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- Convenors:
-
Gideon Tups
(University of Cologne)
Evelyne Owino (Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies (BICC))
Johannes Theodor Aalders (University of Bonn)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Environment and Geography (x) Infrastructure (y)
- Location:
- Neues Seminargebäude, Seminarraum 26
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel links (critical) infrastructure studies and labour geography to highlight the many ways in which workers take active part in shaping the physical form and future visions of infrastructure in Africa.
Long Abstract:
Without labour, infrastructure is unthinkable. Yet, the mutual relationship between infrastructure and labour remains under-investigated in critical approaches to infrastructure and labour. This panel provides a platform to discuss how workers take an active part in shaping the physical form and future visions of infrastructure. We highlight cases in Africa, where governments, consultancies and aid agencies alike present filling the so-called 'infrastructure-gap' as the prime solution to the continent's real and perceived problems, while others criticise neo-colonial characteristics of a "new scramble" for African infrastructure.
Understanding infrastructure as "under construction" means studying it as a process rather than a static or concluded thing. A focus on the constant making, re-making and un-making of infrastructure reveals the always unfinished practices that underpin the apparently stable, and territorially fixed materiality of built infrastructure. It furthermore reveals the often hidden work of constructing the African futures. We invite panellists to critically address what forms of labour are mobilised in the (de-)construction of infrastructure ("infrastructuring labour") as well as how labour relations change due to the dynamic and countervailing nature of infrastructuring processes ("infrastructured labour"), foregrounding forms of labour that usually remain invisible where capitalist exploitation based on class intersects with synergetic systems of marginalisation based on race, gender, etc.
Potential topics could focus on the relation between infrastructure and…
… Labour migration
… Gendered labour relations
… The politics of (in-)visible labour
… Labour organising and trade unions
… The work of future-making
… Colonial (dis-)continuities of labour relations
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 June, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the relationship between Africa’s ‘infrastructural turn’ and changing labour relations by focusing on the multiple temporalities characterising infrastructure development along the Lagos-Abidjan Corridor.
Paper long abstract:
Africa’s renewed push towards infrastructure development brought with it new forms of territorialisation tied to both capital and labour. Infrastructure are expected to connect specific hubs on the continent to global trade flows, promote industrialisation, and increase employment rates, yet they often struggle to fulfil said promises. Questions remain around whether infrastructure create, reproduce, or reinforce sets of hierarchical scalar division of labour, or how perceptions of infrastructure’s transformative potential shape the rationales for and modalities of their development. We explore the relationship between Africa’s ‘infrastructural turn’ and changing labour relations by focusing on the multiple temporalities characterising infrastructure development, which include a range of cycles, pulses, and suspensions. Focusing on the Lagos-Abidjan Corridor, we posit that infrastructure development can reinforce geopolitical inequities in the division of labour, promote competition amongst states and regions for value capture through ‘local content’ initiatives, and foster the emergence of (domestic) marginalised/marginalising migrant labour.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, we intend to examine the emerging large-scale infrastructure project-Lamu Port, looking at how it changes labor relations in the coastal region and affects the already marginalized labor in Kenya. We intend to apply the concept of social order in relation to organized violence.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, we intend to examine the emerging large-scale infrastructure project-Lamu Port, looking at how it changes labor relations in the coastal region and affects the already marginalized labor in Kenya. The port is expected to be a tourism hub and economic zone, creating millions of jobs and addressing marginalization in the Coastal region. We intend to apply the concept of social order in relation to organized violence, looking at how global capitalists such as Chinese conglomerates shape labor in the African frontier spaces and how such capitalists affect land use and labor laws. Through interviews from key informants-government representatives, and civil society, including a questionnaire survey from the residents in Lamu. We are interested in investigating how the locals are being infrastructured in this ongoing mega-development project. Our results intend to show a major facelift of infrastructuring in the coastal region, pointing out how such infrastructuring produces and reproduces the history and future of labor in Lamu county, Kenya.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the situation of labourers working on, and in the vicinity of, the La Beach Road project in Accra, Ghana. Based on qualitative fieldwork, the paper seeks to add an everyday labour perspective to the growing critical infrastructure literature.
Paper long abstract:
Accra, the capital of Ghana, is experiencing massive investments in road infrastructure, in similarity with many other African capitals. During the last decade, this city has seen the construction of new interchanges, bridges and flyovers as well as numerous road expansions. These projects have generated new income opportunities and acted as magnets for a wide range of economic activities, including street vending, even though temporariness and precariousness pervade such opportunities. Knowledge is however limited on the situation and everyday life of ordinary people labouring in and around roadworks in contemporary urban Africa. This paper analyses the situation and experiences of labourers working on, and in the vicinity of, the La Beach Road expansion project in Accra. It builds on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Accra during November and December 2022, including interviews with road workers, street vendors, government officials, consultants and a union representative as well as observations along the road. The paper discusses the different types of income opportunities that this project has provided; the working conditions within the project; how street vendors along the stretch have been affected (or not) by the road expansion; and workers' perceptions and experiences of the opportunities and challenges provided by this new infrastructure. Given that the studied road project is led by a Chinese company, the paper also pays attention to the relationships between Ghanaian and Chinese workers and managers. The paper seeks to add an everyday labour perspective, sensitive to spatial and temporal variations of work opportunities and experiences, to the growing critical infrastructure literature.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the notion of 'entanglement' as a form of labour which migrant property guardians living and working in Dakar’s unfinished diaspora-built homes utilise to confront and negotiate their presence in a highly fraught and complex relational property market.
Paper long abstract:
African urban geographies are replete with unfinished, half-built, and incomplete infrastructures that are often viewed pejoratively to denote the apparent ‘lack’ or ‘failure’ of African cities. However, this assessment occludes analysis of the diverse economies and socialities emanating from these same structures (Guma, 2020). By taking ‘incompleteness’ as a starting point, this paper explores the everyday lives of migrants living and working as gardiens (property guardians) in the unfinished diaspora-built homes of Ouakam, Dakar. By combining critical theorisations of postcolonial land and property markets with an ethnographic account of gardiens’ everyday strategies of living with uncertainty, this paper argues that gardiens negotiate themselves into Ouakam’s lively and complex relational property market in ingenious ways to secure a presence in an environment seeming to marginalise them. This practice of negotiation – which I read as a form of labour – is what I term entanglement. In sharp contrast to a politics of occupation that challenges and/or resists the extractive logics of private property (Vasudevan, 2015a; 2015b; 2017), gardiens assemble multiple fragments of labour – aiding in incremental construction of the house, lying awake at night guarding materials, facilitating transactions on behalf of absent owners, acting as brokers in local property deals and short-term rentals – which at times undermines and at other times reifies claims to propertied ownership in their efforts to remain in Ouakam. From this situated study, I argue that entanglement holds important lessons for thinking through the often ambivalent and contradictory politics of resistance at the margins.
Paper short abstract:
Intra-regional agricultural labor migration is common in West Africa. Labour migrants work long hours on farms but have limited access to health care when ill due to poor infrastructural facilities. Receiving centres need to honor the International Organisation on Migation protocol on health.
Paper long abstract:
Intra-regional agricultural labor migration is common in West Africa but the extent to which migrants receive fair treatment in the areas of destination is under represented in research. Labour migrants work long hours on farms but have limited access to health care when ill due to poor infrastructural facilities. Using rural communities in south western Nigeria as a case study, the extent to which migrants from neighboring countries (Ghana, Benin Republic and Togo) access to health care services and the limitations experienced were examined. A simple random sampling process was used to select 140 West African migrants in Itesiwaju Local Government Area. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and econometric tools. The results show that the educational status was generally low and less than 50 percent had legal resident status. Although over 50 percent complained of one form of ill health or the other, many of them do not have access to health care facilities. A major reason is the fact that health infrastructure is generally poor in rural areas; and their is no policy in place that accords priority to rural migrant workers. The study recommends that receiving centres should honor the International Organisation on Migration protocol on health.