Kate Meagher - Globalization, Economic Inclusion and African Workers

This book addresses the question of whether greater inclusion in the global economy offers a solution to rising unemployment and poverty in contemporary Africa. The authors trace the connection between global demographic change and new mechanisms of economic inclusion via global value chains, digital networks, labour migration and corporate engagement with the bottom of the pyramid, challenging the claim that African workers have become functionally irrelevant to the global economy. They expose the shift of global demand for African workers from formal to increasingly informalised labour arrangements, mediated by social enterprises, labour brokers, graduate entrepreneurs and grassroots associations. Focusing on global employment connections initiated from above and from below, the authors examine whether global labour linkages increase or reduce problems of vulnerable and unstable working conditions within African countries, and consider the economic and political conditions needed for African workers to capture the gains of inclusion in the global economy. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Development Studies.

Kate Meagher is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics, UK. She specialises in African informal economies and real governance, and has published widely on contemporary dilemmas of informality and economic inclusion, including Identity Economics: Social Networks and the Informal Economy in Nigeria.

Laura Mann is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics, UK. Her research and publications include work on political economy of development, African higher education and labour issues, and critical approaches to new information and communication technologies in Africa.

Maxim Bolt is a Reader in Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. His first book Zimbabwes Migrants and South Africas Border Farms explores wage labour in a place of transience and informal livelihoods.

Making the right connections

Edited by

Kate Meagher, Laura Mann and Maxim Bolt

First published 2017
by Routledge
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Introduction, 2017 Taylor & Francis
2016 Maxim Bolt

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ISBN 13: 978-1-138-21894-9

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The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen during the conversion of this book from journal articles to book chapters, namely the possible inclusion of journal terminology.

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Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.

The Journal of Development Studies is a Routledge journal published in collaboration with Global Development Institute (GDI), School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, UK.

The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016). When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:

Introduction: Global Economic Inclusion and African Workers
Kate Meagher, Laura Mann and Maxim Bolt
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 471482

The Scramble for Africans: Demography, Globalisation and Africas Informal Labour Markets
Kate Meagher
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 483497

Integration or Selective Incorporation? The Modes of Governance in Informal Trading Policy in the Inner City of Johannesburg
Antonio Pezzano
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 498513

Remaking Africas Informal Economies: Youth, Entrepreneurship and the Promise of Inclusion at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Catherine Dolan and Dinah Rajak
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 514529

The Domestic Turn: Business Process Outsourcing and the Growing Automation of Kenyan Organisations
Laura Mann and Mark Graham
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 530548

Do Transnational Links Matter after Return? Labour Market Participation among Ghanaian Return Migrants
Mary Boatemaa Setrana and Steve Tonah
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 549560

Accidental Neoliberalism and the Performance of Management: Hierarchies in Export
Agriculture on the Zimbabwean-South African Border
Maxim Bolt
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 561575

Resilient Labour: Workplace Regimes, Globalisation and Enclave Development in Swaziland
Vito Laterza
The Journal of Development Studies, volume 52, issue 4 (April 2016) pp. 576590

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KATE MEAGHER*, LAURA MANN* & MAXIM BOLT**

*Department of International Development, London School of Economics, London, UK, **Department of African Studies and Anthropology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

ABSTRACT This introductory article explores the transformative potential of global connections for African workers. It challenges recent claims that African workers have become functionally irrelevant to the global economy by examining the shift of global demand for African workers from formal to increasingly informalised labour arrangements, mediated by social enterprises, labour brokers and graduate entrepreneurs. Focusing on global employment connections initiated from above and from below, we consider why global labour linkages have tended to increase rather than reduce problems of vulnerable and unstable working conditions within African countries, and consider the economic and political conditions needed for African workers to capture the gains of inclusion in the global economy