Labour, laziness and distribution: work imaginaries among the South African unemployed

A wealth of new writing has emerged around the future of labour, focusing on thinking beyond employment in imagining the futures of 'surplus populations' no longer needed by labour markets. These new imaginaries include radically expanded forms of redistribution, such as unconditional cash...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAfrica (London. 1928) Vol. 90; no. 2; pp. 229 - 251
Main Authors Dawson, H. J, Fouksman, E
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.02.2020
Subjects
Antipoverty programs
Basic income
Citizenship
Deservingness
Discourse analysis
Economic aspects
Economic conditions
Employment
Ethnographic research
Income distribution
Inequality
Labor economics
Labor market
Laziness
Money
Neoliberalism
Redistribution
Respondents
Social aspects
South Africa
Unemployed people
Unemployment
Wealth
Young men
South Africa
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Summary:A wealth of new writing has emerged around the future of labour, focusing on thinking beyond employment in imagining the futures of 'surplus populations' no longer needed by labour markets. These new imaginaries include radically expanded forms of redistribution, such as unconditional cash transfers or universal basic income. But what are the views of the 'surplus populations' themselves? This article uses ethnographic research in an informal settlement in South Africa to understand why the unemployed or precariously employed poor are themselves often reluctant to delink labour and income. In particular, we focus on the discursive use of 'laziness' by urban unemployed young men. The varied (and often contradictory) ways in which these men employ the laziness discourse sheds light on the logics linking waged work and money in our informants' social imaginaries. It illuminates the underlying contradictions and complexities of such logics, including those of gender, relational obligations, expectations of citizenship, and the inevitable tensions between aspirational hopes and economic realities. To begin thinking 'beyond the proper job', to use Ferguson and Li's phrase, we must unravel and understand such nuanced logics that continue to bind together hard work, deservingness and cash--even for those left out of labour markets.
ISSN:0001-9720
1750-0184
DOI:10.1017/S0001972019001037