Rethinking Labour in Africa, Past and Present by Lynn Schler & Louise Bethlehem & Galia Sabar

Author:Lynn Schler & Louise Bethlehem & Galia Sabar [Schler, Lynn & Bethlehem, Louise & Sabar, Galia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Globalization, Social Science, Sociology, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780415853354
Google: TyhTlgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 17270257
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2010-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

On the anthopology of work in Africa

The historiography of migration and labour in Africa has been dominated for several decades by the South African paradigm of the ‘Kraal-to-compound’ model, itself influenced by a materialist interpretation of modes of production (Thaddeus 1996). In Francophone West Africa, research has focused particularly on zones such as Senegal and Côte-d’Ivoire; both areas were marked, during the colonial period, by the immigration of Malians and Burkinabé drawn by the cocoa, coffee, and peanut crops (Amin 1974, Lakroum 1982). Claude Meillassoux has analysed the migration between African villages and homes in Paris as the consequence of the over-exploitation which victimised the countries of the Third World after the end of the Second World War (Meillassoux 1991).

While numerous, anthropological studies have not gone beyond the description and documentation of models and trends in labour migration and its economics and social effects (Gupta and Ferguson 1997). All these studies have neglected the specifically cultural questions which lie at the heart of the discourse of the migrant workers on work and its value.

Beyond the discourse of researchers, centres on urban – rural relationships or those of wages and work, the migrant workers have developed their own perceptions and definitions of work in the colonial era, of its value and its ethos. It is only recently that historians and anthropologists have begun to explore the mindset, the culture, and the identity of migrant workers (Atkins 1993, Moodie and Ndatshe 1994). Patrick Harris has contributed to this anthropological perspective through his description of the role of evangelical pastors in the adoption by African migrants of the values and norms of industrial labour in South Africa (Harries 1994).

A few years ago, Gerd Spittler, who established the school of labour anthropology at Bayreuth University in Germany, was wondering about the state of social science research on labour in Africa.10 The conclusion of his analysis is devastating:

Si nous essayons, en guise de conclusion, de résumer les résultats de la recherche ethnologique du travail sur l’Afrique, nous retiendrons tout d’abord que le sujet a été peu traité. À l’époque coloniale, l’ethnologie des sociétés africaines a connu sa gloire mais le sujet de travail a été quasiment absent … À chaque fois que l’on a abordé le sujet du travail, c’était toujours pour parler de sa division. (Spittler 2003)

If we attempt, as some sort of conclusion, to sum up the results of ethnographic research on labour in Africa, the first observation is that the subject has received little attention. During the colonial period, the ethnology of African societies was in its heyday, but the subject of labour was almost entirely neglected … Whenever the subject of labour was raised, it was only to discuss how it was divided.

He does, however, point to one essay, ‘Le travail en Afrique Noire’ (Work in Black Africa), published in 1952 in the magazine, Présence Africaine, as one which tried to answer anthropological questions on labour.11 The authors of this essay did in fact try to answer Pierre Naville’s question: what

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