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From Insurrectionary Worker to Contingent Citizen: restructuring labor markets and repositioning East Rand (South Africa) retail sector workers
Author(s) -
Kenny Bridget
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
city and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1548-744X
pISSN - 0893-0465
DOI - 10.1525/city.2003.15.1.31
Subject(s) - deindustrialization , restructuring , industrialisation , globalization , economic restructuring , economic growth , opposition (politics) , democracy , political science , economics , economy , market economy , politics , law
Cities in South Africa, engineered as they were through apartheid, have fundamentally defined experiences of work, residence, leisure, and collective organization of urban and rural dwellers alike. Within the distinctive spaces of urban centers, citizens encounter the more recent difficulties of global economic restructuring as well as the potential to create their own opposition to increased marginalization. Using workplace interviews and life histories conducted from 1998‐2000 of retail sector workers on the East Rand, South Africa, this paper focuses on the changing “local labor market.” From a focal point of an organized, democratic union movement linked to community anti‐apartheid struggles, more recently the region has undergone de‐industrialization exacerbated by increasing “flexibilized” service employment and directed investment to other centers, like Johannesburg's rapidly developing north. The article explores how East Rand worker‐residents experience an increasingly contingent labor market through shifting identities as workers and as men and women. [South Africa, retail industry, East Rand, deindustrialization, labor markets, gender, globalization]