Academic literature on the topic 'Migrant labor – South Africa – History'
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Journal articles on the topic "Migrant labor – South Africa – History"
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LICHTENSTEIN, ALEX. "MAKING APARTHEID WORK: AFRICAN TRADE UNIONS AND THE 1953 NATIVE LABOUR (SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES) ACT IN SOUTH AFRICA." Journal of African History 46, no. 2 (July 2005): 293–314. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853704000441.
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Most analyses of apartheid labor policy focus on the regulation of the labor market rather than the industrial workplace. Instead, this article investigates the administration of South Africa's 1953 Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act to examine shop-floor control rather than influx control. The article argues that in response to the threat of African trade unionism, apartheid policymakers in the Department of Labour addressed the problem of low African wages and expanded the use of ‘works committees’. By shifting the debate about capitalism and apartheid away from influx control and migrant labor, and towards industrial legislation and shop-floor conflict, the article places working-class struggle at the center of an analysis of apartheid.
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Huang, Mingwei. "The Chinese Century and the City of Gold: Rethinking Race and Capitalism." Public Culture 33, no. 2 (May 1, 2021): 193–217. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/08992363-8917178.
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Abstract This article tells a story about the unfolding “Chinese Century” in South Africa centered on China Malls, wholesale shopping centers for Chinese goods that have cropped up along Johannesburg's old mining belt since the early 2000s. Based in ethnographic and historical analysis, the essay takes a palimpsestic approach to imagine how Chinese capital enters into a terrain profoundly shaped by race, labor, and migration and is entangled with the afterlives of gold. Chinese migrant traders in South Africa draw on legacies of migrant mine labor and refashion processes that devalue Black labor. Whereas these histories are lost upon Chinese newcomers, African workers experience working for “the Chinese” through the memory of the mines. With the aim of theorizing emergent formations of race and capital in the Chinese Century, the essay threads this new epoch through the history of colonial and racial capitalism of the City of Gold.
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Musoni, Francis. "The Ban on “Tropical Natives” and the Promotion of Illegal Migration in Pre-Apartheid South Africa." African Studies Review 61, no. 3 (July 10, 2018): 156–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/asr.2018.73.
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Abstract:This article examines the historical as well as contemporary significance of South Africa’s 1913 ban on the recruitment of migrant workers from areas north of latitude 22 degrees south. This ill-conceived policy not only criminalized the employment of so-called “tropical natives” in South Africa but also triggered contestations, fueling illegal migration from the restricted areas. By 1933, when the ban was lifted, illegal migration from Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) had become a major site of contestations among policymakers, labor agents, business owners, and migrant workers in South Africa. While the dominant narrative in Southern Africa holds that illegal migration only became an issue of concern after the end of apartheid rule, this phenomenon has a much longer history in the subregion. Identifying factors that push people to move from one country to another and those that force or encourage travelers to cross international boundaries without following official channels facilitates the understanding of the complexities involved in cases of illegal migration wherever this practice exists. While low wages and other sources of insecurity in colonial Zimbabwe may indeed have compelled many people to consider moving to South Africa, such factors did not cause migrants to use unofficial channels in crossing the border. Rather, South Africa’s ban imposed numerous barriers, rendering it difficult for those seeking work to cross between the two countries through legal and/or formal channels.
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Breckenridge, Keith. "‘Money with Dignity’: Migrants, Minelords and the Cultural Politics of the South African Gold Standard Crisis, 1920–33." Journal of African History 36, no. 2 (July 1995): 271–304. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853700034149.
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This paper takes as its point of departure a simple fact that has gone largely unnoticed in the historical and ethnographic literature of migrant mine labour: prior to 1933 mineworkers were paid in gold. It is argued that the ideas and practices associated with the control and transmission of metallic money were at the heart of the experience of migrant labour before the crisis and formed a major part of the self-definition of migrant gold miners during the 1920s. Moreover, both the practices and ideas of African mineworkers were reciprocally linked to the global political struggles taking place over the gold standard. From the First World War to the Christmas of 1932, the South African and Imperial states and mining capital were involved in a controversy over the form of the South African and international money supplies. Whilst in appearance an abstract and mysterious debate, the contest over the form of the money supply laid the foundations for a system of value that penetrated into the daily lives and politics of many southern Africans. Chief amongst these were hundreds of thousands of migrant mine-workers. Following from this, the paper posits a re-interpretation of the gold standard crisis. The turning point that coincided with the new year of 1933 was not merely an economic change; it constituted a major transformation of the form, value, velocity and politics of money throughout Southern Africa. Coincidently, the crisis was an economic and cultural transition for the mining industry itself and marked a dramatic re-definition of the terms of economic conflict between workers and managers. Finally, this paper calls for a new periodization of capitalist development in Southern Africa that meshes together the cultural and economic dimensions of historical processes in a manner that foregrounds the experience of the African working class.
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Breckenridge, Keith. "Promiscuous Method: The Historiographical Effects of the Search for the Rural Origins of the Urban Working Class in South Africa." International Labor and Working-Class History 65 (April 2004): 26–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0147547904000043.
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Class in contemporary South Africa is undergoing an identity crisis. The demographic decline of the industrial working class, and the terrible predicament of the unemployed, especially in the countryside, lends support to the argument that we should, as Geoff Eley and Keith Neald have recently suggested in the pages of this journal, reconsider the class-centered theory that has dominated social history since the early 1970s. This paper examines the recent labor history of the coastal center of Durban, the urban epicenter of the contemporary disease and subsistence crisis in South Africa. Three distinct, ethnically defined, working-class groups have made the journey to this city from Zululand, Mozambique and India. And the histories of each of these groups suggest that class-centered histories in South Africa have been methodologically promiscuous, considering themes, problems and narratives that have no obvious connection to the industrial lives of the working class. The wide-ranging scope of South African labor history and its tremendous explanatory power in fields far from the industrial workplace follow directly from the effort to explore the rural roots of the working class. In following the paths that migrant workers have used to come to the city, historians have strayed into fields of social life—sex, marriage, identity, desire, witchcraft, nationalism—that have much greater significance today than the old working-class politics. Yet these studies never lose sight of the real powers of local, regional and imperial states and the capitalist institutions that harnessed them. The study of class has been recast in South Africa by the search for rural culture. Class may not be the most useful tool for understanding South Africa today, but it has proved extremely powerful as a means of understanding how we got here.
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GEWALD, JAN-BART. "NEAR DEATH IN THE STREETS OF KARIBIB: FAMINE, MIGRANT LABOUR AND THE COMING OF OVAMBO TO CENTRAL NAMIBIA." Journal of African History 44, no. 2 (July 2003): 211–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853702008381.
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Namibian politics and society are today dominated by people who trace their descent from the settlements and homesteads of Ovamboland in southern Angola and northern Namibia. Yet, prior to 1915, and the defeat by South Africa of the German colonial army in German South-West Africa, very few Ovambo had settled in areas to the south of the Etosha Pan. In 1915, a Portuguese expeditionary army defeated Kwanyama forces in southern Angola, and unleashed a flood of refugees into northern Namibia. These refugees entered an area that was already overstretched. Since 1912 the rains had failed and, on account of the First World War, trade and migration had come to a standstill. As a result the area was experiencing its most devastating famine ever. Unable to find sanctuary in Ovamboland, thousands of people trekked southwards into central Namibia, an area which had only just come under the control of South Africa. The famine allowed for the easy entrance of South African military administrators and labour recruiters into Ovamboland and heralded the demise of Ovambo independence. By focusing on developments in the central Namibian town of Karibib between 1915 to 1916, the article explores the move of the Ovambo into central and southern Namibia. It traces the impact of war and drought on Ovambo societies, and follows Ovambo famine migrants on their route south into areas administered by the South African military administration. Discussion also concentrates on the reception and treatment of Ovambo famine migrants in the Karibib settlement, and argues that the refugee crisis heralded the establishment of Ovambo in modern central and southern Namibia.
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Lalthapersad, Pinky. "Historical analysis of African women workers in South Africa during the period 1900 to 2000." South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences 6, no. 2 (June 30, 2003): 262–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajems.v6i2.3313.
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The article is a detailed exposition of the history of the incorporation of African women into paid work in the South African labour market. The interlocking effects of racism, classism and sexism exposed African women to income and job insecurity. Historically, access of African women to the labour market was shaped by the gendered nature of the migrant labour system and by legal measures that restricted women’s entry into urban areas and waged work. When African women were allowed into the formal labour market, they were only allowed to undertake the low-skilled, low-paying, menial jobs, were excluded from union benefits and forced to work under exploitative conditions.
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Heinicke, Craig, and Wayne A. Grove. "Labor Markets, Regional Diversity, and Cotton Harvest Mechanization in the Post-World War II United States." Social Science History 29, no. 2 (2005): 269–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0145553200012955.
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As hand-harvest labor disappeared from the American cotton fields after World War II, labor market dynamics differed between two key production regions, the South and the West. In the South, predominantly resident African Americans and whites harvested cotton, whereas in the West the labor market was composed of white residents, domestic Latino migrant workers, and Mexican nationals temporarily immigrating under the sponsorship of the U.S. government (braceros). We use newly reconstructed data for the two regions and estimate for the first time the regional causes of the demise of the hand-harvest labor force from 1949 to 1964. Whereas cheaper harvest mechanization substantially affected both regions, the downward trend in cotton prices and government programs to control cotton acreage played important roles in the disappearance of hand–harvested cotton in the South, but not in the West.
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White, Hylton. "Tempora Et Mores: Family Values and the Possessions of a Post-Apartheid Countryside." Journal of Religion in Africa 31, no. 4 (2001): 457–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006601x00275.
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AbstractThis paper examines a set of ritual responses to the challenges that post-apartheid South Africa's political economy poses to projects of domestic reproduction in the former Bantustan countryside of Zululand, where unemployment has limited the capacities of young men to create marital households. In the case study on which the paper is based, one such man's misfortunes are connected by divination to the spirit of an older kinsman who disappeared while working as a labor migrant. I argue that this connection and the rituals meant to confront it turn on fraught symbolic relations between the present and two pasts: the past of apartheid migrancy and a projected past of custom. Like the ghosts by which they are manifest, these times trouble domestic life in the present because of contradictory developments forcing unemployed migrants back on the values of private spheres while they undermine the bases of rural households.
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Yoon, Soo Ryon. "Artists or Slave Laborers? Performing Uncapturability in Burkinabe Performers’ Labor Rights Struggle in South Korea." positions: asia critique 28, no. 2 (May 1, 2020): 311–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/10679847-8112468.
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This article traces eight performers from Burkina Faso, who in 2014 protested unfair labor practices at the Africa Museum of Original Art in South Korea, where they had been hired to perform. In the process, they demonstrated political and artistic endeavors in live concerts and dance workshops to reclaim both their monetary compensation and their artists’ status. Nevertheless, public and media discourse that followed this nationwide news—no matter how sympathetic—tended to treat the artists’ experiences as merely a failed Korean dream. Using performance studies methodologies and ethnographic methods, this article uses the terms performance and performativity more capaciously to include a range of embodied acts. With this, the article argues that framing the artists’ experiences within the narrative confines of struggling migrant workers fails to capture the complex, often contradictory relationship that they have with acts of performing beyond the existing categories of migrant labor. Furthermore, the sympathetic discourse capitalizes on hypervisibility of blackness, through which the artists’ suffering becomes a spectacle. This article suggests consideration of the concept of uncapturability—the embodiment of which exposes failures of a nationalist and racialized language—as well as existing theoretical frameworks mobilized to understand the interiority of performance and the artists’ work.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Migrant labor – South Africa – History"
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Maloka, Edward Tshidiso. "Basotho and the mines : towards a history of labour migrancy, c.1890-1940." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22471.
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Bibliography: pages 368-396.This thesis examines how Lesotho came to depend on the export of its men to South African mines; what the experiences of these men were; and how all this impacted on Basotho society during the years between c.1890 and 1940. The thesis is divided into three parts. Part I focuses on the context and dynamics of labour migration and recruitment in Lesotho during the late 1880s to the late 1930s. This Part lays the basis for subsequent sections by showing which sections of Basotho opted for labour migrancy; and why it was men and not women who, initially at least, became migrants. In discussing the decline of the Basotho economy in the 1920s and 1930s, this section also shows how this was characterised not only by dependence on migrants' earnings, but also by the orientation to and concentration of Basotho labour on the Witwatersrand gold mines. Part II discusses various themes relating to life and conditions on the mines and in the compounds during the period up to c.1940. While specific note is taken of the African miners' death and accident rate, most attention is devoted to the various ways which Basotho miners developed for dealing with the sickness, death and destitution befalling their compatriots in the compounds and on the mines. Conversion to Christianity was an important part of some miners experience, as church forums and the bible could be used for recreational purposes, while literacy classes imparted many with essential skills which could lead to promotion on the mine. But competition for promotion and favours, as well as conflicting survival strategies, often resulted in violent conflict among African miners. Although some scholars have mistakenly attributed such conflict to ethnic factors alone, this thesis argues for an approach which is simultaneously historically and materially grounded. Part III, by using the case of infectious and occupational diseases, and prostitution and commercial beer-brewing, traces and analyses the impact of the migrant labour system on Lesotho. The thesis shows how the spread to Lesotho of such diseases as syphilis and tuberculosis was directly linked to contact with South African towns and mining centres through wage labour. Beer canteens and brothels emerged and flourished in colonial Lesotho not only because of the decline of the country's economy and the breakdown of Basotho social structures, but also because these establishments serviced the migrant labour traffic itself. The significance of this study lies in two areas. Historiographically, this study seeks to contribute to migrant labour studies in Lesotho in particular and Southern Africa in general. Its approach stands between economism which attributes the causes of labour migrancy solely to economic factors, and those paradigms which privilege ideas and culture over material factors. There is a dialectical interplay between material factors and ideas, although the former ultimately determines the latter. Secondly, the significance of this study lies in the fact that many of the issues raised, especially those in Part III, continue to pose serious problems for Basotho people and their government to this day. Knowing something about the origins and history of these problems may contribute to finding lasting solutions. This study, therefore, is about Lesotho, Basotho, and the mines.
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De, Wet C. J., Phumeza Lujabe, and Nosipho Metele. "Resettlement in the Border/Ciskei region of South Africa." Rhodes University, Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2849.
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This paper presents the findings of part of a research project entitled "Population Mobility and Settlement Patterns in the Eastern Cape, 1950 to 1990", which was funded by the Human Sciences Research Council. The part of the project with which this paper is concerned, is the study of resettlement in the Border/Ciskei area of the (new) Eastern Cape Province. It involves two main foci: a) the Whittlesea district of the former Ciskei, where research was done in the resettlement area of Sada (where findings are compared with research done there in 1981) and Dongwe; and b) the Fort Beaufort area, where we looked at the two 'black spot' communities of Upisdraai and Gqugesi which were uprooted and moved to the Fort Beaufort township of Bhofolo in the 1960s, and at the establishment of black citrus farmers in the Kat River Valley in the late 1980s, on previously White owned farms which were bought out by the (then) Ciskei government. In the Conclusion, some important differences are suggested between resettlement in the Eastern Cape and in QwaQwa, one of the areas of South Africa that has been most severely affected by resettlement. Ways in which the South African material may be seen in terms of prevailing models for the analysis of resettlement, and may provide an input for the modification of these approaches, are briefly considered.Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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Maro, Mkasafari Grace. "Economic impact of international labour migration on Lesotho's development, 1986-1998: towards an international labour migration policy for the Southern African region." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007496.
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The aim of the thesis is to identify the pressures that contributed to the rise in international labour migration in Lesotho, and to investigate how these pressures are impacting upon the modernization process in the country, particularly at a time when employment opportunities are scarce in the southern African region. International labour migration has been used as a development tool throughout history, but especially in the 20th century by developing countries with dual labour markets. Newly independent developing countries with dual labour markets adapted the strategy of import substitution industrialization (lSI), with an emphasis on protecting infant industries and promoting pro-labour policies. In the post-colonial period the international demand for lowskilled workers rose, particularly in the North (developed countries), and in mineral rich countries including the oil exporters and South Africa, and the newly industrialising countries in East Asia. International labour migration to these countries was adapted as an integral development tool by the governments of the lSI countries. Most migrants were low-skilled and temporary workers in the destination countries. Although no multilateral institutional framework existed, usually both the sending and receiving countries adapted unilateral and bilateral migration policies to guarantee the gains from migration. Workers were thus "protected" to varying degrees under such agreements. From the 1970s, the North experienced a slowdown in the growth in demand for unskilled workers. In the 1980s, many lSI countries experienced devastating economic crises that forced them to abandon the lSI policy and adapt the export-led industrialisation (EOI) policy with an emphasis on trade liberalization. The switch from lSI to EOI in developing countries with dual labour markets led to the downsizing of public sector employment, the removal of marketing boards formally used by small-scale agricultural farmers, and the expansion of export processing zones (EPZs). These outcomes resulted in a rise in push internal migration, and international migration from these countries especially to other developing countries. At the same time, since the late 1980s, capital has acquired greatly enhanced mobility at the global level. The adaptation of EOI and the full mobility of capital at the global level altered the institutional structure within which labour migration was governed both nationally, and internationally. At the national level stricter unilateral policies were reinforced by receiving countries for low-skilled labour, while less strict policies applied for skilled labour. These remain in operation in conjunction with the earlier bilateral agreements. At the international level, there remains a lack of policy to regulate international labour migration. Under the current enhanced mobility of capital, international migrants are thus left vulnerable. Lesotho fits this pattern. Faced with a dual economy and an abundance of semi-skilled labour, Lesotho has been a principal supplier of labour to the South Africa's mining industry since its independence. Lesotho's industrial diversification thus mirrors South Africa's industrial diversification. In the lSI phase (1968 - 1987), international labour migration became the most important tool of economic welfare generation in Lesotho. Bilateral agreements were signed in the early 1970s between Lesotho and South Africa to guarantee the gains from migration. Since the late I980s, the mining industry in South Africa began to downsize production and employment. Fewer novice miners from Lesotho were recruited to work in South Africa. The adaptation of the EOI policy in Lesotho in 1987 introduced EPZ industrialization and trade liberalization. Nevertheless, the retrenchment of mine workers from South Africa is occurring at a time when Lesotho is experiencing an employment crisis. The political independence of South Africa in 1994 was accompanied by stricter international migration policies by the new democratic government of South Africa. Most migrant workers in South Africa are thus now faced with a two-door policy (of the earlier bilateral agreements and the amendments to the Aliens Control Act). This system has left migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation by both employers and the law (police) in South Africa. Nevertheless, international migration from Lesotho to South Africa continues to expand, particularly of the new type of migration - semiskilled female workers in the services sector. At the same time, South Africa is also experiencing an employment crisis. The most important policy implications are, firstly, that migration is subject to the same "casualisation" as other work, with the effects made worse by the "statelessness" of migrants, who are most vulnerable to exploitation. Secondly, multilateralism is needed (e.g., SADC) and holistic, multilateral policies are required. It is clear that under the new global division of labour ad hoc policy towards international labour migration is ineffective.
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Kritzinger, Barbara. "An exploration of myth in the adaptation processes of Zimbabwean migrants residing in Port Elizabeth." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1430.
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Migration is recognised as an escalating phenomenon of human behaviour worldwide. In the Southern African region African migrations and migrants have remained a focal point of discussion amongst politicians, citizens and migrants themselves in recent years. In South Africa, a major destination of migrants from various African Diasporas, this renewed interest in the topic has occurred in the context of xenophobic related violence aimed at foreigners within the broader economic, political and social arena. These factors extend to South Africa’s relationships with her near neighbours. Thus, Zimbabwe’s political, economic and social crisis has overflowed into South African borders, contributing large numbers of migrants to her population. Previous research has underrepresented the perspectives of migrants and Zimbabwean migrants in particular. Zimbabwean migrants seek economic opportunities to better themselves and maintain the survival of their families who remain in their country of origin. They are transnationals who engage in continuous movement between one place and the next, supporting various livelihoods. Little is understood about migrant adaptation to their complex contexts. In this research project, content analysis was conducted of data gathered during interviews and participant-observation of Zimbabwean migrant traders on the beachfront informal market in Port Elizabeth. The maintenance of the cultural values and identity of the myth of the hero as upholder of household honour was found to be significant in the adaptation of migrants to their multi-faceted lives. The findings indicate that migrant life is indeed uncertain and ever-changing. Their resilience in the face of continual change illustrated both conflict and compromise between “social cohesiveness (and) social flexibility” (Bauman, 1998: 15-16)
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Rwelamira, Juliana. "Effect of rural inequality on migration among the farming households of Limpopo Province, South Africa." Pretoria : [s.n.], 2008. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-01212009-160959/.
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Khoza, L. H. "Nxopaxopo wa switandzhaku swa vuguduka eka matsalwa ya xiTsonga lama nga hlawuriwa." Thesis, University of Limpopo, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/2355.
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Thesis (M.A.) --University of Limpopo, 2014Problem Statement This proposal investigates the life of men who left their beloved families with the aim of seeking jobs in order to support them. Most of the men when they get employed, they forget about where they come from and start new families by marrying another wives in urban areas. Furthermore this study will seek to find out how these men could get help and to restore their dignity. Methodology In order to achieve the aim and objectives of this proposal, the researcher will utilise textual analysis and interview method. Significance This study will act as wake-up call to the new generation to take into consideration the importance of where they original come from. In addition, the study will contribute to the existing knowledge and understanding the purpose of living their homes to seek employment not to start new families.
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Van, Zyl-Hermann Danelle. "White workers and South Africa's democratic transition, 1977-2011." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708951.
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Iannini, Craig, and Craig Iannini. "Contracted chattel : indentured and apprenticed labor in Cape Town, c.1808-1840." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/23252.
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This thesis examines indentured and apprenticed labor in Cape Town between the years 1808 and 1840. Through analysis of primary material such as the South African Commercial Advertiser, the Colonist, and the Mediator, as well as contemporary travel accounts, contracts of indenture and apprenticeship, and an examination of the records of the Cape Town Magistrates, this study explores the attitudes and perceptions towards indentured and apprenticed labor by both employers and indentured and apprenticed servants.This study hopes to add to the existing literature pertaining to nineteenth-century Cape Colony labor. This thesis commences with an examination of the different indenture and apprenticeship systems which existed in Cape Town between the years 1808 and 1840. It explores the issue of how employers and the government sought to maintain a constant supply of labor in the city as the prominence of urban slavery declined. It also discusses the important issue of how employers defined the terms apprentice and indenture. Chapter two explores the topic of child apprenticeship in Cape Town between the years 1812 to 1840, and illustrates that the notion of child apprenticeship was understood in different ways between employers and parents of apprenticed children. Chapter three investigates the stereotypes Cape Town's English speaking employers held towards the city's indentured and apprenticed laborers. The final chapter explores the question of status and incorporation into Cape Town society for the city's indentured and apprenticed laborers, and demonstrates that laborers did not enjoy equal status to the city's slaves.
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Cherry, Janet. "The making of an African working class: Port Elizabeth 1925-1963." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17243.
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Bibliography: pages 231-239.The thesis examines the 'making' of an african working class in Port Elizabeth. It offers an alternative interpretation to conventional histories which emphasize continuity both in the idea of a strong industrial working class and in a tradition of militant and effective worker organisation. At the same time, it posits the idea that there was a working-class movement which developed among Port Elizabeth's african community in the late 1940's and 1950's. Chapter 1 examines population growth in Port Elizabeth, the growth of secondary industry, and employment opportunities for africans. It is argued that limited opportunities for african employment in secondary industry affected the forms of working-class organisation that emerged. Chapter 2 examines the situation of the urban african population in the 1920's and 1930's, looking at factors which influenced its organisation and consciousness. The low wages paid to african workers were not challenged effectively in this period by the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union which had declined by the mid-1920's, or the Trades and Labour Council which did not organise african workers. However, the permanently urbanised status of the majority of the african population laid the basis for a militant community consciousness. Chapter 3 analyses attempts to organise african workers during the Second World War. It focusses on Wage Board determinations. the first african trade unions formed by the Ballingers and Max Gordon, the organisation of the Council of Non-European Trade Unions and the Trades and Labour Council, and the organisation of railway workers. It is argued that these attempts at organising african labour were largely unsuccessful in building strong industrial unions with an african leadership. Chapter 4 looks at the rise of the 'new unions' in the post-war period, when african workers were drawn into manufacturing on a large scale, and an african working-class leadership began to emerge. The response to this from the state, capital and other trade unions is examined through looking at the struggles of workers in four sectors: stevedoring, laundry, textiles and food. These sectors are contrasted with the tertiary sector where organisation of african workers was weak. Chapter 5 examines the politics of reproduction of the african working class between 1 945 and 1960. It looks at changes in the nature of the African National Congress and the Communist Party of South Africa, and at innovative strategies around issues of reproduction. The role of women's organisation and their struggle against the extension of pass laws is highlighted, and it is posited that a working class movement developed in this period. Chapter 6 analyses the application of influx control in Port Elizabeth in the 1950's, and the conflict of interests over the implementation of the labour bureau system. It examines the divisions in the african working class between migrants and non-migrants, and the response of different sections of the working class. Chapter 7 looks at the role of the South African Congress of Trade Unions. It is argued that the integration of point-of-production struggles with community and political struggles was the outcome of the position of african workers in industry combined with strong political organisation in the 'sphere of reproduction'. Changes in the structural position of african workers combined with political repression led to the collapse of this working class movement in the early 1960's.
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Khosa, Risimati Maurice. "An analysis of challenges in running micro-enterprises: a case of African foreign entrepreneurs in Cape Town, Western Cape." Thesis, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11838/1787.
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Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Business Administration (Entrepreneurship) in the Faculty of Business at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology
2014The primary objective of this study was to analyse the challenges in operating micro-enterprises faced by African foreign entrepreneurs in Cape Town. The rationale behind the study is the fact that foreign entrepreneurs are faced with different challenges in operating micro-enterprises; some of these challenges are detrimental to the enterprises and lead some entrepreneurs to stop doing business. South African entrepreneurs and African foreign entrepreneurs share similar challenges to some extent. However, African foreign entrepreneurs are faced with challenges such as xenophobia and problems obtaining capital from banks, which increases the stressors on these entrepreneurs. The literature review is divided into two sections, namely: Small-, medium- and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) and immigrant entrepreneurship. Convenience sampling (which falls under non-probability sampling) was employed; resulting in sample of 93 respondents. The study used mixed methods, where data were collected by conducting semi-structured personal interviews and from self-administered questionnaires. The study was limited to the Cape Town central business district (CBD) and surrounding suburbs that host a high number of African foreign entrepreneurs, including Bellville, Mowbray, Woodstock, Salt River and Wynberg. The findings show that though xenophobia is not a frequent challenge to African foreign entrepreneurs in Cape Town, it is detrimental to their enterprises. Lack of knowledge of local languages also appears to be a problem, making it difficult for African foreign entrepreneurs to converse with local customers. These immigrant-owned micro-enterprises are also affected by sales fluctuations. Competition is a constraint as there are many businesses of the same nature servicing the same market. Obtaining start-up and growth funding is not easy, especially for micro-enterprises owned by African foreign entrepreneurs, as it is extremely difficult to obtain funding from banks and financial institutions. Hence, these entrepreneurs use their own capital or capital from family and friends. Obtaining a business location is also a challenge; it can take as long as 10 years or more to secure a good business premises. High rent and crime are also obstacles to the enterprises. The recommendations of the study are based on the research objectives aimed at answering the research questions. Recommendations are directed to government departments dealing with African immigrant entrepreneurs and immigrant entrepreneurs themselves.
Books on the topic "Migrant labor – South Africa – History"
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Pass controls and the urban African proletariat in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987.
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Leslie, Witz, ed. Hostels, homes, musem: Memorialising migrant labour pasts in Lwandle, South Africa. Claremont: UCT Press, 2014.
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Harries, Patrick. Work, culture, and identity: Migrant laborers in Mozambique and South Africa, c.1860-1910. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1993.
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Migrant labour in South Africa's mining economy: The struggle for the gold mines' labour supply, 1890-1920. Kingston [Ont.]: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1985.
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Institute, International African, ed. Songs of the women migrants: Performance and identity in South Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, 1999.
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Maloka, Eddy. Basotho and the mines: A social history of labour migrancy in Lesotho and South Africa, c. 1890-1940. Dakar, Senegal: Codesria, 2004.
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Fultz, Elaine. The Social protection of migrant workers in South Africa. [Geneva, Switzerland]: International Labour Organization, 1998.
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Whiteside, Alan. Past trends and future prospects for labour migration to South Africa. Braamfontein, South Africa: South African Institute of International Affairs, 1985.
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Crush, J. S. South Africa's labor empire: A history of Black migrancy to the gold mines. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.
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Gabriele, Winai-Ström, ed. Migration and development: Dependence on South Africa : a study of Lesotho. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1986.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Migrant labor – South Africa – History"
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Freund, William. "Organized Labor in the Republic of South Africa: History and Democratic Transition." In Trade Unions and the Coming of Democracy in Africa, 199–227. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230610033_7.
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"Migrant Labour in the Industrial Transformation of South Africa, 1920–1960." In Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa, 123–62. Routledge, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315035987-13.
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Jochelson, Karen, Monyaola Mothibeli, and Jean-Patrick Leger. "Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Migrant Labor in South Africa." In AIDS: The Politics of Survival, 141–58. Routledge, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315232638-12.
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John, L., and Jean Comaroff. "The Madman and the Migrant: Work and Labor in the Historical Consciousness of a South African People." In The Colonial Epoch in Africa, 155–73. Routledge, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781351058551-10.
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Zhan, Shaohua, and Ben Scully. "From South Africa to China: land, migrant labor and the semi-proletarian thesis revisited." In Agrarian Marxism, 166–86. Routledge, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429197444-8.
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Ngai, Mae M. "The Chinese Question." In Global History of Gold Rushes, 109–36. University of California Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520294547.003.0005.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter, by Mae M. Ngai, locates the origins of the Chinese Question as a global racial discourse in the gold rushes of the nineteenth century and the broader context of the globalization of trade, credit, labor, and the rise of Anglo-American power. The gold rushes launched into motion hundreds of thousands of people from the British Isles, continental Europe, the Americas, Australasia, and China. Notably, they were the first occasions of large-scale contact between Westerners (Europeans and Americans) and Chinese. The chapter traces the development of anti-Chinese politics as it arose in the United States, Australia, and South Africa from conditions that were specific to gold rushes and gold mining in these regions, as well as how politics borrowed from each other and evolved into a global political discourse.
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Williams, Heather Andrea. "1. The Atlantic slave trade." In American Slavery: A Very Short Introduction, 1–16. Oxford University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199922680.003.0001.
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Slavery had long existed in Europe and Africa, but the history of the Atlantic slave trade begins in the 1440s with Portuguese exploration of West Africa. ‘The Atlantic slave trade’ charts the increased demand for slave labor in Portugal and the Christian justification of African enslavement. In the 1490s, the journeys of Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean and North and South America opened up mineral-rich and fertile lands on which European countries planted their flags and the Christian cross. More than 12 million Africans boarded the ships, but nearly 2 million died during the Middle Passage. Of those who survived, only about 5 percent went to North America, with most going to South America and the Caribbean.
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Andrews, Robyn. "‘Did You Know Your Great-Grandmother Was an Indian Princess?’." In Indians and the Antipodes, 210–32. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199483624.003.0008.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter is based on oral history and brings valuable new perspectives to the social world of the Anglo-Indian migrant community—an ethnically and culturally hybrid Indian minority of colonial origin, whose members are primarily Westernised, English-speaking, and Christian. Anglo-Indians have migrated from India in large numbers, mainly to English-speaking Commonwealth countries, including Australia and New Zealand. While most migrated after India’s independence in 1947, a number arrived in Australia and New Zealand much earlier. This chapter explores early Anglo-Indian migration to New Zealand, focusing on the experiences of Mrs Frederica Hay, née Coventry, who migrated from Calcutta via South Africa to Dunedin in 1869 and the importance of this transnational link to some of her descendants.
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Blumi, Isa. "Wrong from the Start." In Destroying Yemen. University of California Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520296138.003.0005.
Full textAbstract:
The migratory, labor, cultural and administrative history of the both North and South Yemen has been neglected. By exploring through Cold War era documents just how invested various internal actors were in transforming Southern Arabia’s relations with the larger world it is possible to add another angle of interpretation to the larger book’s project. It is argued that by leveraging competing external interests, a new set of operatives within Yemen’s political classes emerge. Looking closely at the manner in which the British global empire provided an interactive context for Yemenis, it is possible to highlight the global threads linking indigenous politics with the larger world. Be they Marxist inspired guerrillas whose use of violence help expel Britain from South Yemen in the late 1960s, the early advocates for a retrenchment of Salafist orthodoxy (with deep links to Saudi Arabia), or those merchant families long servicing the trade networks linking Southeast Asia, East Africa with the Middle East, Yemen’s new generation of political actor receives close inspection throughout this chapter.
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Fox, Michael H. "Where Our Energy Comes From." In Why We Need Nuclear Power. Oxford University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199344574.003.0007.
Full textAbstract:
Energy and human history go hand in hand. For most of the time that humans have been on earth, energy was used at a very low level, mostly by burning wood for cooking and warmth. This is still the case for large areas of the planet, especially in much of Africa and parts of Asia and South America. As human populations grew, forests were decimated to obtain fuel, resulting in the collapse of several societies (1). Coal was discovered in England in the thirteenth century and began to be used extensively beginning in the 1500s. Between 1570 and 1603, during the reign of Elizabeth I, coal became the main source of fuel for England (2). This was, not coincidentally, also during the time of the Little Ice Age, when there was a great need for fuel to keep warm. Coal transformed England, for better and for worse. The development of the coal-based steam engine by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, with further critical developments by James Watt and Matthew Boulton, led to the Industrial Revolution beginning in about 1780. Coal built England into the world’s most powerful country during the nineteenth century. At the same time, it brought about unbelievable pollution, which drastically shortened lives, and it led to child slave labor in factories and mines. Coal had been discovered even earlier in China and was being used for iron production in the eleventh century (2). Coal was discovered in Appalachia in the United States in the mid-eighteenth century and quickly became its most abundant source of energy. This led to the industrial development of the United States, the building of canals to transport coal, and the construction of railroads to connect the far reaches of the country. Wherever large sources of coal were found, societies were transformed. Coal was fine for running steam engines and cooking or keeping warm, but what people wanted desperately was a better source of light for their homes and businesses.