Description:
Africa's Informal Workers is a vigorous examination of the informalization and casualization of work, which is changing livelihoods in Africa and beyond.
Gathering cases from nine countries and cities across sub-Saharan Africa, and from a range of sectors, this volume goes beyond the usual focus on household 'coping strategies' and individual agency, addressing the growing number of collective organizations through which informal workers make themselves visible and articulate their demands and interests. The emerging picture is that of a highly diverse landscape of organized actors, providing grounds for tension but also opportunities for alliance. The collection examines attempts at organizing across the formal-informal work spheres, and explores the novel trend of transnational organizing by informal workers. Part of the ground-breaking Africa Now series, Africa's Informal Workers is a timely exploration of deep, ongoing economic, political and social transformations.Brief description: Björn Beckmann is an ecologist at the Biological Records Centre (BRC) and has been coordinating the Grasshoppers and Related Insects Recording Scheme since 2009. He analysed the scheme's data for his PhD, and along with colleagues at BRC he created the iRecord Grasshoppers mobile app and the scheme website. Björn also organised the Royal Entomological Society's annual day of orthopteran research talks from 2013 to 2020.
Review Quotes:
"This collection, with its excellent editorial introduction, makes a groundbreaking contribution to understanding the ways in which informal workers are developing new forms of collective organisation for exercising voice and agency, illustrating both the scope for and constraints on their ability to exert political influence." --Carole Rakodi, The University of Birmingham
"This cutting-edge volume is indispensable reading for urbanists, activists and policy makers." --Edgar Pieterse, University of Cape Town "This collection brings together empirical studies from varied contexts, based primarily in Africa, many by African scholars, allowing a crucial opportunity for new perceptions and comparisons, and for identifying key dynamics to track into the future." --Jane I. Guyer, Johns Hopkins University