Spinning and Weaving Discontent
Labour Relations and the Production of Meaning at Zambia-China Mulungushi Textiles
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4742596 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew Brooks (0000-0002-1900-9625) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 113-132 |
| Publication date | 2010-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057071003607360 |
| OpenAlex | W2000267943 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
Chinese engagement in Africa is an increasingly prescient and important subject for academic discourse on globalisation generally, and African political economy particularly, but local scale impacts of new Chinese investments have not been sufficiently addressed. The Mulungushi Textile Factory in Kabwe, Zambia, has a long association with China. New Chinese capitalist investment established the ‘Zambia-China Mulungushi Textiles Joint Venture Ltd.’ in 1997, rehabilitating a dilapidated industrial site. Through detailed ethnographic research this article explores how this specific Chinese engagement affected the lives of the Zambians who worked at Mulungushi Textiles. Using the lived experiences of ex-workers, changes to the social pattern of work are examined illustrating how a Zambian state model of labour organisation was replaced by a neo-liberal exploitative form at this globalised site. Wages were suppressed through casualisation, working conditions worsened and strict discipline was imposed. Workers did not gain the modern livelihoods they anticipated and through labour struggles, meanings and understandings of racial differences were produced and anger towards the Zambian state was articulated. Labour disputes, financial difficulties and increasing competition in the globally liberalised textile and clothing markets, diminished the enterprise's viability and Chinese investment abandoned Mulungushi in 2006
Agriculture · Capitalism · China · Clothing · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Geography · Globalization · Livelihood · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Wage labour · African history and culture studies · China's Global Influence and Migration · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy
Coevolutionary Pragmatism
How China Is Reshaping the Global Economy
Chinese Investments in Nigeria and the Political Economy of Trade, 1999 - 2019
Sino‐African Relations
Riches from Rags or Persistent Poverty? The Working Lives of Secondhand Clothing Vendors in Maputo, Mozambique
Social stressors and social resources at work and their association with self-reported health complaints among ready-made garment workers in Bangladesh
Politics of forced eviction in China-Africa relations
Was Africa rising? Narratives of development success and failure among the Mozambican middle class
Garments without guilt? Uneven labour geographies and ethical trading—Sri Lankan labour perspectives
Globalisation and the Rise of the State? Chinese Geogovernance in Zambia
Do Chinese firms in Africa pay lower wages? A comparative analysis of manufacturing and construction firms in Angola and Ethiopia
Money backfires
Business Borderlands
Africa's Next Debt Crisis
Sino-African Encounters in Ghana and Nigeria
Systems of provision
Investissements chinois dans l'industrie textile tanzanienne et zambienne
Tracing the Legacy
Toward Expanding Links Between Political Geography and African Studies
Unravelling the Relationships between Used-Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing Industries
The discourse of racialization of labour and Chinese enterprises in Africa
The vulnerable other - distorted equity in Chinese-Ghanaian employment relations
| Citations per year | 1.47 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Highly cited | No |