogenising delineation. From a political economy standpoint, my contention here is that growing labour precarity and dehumanisation of beach boys is tied to the complex arrangements of ‘neoliberal tourism’ in the Gambia. To this end, the study unveils and re-centres the humanity, heterogeneity, and social solidarity mechanisms integral to their livelihood strategies and resilience on the beaches.
Akosua Darkwah (University of Ghana)
Paper short abstract:
Using the case of bakers, this paper demonstrates how Ghana’s subordinate incorporation into the global economy results in deepening precarity for workers when during disruptions in the global supply chain, employers seek to maintain their profits while ignoring workers’ welfare.
Paper long abstract:
This paper draws inspiration from the work of scholars such as Banki (2013), Munck (2013) Scully (2016), Barchiesi (2017) as well as Scully and Britwum (2019) who have argued that unlike the global North where precarious employment can be described as a novel phenomenon attributed to the retreat of the welfare state, in countries in the global South such as Ghana, precarious employment is the norm. Drawing on interviews with bakers in Ghana in 2022, this paper argues that Ghana’s subordinate incorporation into the global economy as largely a producer of raw materials has implications for not only those who work in the sectors where raw materials are produced but also those who work in sectors that rely on manufactured materials as raw materials. These workers’ long standing levels of precarity are worsened as employers attempt to safeguard their profits in the face of rising production costs brought on by disruptions in the global supply chain. We conclude that the precarity these workers experience is due to their location in the global South where the effects of decisions and actions taken by capitalists in the global North are deeply felt. Improving the circumstances of workers in the global South requires renewed attention to the ways in which practices in the global North reverberate deeply in the global South.
Lyn Ossome (Makerere University)
Paper long abstract:
Through the conceptual framing of working people in the Kenyan context within a settler colonial paradigm of economic production, this paper is concerned with contemporary notions of precarity and intervenes into the debate using three key analytical and theoretical approaches: a historical critique of peasant dispossession and the creation of a proletarianized labour force; historicization of forced labour as a political response to state control and as an economic response to the market; and finally, the contemporary links between social reproduction and the feminisation of labour under neoliberalism. This analysis is developed from fieldwork conducted in the context of the export-oriented agricultural sector in Kenya, with a particular focus on the cut-flower/horticulture industry. Kenya’s cut-flower sector is predominated by female agricultural workers, mainly migrant, and uneducated, thus presenting a nexus of labour exploitation based on the intersections of gender, class and place. The paper examines the historical and contemporary characteristics of labour in this sector, asking how migrancy shapes conditions of work and familial/care arrangements, how feminised labour shapes policy responses to the conditions of workers, and how class and gender articulate to structure the sector in general. The paper draws on gendered labour and social reproduction literature as the methodological basis for elaborating the the social, political and economic dimensions of precarity in a sector still largely structured by colonial logics of labour incorporation.
Kira Brenner (King's College London)
Paper short abstract:
Tunisia's neoliberal shift increased university graduates, shaping a precarious labour force. This paper argues there is a link between graduate precarity and widespread wage suppression, highlighting the impact of state policies on labour market dynamics.
Paper long abstract:
Tunisia's 1987 transition to neoliberalism required a pivotal shift in the technical composition of its working class, strategically aimed at enticing foreign capital through lowered labour costs. This paper contends that a key mechanism employed by the state to achieve this was the deliberate increase in the number of university graduates, as the economic conditions would not allow for the influx of a large number of highly-educated workers into the labour market. The glut of unemployed, precarious workers at the top of the wage scale would lower wages throughout the country.
Adopting an autonomist Marxist lens, this paper argues that the state needed to decompose an unruly working class. Thus, the state manipulated the technical composition of the working class by fostering a surplus of university graduates. This transformation, integral to the broader neoliberal agenda, relied heavily on changes in state policies. The paper draws data from unpublished data from Tunisia’s 7th, 8th, and 9th development plans, state reports, and insights from interviews with activists.
The research illuminates a critical linkage between the precarity experienced by unemployed university graduates and its impact on broader wage structures. By intentionally oversupplying the labour market with graduates, the state perpetuates a situation where desperation for employment suppresses wage demands across various sectors. This paper not only enriches discussions on the consequences of neoliberal policies on labour but also addresses the shifting workforce dynamics, emphasizing the interconnectedness of state policies, labour processes, and class dynamics in Tunisia.
Carlos Oya (SOAS University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This article brings new evidence on labour regimes among Chinese firms in Africa and their particularities. We explore the drivers and implications for workers conditions and precarity of dormitory labour regimes in Chinese firms in the construction and manufacturing sectors in Angola.
Paper long abstract:
This article brings new evidence on labour regimes among Chinese firms in Africa and their particularities. During research in Angola and a survey of 680 construction and manufacturing workers, we observed that a significant number of Chinese firms in the construction industry incorporated a dormitory labour regime (DLR), somewhat reminiscent of the DLR found in parts of China, both in construction and manufacturing. While having workers live in work compounds is not unusual in construction projects, especially road building, it is highly unusual to find workers housed and fed by employers in Luanda’s manufacturing sector. The contrast between Chinese and non-Chinese firms in this respect is clear. We explore both the drivers of this practice and the outcomes in terms of workers’ characteristics and working conditions. We found that Chinese firms did not simply ‘import’ labour practices, but were trying to adapt and address labour management problems they faced in Luanda’s context. They also internalized practices and discourses reminiscent of Angola’s colonial labour regimes. While some might see a certain kind of precarity in this labour regime, migrant workers in Chinese DLRs in Angola used the ‘social wage’ embedded in food and accommodation provision to save from cash wages and send remittances back to their areas of origin in some of the poorest parts of Angola. Given Luanda’s serious housing challenges, this regime may have contributed to less rather than more precarity for migrant workers otherwise stuck in informal settlements and with limited opportunities for stable sources of income.
Dzodzi Tsikata (SOAS University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that the conditions of urban/peri-urban smallholder farmers in Accra highlight both the role of the state in deepening precarity, and nature of the social contract to address the precarity of smallholder agriculture and restore the substantive citizenship of farmers.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is based on a study of urban and peri-urban agriculture. The paper argues that urban and peri-urban farmers, who are self-employed, share the vicissitudes of rural smallholders who make a living producing food for themselves and for rural and urban markets under conditions of self-exploitation and immiseration. In Ghana, which is part of Africa of the trade economy, agricultural export commodity production dominates the farming landscape and the economy in terms of its contribution to GDP and to the cyclical crises of commodity prices and the economy. These commonalities notwithstanding, urban and peri-urban farming have specific characteristics and conditions that influence the fortunes of its practitioners. Proximity to urban populations and produce markets, their situation as long-term migrants and their insertion into global value chains as consumers of imported agro-chemicals, seeds and other inputs, has shaped their key relationships, conditions of production and their livelihood outcomes. It is these same conditions that have deepened the precarity of work in the urban and peri-urban agriculture, and have influenced their strategies for survival and building resilience. The absence of employers highlights the important role of the state and state policies in deepening precarity and also in the nature of the social contract that would reduce the precarity of smallholder agriculture and restore the substantive citizenship of the farming population.
Hania Sholkamy (The American University in Cairo)
Paper short abstract:
The paper concerns garment workers in 8 factories in Egypt. It illustrates the falsity to formal/informal categories of employment as women experience work not in terms of these categories but as a set of relationships in which they bear little power and have minimum leverage.
Paper long abstract:
The Egypt paper, titled “The Injustices of Employment” examines the nexus between formal work and precarity in Egyptian labor markets and questions the principles that underpin work as a strategic route to social justice. Based on a study of women employed in the garment industry and amongst health care workers and providers the paper argues that for many women workers and service providers, care responsibilities, familial duties and social pressures collide with the disciplining nature of formal work. This makes it difficult for women workers to realize the full benefits of formal work while maintaining their rights to social protection and to a family life and points to the attractions of informality as a coping strategy. The paper emphasises the patriarchal nature of shop floors and employment relations and addresses the possibilities of reframing the informal/formal choices of workers.
Kristina Pikovskaia (University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at the experiential and conceptual perceptions of economic informality, entrepreneurship, and work in Zambia and Zimbabwe and suggests that varying perceptions of informality lead to different experiences of citizenship.
Paper long abstract:
Both Zimbabwe and Zambia were labour reserve economies during the colonial period with a rather small women-dominated informal sector which in a household complemented men's salaries. The postcolonial period in both countries, although different in many ways, was characterised by a significant reliance on the state in the economic sphere. Economic liberalisation brought about a decrease in formal employment and an expansion of the informal economy as a source of livelihood. Despite somewhat similar trajectories, the perceptions of informality in Zambia and Zimbabwe drastically vary which has implications for the understanding of work and labour, entrepreneurship, self-reliance, and relationships with the state. In Zimbabwe, people in the informal sector often do not see it as 'work' and 'job' and do not recognise themselves as entrepreneurs and businesspeople. They heavily rely of the state to restore the economy and create employment and perpetuate the postcolonial modernist ideas which do not include the informal sector. In Zambia, people view themselves as entrepreneurs and treat their income-generating activities as businesses and work. Reliance on the state in that context is expressed in a desire to have government contracts and funding rather than employment. Such a significant difference affects people's vision of themselves as both economic and political actors and their lives experiences of citizenship.