The Making of an African Working Class

Politics, Law, and Cultural Protest in the Manual Workers' Union of Botswana

Bibliographic Data

ID9342192
AuthorsP Werbner (0000-0003-2296-9851, corresponding author)
Year2014
Publication date2014-07-20
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueAnthropology, Culture and Society : Making of an African Working Class (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPluto Press (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/j.ctt183p51f
OpenAlexW626644074
Open LibraryOL29186356M
ISBN9781783711789
LanguageEN
Citations received21

It is now 50 years since E.P. Thompson published his classic, The Making of the English Working Class. The Making of an African Working Class follows Thompson in exploring the formation of working class identity among low-paid African workers. In arguing for a radical public anthropology of worker identity, the book seeks to analyse the cultural, legal, ideological and experiential dimensions of labour activism often neglected in other labour studies.\n \n Pnina Werbner shows that by fusing cosmopolitan and local popular cultural forms of protest, unionists have created a distinctive, vernacular way of being a worker in Botswana: one that does not deny workers' roots at home or in the countryside, while being cognisant of a wider world of cosmopolitan labour rights. The assertion of working class dignity, honour and respect, Pnina argues, is a powerful motivating force for manual workers.\n \n Against legal-sceptical approaches, The Making of an African Working Class argues that in challenging the government - their employer - in court, manual workers' protests and mobilisation are deeply embedded in ethics, social justice and the law

Class (philosophy) · Dignity · Elite · Moral economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · Working class · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Gender Studies · History · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Public Administration · South African History and Culture · Africa · Labor unions · National Amalgamated Local & Central Government & Parastatal Manual Workers Union · politics and government · Social conditions · Southern · Strikes and lockouts

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Open DOILibgenOpen Access