Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Precarious Liberation: Workers, the State, and Contested Social Citizenship in Postapartheid South Africa

Precarious Liberation: Workers, the State, and Contested Social Citizenship in Postapartheid South Africa

Barchiesi, Franco

Hardcover

Series: Suny Global Modernity

General Racism & Ethnic StudiesGeneral Sociology

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1438436114
ISBN13: 9781438436111
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: Jun 1 2011
Pages: 356
Weight: 1.35
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.30 Depth: 9.10
Language: English

Examines the relationship of precarious employment to state policies on citizenship and social inclusion in the context of postapartheid South Africa.

Winner of the 2012 CLR James Award presented by the Working Class Studies Association

Millions of black South African workers struggled against apartheid to redeem employment and production from a history of abuse, insecurity, and racial despotism. Almost two decades later, however, the prospects of a dignified life of wage-earning work remain unattainable for most South Africans. Through extensive archival and ethnographic research, Franco Barchiesi documents and interrogates this important dilemma in the country's democratic transition: economic participation has gained centrality in the government's definition of virtuous citizenship, and yet for most workers, employment remains an elusive and insecure experience. In a context of market liberalization and persistent social and racial inequalities, as jobs in South Africa become increasingly flexible, fragmented, and unprotected, they depart from the promise of work with dignity and citizenship rights that once inspired opposition to apartheid. Barchiesi traces how the employment crisis and the responses of workers to it challenge the state's normative imagination of work, and raise decisive questions for the social foundations and prospects of South Africa's democratic experiment.

1 different editions

Also available

Also in

General Racism & Ethnic Studies

View All