Underdevelopment, contract labour and worker consciousness in Namibia, 1915-72

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4604114
AutoresRichard Moorsom (University of Sussex, autor de correspondencia)
Año1977
Volumen4
Número1
Páginas52-87
Fecha de publicación1977-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057077708707979
OpenAlexW2058784412
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas31
Referencias citadas4

In mid-December 1971, thousands of contract workers at Walvis Bay and Windhoek struck against the contract labour system in Namibia. During the following month, the workers' rebellion escalated into a general strike involving some 20,000 migrant labourers, which in the second half of January 1972 sparked a half-stalled peasant insurrection in the densely-populated northern bantustan of Ovamboland. The general outline and causes of the strike have been ably analysed elsewhere.2 As yet, however, little attention has been devoted to the structural determinants and historical evolution of worker consciousness in Namibia. The fact that the recent disruption of South Africa's periphery of 'buffer' states has sharply widened the strategic options available to the liberation movement in Namibia gives added priority to such an analysis. The purpose of this essay is therefore to discuss some of the background factors conditioning the consciousness of the Ovambo contract workers and to make a few tentative observations on the general significance of the strike for its participants. The analysis of systems of recurrent labour migration, particularly in social formations in which capitalist relations of production have intruded upon, but only partially destroyed a pre-existing peasantry, still lacks an adequate set of working concepts, let alone a coherent theory. Recent work on southern Africa

Consciousness · Economic growth · Economics · Labour economics · Sociology · Underdevelopment · African history and culture studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Psychology · South African History and Culture