Introduction

Labour, Insecurity and Violence in South Africa

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4866657
AutoresMaxim Bolt (0000-0003-0739-8018, University of Birmingham), Dinah Rajak (0000-0002-6605-7611, University of Sussex)
Ano2016
Volume42
Fascículo5
Páginas797-813
Data de publicação2016-09-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070.2016.1232513
OpenAlexW2471648147
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas33

struggles are not unique to South Africa.Yet the centrality of violence to South Africa's labour arrangements -both underpinning and feeding off them -is a striking feature of the country's history. 4 The 'precarious liberation' 5 of post-apartheid South Africa has produced its own vulnerabilities and frustrations, giving way to a new era of protest and claim-making.At the same time, Marikana focuses attention not only on the forms of violence and insecurity that are contested, but also on those that are left unchallenged.Building on a stream of panels organised for ASAUK 2014, the collection explores the broader canvas of labour insecurity, economic disenfranchisement, coercion, and the everyday enforcement of working conditions in South Africa.Most of the articles have a particular focus on the recent past, but they demonstrate the need for proper historicisation.Older legacies of violent incorporation into workforces are joined by new forms of precariousness and vulnerability, produced by shifts in employment regimes and by increasing joblessness.The divide between job and no job, between the formal workforce and those without formal employment, often forestalls the possibilities for broader solidarities.At the same time, manifold relationships within particular workforces bridge divides, both producing and mediating structural violence -between permanent and temporary workers; those formally employed and those with informal livelihoods; those enforcing labour conditions and those subject to regulation.Yet, in some cases, the maintenance of hierarchies and loyalties continues to rely on explicit forms of coercion that are familiar from the past.Featuring two keynote pieces on Marikana by Dunbar Moodie and Peter Alexander, this issue examines the violence of South Africa's labour systems at different scales -among workers, between workers and management, and at a wider, structural level.Violence, in its different forms, continues to define the working and domestic lives of millions of poor South 4 On South Africa's exceptionally violent history within the region, and its relationship to urban labour dynamics, see

Development economics · Economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Structural violence · Employment and Welfare Studies · HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses · South African History and Culture · Law