Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the social, economic and moral logics that underpin and give meaning to urban youth's rejection of the capitalist wage relation in favor of alternative economic livelihoods. It also sheds light on the political significance of refusing wage work under contemporary capitalism.

Paper long abstract:

Unemployment is typically understood as an imposed condition due to the absence of a job and one that is synonymous with precariousness and abjection. This paper challenges this assumption by suggesting unemployment may not inevitably or always result from a lack of jobs, showing instead how precarious and insecure wage employment is at times rejected in favor of alternative economic livelihoods. Through ethnographic research with 'unemployed' young men engaged in non-market economic practices in an informal settlement in Johannesburg, this paper sheds light on the social, economic and moral logics that underpin and give meaning to urban youth's rejection of the capitalist wage relation. The paper focuses on youth's conceptions of (il)legitimate labour and its relationship to their expectations of citizenship, and the persistence of racial inequalities in the post-apartheid workplace. The paper contends that the refusal of work is not only an expression of discontent with a neoliberal and still racially ordered economy but also involves a positive aspiration and moral demand for a more 'just' and 'fair' distribution of resources. While there is an extensive literature on non-capitalist modes of accumulation ('hustling', 'zig-zagging' and 'improvising') in Africa, less scholarly attention has been paid to the explicit rejection of the capitalist wage-relation. This paper offers an argument for why this might be, but ultimately sheds light on the political significance of the refusal of wage work under contemporary capitalism and its potential for developing our empirical and theoretical understandings of work beyond and outside the wage economy.

Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on qualitative research with the long-term unemployed in southern Africa to explore the moral grammars that link economic and political demands on the state with social imaginaries around wage labour, challenging recent claims around the rise of a new 'politics of distribution.'

Paper long abstract:

This paper interrogates recent claims regarding the rise of a new 'politics of distribution' among populations now 'surplus' to the needs of capitalism in the Global South (Ferguson 2015; Ferguson & Li 2018). To do so, I use qualitative research with the long-term unemployed in South Africa and Namibia to explore the moral grammars that link my interlocutors' economic and political demands on the state with their social imaginaries around wage labour. These demands focus on the provision of jobs, housing and land, rather than cash-based redistribution. I argue that such demands are defined by a moral grammar which continues to link labour and a capitalist work ethic with income, mobility and prosperity — both in its promises to the poor and its justification of wealth accumulation. This moral grammar nostalgically invokes the assurances of Fordist capitalism that moral rewards of hard work will lead to stability and middle-classness (Muehlebach & Shoshan 2012) — even in a n age of precarity and unemployment. A truly new 'politics of distribution' remains curtailed by this moral grammar of work, even among the unemployed. This paper thus ends with a series of utopian-oriented claims around the reframing of distribution in a moral language of rights rather than poverty-reduction or welfare, which holds the promise of decentering work from our political and economic imaginaries.

Paper short abstract:

This paper offers an account of Tamale's Gameboys who purposely reject wage employment and consider online scamming as an alternative pathway to acquire "bigness". It examines young men's conceptualisations of work and its relation to historical and contemporary understandings of wealth and power.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at the perceptions of young men in Tamale (Ghana) who consider online scamming as a way to combat their precarious living situations and aspire to better and more liveable futures. Whilst many of their peers strive to finish their education and worry about the palpable lack of job prospects, these young men reject conventional narratives that link employment to attaining "bigness" and pride themselves on being "realistic" in doing so. Work, they muse, is often synonymous with "hand-to-mouth jobs" - degrading, boring and insufficiently paid to reach "the next level". Moreover, wage work cannot be separated from society's hierarchical power relations that these young men are so keenly aware of. In examining Tamale's gameboys rationale for refuting wage jobs, this paper highlights young men's conceptualisations of work and its link to ideas of aspiration and success. The gameboys do not aspire to work for stability, a mediocre income, or to earn prestige through their employment. Instead, gameboys imagine proper work as a gateway to "become big". In unpacking youth's conception of "bigness", this paper sheds light on new narratives of work amongst Tamale's youth that celebrate online scamming as a realistic alternative to wage work. By drawing attention to both historical and contemporary elements in youth's understanding of wealth and power in northern Ghana, this paper argues that Tamale's gameboys refuse wage employment and instead aspire to "bigness" via alternative means.

Paper short abstract:

Looking at how multiple occupations are enmeshed with social reciprocity, the search for respect, and the sustenance of hope amongst young craftsmen, this paper considers what an ethnography of livelihoods in Ghana can bring to debates about neoliberal precarity and post-work.

Paper long abstract:

The social dislocations wrought by capitalism's ongoing crises have, since 2008, engendered debates in the Global North situating precarity and insecure work as the modus operandi of neoliberalism (Lorey, 2015). This recognition has sparked renewed interest in what post-work futures might look like (Srnicek & Williams, 2016), with the possibilities and pitfalls that come with the automation of work and Universal Basic Income sparking interest across the political spectrum.

Questions of how people navigate life without stable work are, however, not new, and sub-Saharan Africa's experience of colonial expropriation, structural adjustment and millennial capitalism (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2012) have much to teach us about how life is lived, futures imagined, and hope kept alive amidst the depredations of capital.

Drawn from an ethnography of a weaving workshop in southern Ghana, this paper engages with Hannah Arendt's distinction between work and labour to consider how young men forge meaningful livelihoods and hopes for the future in a context where stable, waged work is all but absent. Looking at how relations of reciprocity, mutual support and the search for social respect are bound up with young men's complex engagements with stop-gap work, multiple occupations and future imaginaries, the material seeks to productively link young Ghanaian craftsmen's rich livelihood experiences with current debates about neoliberal precarity, post-work and the future of capitalism. Furthermore, considering the enduring allure of stable waged work for young craftsmen for whom that has never been a reality, the paper looks at the constitutive role of desire and hope.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to contribute to a collective re-theorisation of work outside of wage labour by offering analytical insights into the organisation of life and labour in a central marketplace in Kampala, Uganda.

Paper long abstract:

The global urban majority makes a living outside of wage labour. Yet, when looking to make sense of socioeconomic life in African towns and cities, researchers continue to foreground concepts derived from the historical experiences of wage workers in the global North, such as precarity and informality. As a consequence, we risk homogenising the diverse forms of life and labour that are characteristic of urban African economies, and their potential contribution to a world beyond work. This paper seeks to contribute to a collective re-theorisation of work outside of the wage by offering analytical insights into the organisation of life and labour in a central marketplace in Kampala, Uganda. Combining ethnographic and archival material, I argue that people's activities in the market conform to logics of redistribution rather than production, blurring the lines between economy and society, work and care. Inspired by the recent comparative turn in urban geography, I maintain that we should consider these activities forms of 'ordinary work' that have been shaped by the particular history of capitalism - among other theories of value - in the region.

Paper short abstract:

Three ethnographers working on Nairobi explore how the emic term 'hustling' contributes empirically & analytically to the call to think beyond 'the proper job'. We draw insights from the streets and the social 'bazes' of low-income settlements and from the stages and routes of the mini bus system.

Paper long abstract:

We come together as three urban ethnographers who share a common commitment to documenting the unstated norms and everyday rhythms that govern invisible and oft stigmatised labour in Nairobi, Kenya. We draw our insights from the streets and the social 'bazes' of low-income settlements and from the stages and routes of the matatu mini bus system. We aim to respond to Ferguson and Li's (2018) invitation to think beyond "the proper job", challenging the presumption that waged and salaried employment ought to be (or can ever be again) the norm. We move away from familiar descriptions of unwaged or informal work defined by negation, and instead point to the affirmative expressions of 'hustling' that circulate across our respective Nairobi field sites. We explore how 'hustling' contributes analytically to wider ethnographic queries about the diverse forms of labour associated with urban life when returns are uncertain, and when the nature of work can involve forms of unlikely accumulation, spontaneous loss, efforts to keep trying, and the obligations to (re)distribute. We argue that hustling is reflective of particular forms of dispossession and injustice while providing openings for new ways to (re)imagine, (re)describe, and (re)make a place in the city. This paradox positions hustling as a condition of urban life that works with but also confronts existing economic, political, social structures and (dis)orders in Nairobi. Ultimately, this paper seeks to pose the question back to colleagues: might hustling offer an alternative and generative narrative of 'work life' in other African cities today?

Paper short abstract:

The rise of the gig economy in Africa has triggered calls for a new social contract. Focusing on digital taxis in Nigeria, this paper will examine how digital employment platforms disrupt conventional employment arrangements and reshape livelihoods and processes of economic inclusion.

Paper long abstract:

The rise of digital employment platforms, often referred to as the 'gig economy', has been accompanied by a call for a new social contract in order to facilitate expanded creation of quality employment. This offers a potential solution to the complex employment challenges of contemporary Africa, characterized by high levels of informality, unemployment and rapid population growth. This paper looks beyond the hype to explore how the gig economy is reshaping livelihood opportunities and reformatting processes of social and economic inclusion among digital taxi drivers in Nigeria. Do proposed changes in the social contract address the problems of precarity and disaffection among Nigerian digital taxi drivers, or do they consolidate a new regime of accumulation around the digital incorporation of precarious labour? This paper will examine the quality of livelihoods created by the gig economy, and the limitations of digital employment in promoting sustainable livelihoods and the public good. The case study will inform a consideration of whether the prevailing vision of a new social contract represents a mechanism of economic inclusion or adverse incorporation for Nigeria's informal labour force, and refocus attention on the requirements for a more inclusive social contract.