Paper short abstract:

This paper builds on ethnographic research in a South African informal settlement to explore the meanings of refusing work in a context of mass unemployment as a moral and political act. In particular, it focuses on young men’s definitions of work and perceptions and attitudes towards work.

Paper long abstract:

Urban youth in South Africa's informal settlements reject or express dissatisfaction and resentment towards precarious and low-paying work, even in a context of mass unemployment. The refusal to do certain jobs or forms of work is closely tied to widely shared disdain towards foreign immigrants who are seen to take 'any job' earning beneath the already-low wages of many workers in South Africa. While justified with the language of post-apartheid democracy and citizenship, this act of defiance reflects a much longer history of urban youth rejecting low-paid work.

This paper builds on ethnographic research in a South African informal settlement to explore the meanings of refusal as a moral and political act. In particular, it focuses on young men's definitions of work and perceptions and attitudes towards work. The rejection of waged work I argue depends on one's social obligations and social position within the informal settlement, which determines access to relative protections and alternative sources of income. By taking seriously the moral dimension and political subjectivity of unemployed youth this paper recognises the inseparability of people's search for viable livelihoods from the production of social relationships, identities and configurations of meaning.