Ruth First: political journalist,researcher and teacher

This article begins with Ruth's teaching at Durham and Dar es Salaam and teaching and research at the Centro de Estudos Africanos in Maputo. It discusses Ruth's research on how white farmers and mining houses in South Africa addressed their common problem of finding labour that was ‘abundant and … cheap’. She wrote about migrant workers to the South African mines from the South African end in ‘The gold of migrant labour’ and from the Mozambican end in Black Gold: the Mozambican miner. The address examines her analysis of the ‘power elite’ in Barrel of a Gun. It concludes with the threat that new legislation makes to investigative journalism in South Africa.     

Hybrid regimes and the challenges of deepening and sustaining democracy in developing countries1

South Africa's history of political domination during apartheid and the tendency of its companies to dominate business development on the continent may undermine the country's aim of being an African powerhouse due to resentment in other African countries. The article argues that South Africa's global ambitions can only be achieved if it is a leader on its own continent.     

ALIENS AND AIDS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA: THE MALAWI-SOUTH AFRICA DEBATE

Between 1988 and 1992, about 13,000 Malawian mine migrant workerswere repatriated from South Africa. The official reason givenwas that in the previous two years some 200 of them had testedHIV/AIDS positive. The South African Chamber of Mines requestedthe Malawi government to screen all the prospective migrantworkers from the country for HIV/AIDS before leaving for employmentin South Africa. The Malawi government refused, and the Chamberstopped recruiting labour from the country following a governmentban on the employment of foreigners with HIV/AIDS. Strong armtactics were employed in the repatriation of the Malawian workers,causing heated debates between the Chamber and the Malawi government,and the latter and its repatriated citizens. Within South Africaitself, opinion was divided. The Chamber wanted to keep itsMalawian workers for their skills, work discipline and lackof militancy. Some white conservative elements in the governmentdemanded the repatriation. They based their arguments on issuesof public health, emphasizing the risks the foreign workersposed to the local-especially the urban communities. A criticalanalysis of the issues involved, and the way the Malawians wererepatriated, suggests that HIV/AIDS was used as a smoke screen.The South African mining industry was going through a periodof crisis which necessitated massive retrenchment of workers,and especially foreigners. Desultory migrants were being replacedby career miners as part of the labour stabilization process.There was also a shift towards the recruitment of local workers.Malawi was no longer an important source of labour for the industry.     

Privatisation and labour militancy: The case of Cameroon's tea estates

Privatisation has become a cornerstone of the neo-liberal reforms imposed by western donors and creditors upon African states. This study of the privatisation of the tea estates in Anglophone Cameroon seems to largely confirm widespread evidence that both African governments and civil-society organisations have for various reasons been inclined to oppose externally imposed privatisation schemes. However, it shows that the most militant opposition has come from the Tole Tea Estate's predominantly female labour force whose already precarious living and working conditions have been further deteriorated by a secretive and corrupt privatisation scheme. In the absence of any public support from the regional civil-society organisations, the militant actions of the estate workers were bound to remain local expressions of anger.     

Globalization, marginalization and contemporary social movements in South Africa

The objective of this article is to provide a broad frameworkfor situating social movements in post-apartheid South Africa.The discussion begins with a brief review of approaches to thestudy of social movements and then turns to the challenges presentedby globalization. South African democratization coincided withits increasing economic, social and political engagement withthe rest of the world. One of the key effects of this has beenmassive job losses and resultant increases in poverty and inequality.Finally, the article reviews key features of movements in postapartheidSouth Africa. Overwhelmingly, these movements are driven byworsening poverty, with struggles addressing both labour issuesand consumption issues. In addition, some movements confrontquestions of social exclusion in terms of gender, sexualityand citizenship which sit at the intersection of recognitionand redistribution. Given the failure of the post-apartheidparty political system to generate opposition to the left ofthe African National Congress (ANC), social movements providea vital counterbalance to promote the needs of the poor in politicalagendas.     

“The Politics of Political Advertising” in Australia and Britain, 1970–1989

The role of advertising in the production of political campaigns deserves more consideration than it has previously received. My study examines advertising agencies associated with election campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s, investigating their decisions to accept or reject political accounts. Focusing on Britain and Australia, and using a range of primary sources including the industry press, interviews and memoirs, I demonstrate that an agency's decision to accept a political account is always complex, contested and highly contingent. Accepting a political account may alienate clients and agency staff who support another party. Campaigns are labour‐intensive and may detract from an agency's core business. Involvement in a losing campaign can damage an agency's reputation, just as association with a successful one may attract clients. Agencies are often unsure how to approach political advertising where traditional techniques may not be suitable. Such concerns about accepting a political account will likely be put aside where an agency principal has close personal ties to a party or leader.     

Kenya's foreign policy in context (1963–2015)

Kenya matters regionally and globally. It is the economic powerhouse of East Africa and a long-standing hub for multilateral diplomacy; its positioning in a turbulent region has fashioned its profile as an anchor state in African peace and security. Until recently, Kenya's foreign policy orientation has situated it as a benign regional leader, but pressing developments in the regional and international environments have edged it towards a more assertive foreign policy position. This study constitutes a multilevel review of Kenya's foreign policy in the period 1963–2015, beginning with Jomo Kenyatta through to the current president, Uhuru Kenyatta. After evaluating contexts pertinent to the analysis of Kenya’s foreign policy, the fundamental principles, objectives and pillars of the current foreign policy are unpacked.     

The “Eloquence” of Robert J. Hawke: United States informer, 1973–79

In the 1970s, the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and future Prime Minister of Australia, Robert J. “Bob” Hawke, was an informer of the United States of America. Using diplomatic cables from official archives, this article shows that Hawke gifted information about the Australian government, the Australian Labor Party and the labour movement, assisting the intelligence gathering efforts of the foreign power. In turn, the relationship influenced the development of Australian policy, including the abandonment of Keynesian economics and embrace of neoliberalism. His discreet relationship — discussed in detail for the first time — was not unusual among elites in the post-war period. However, Hawke was especially entrenched in the practise. This article will also show, through historiography and memoir, that the act of informing by elites began in the 1940s, as the United States was becoming Australia’s key strategic ally.     

Norm dynamics and international organisations: South Africa in the African Union and International Criminal Court

Over the past two decades, South Africa has sought to perform several roles on the world stage, such as the economic dynamo of Southern Africa, a diplomatic heavyweight representing the African continent, and a norm leader on the world stage as a so-called ‘middle-power’. Although South Africa's evolution and rise as an important player in global affairs has generated a welcome body of critical scholarly literature, comparatively little analysis has been allocated to understanding how norm dynamics and the country's ever-evolving international identities have enabled it to construct and reconstruct its ‘interests’. Social constructivism is best suited for such an analysis because it can operationalise norms, commitments, identities, and interests, and it provides the epistemological tools to map the increasingly multilateral connections between global, regional, and domestic forums. By employing a rationalist approach to constructivism, this paper remedies the aforementioned gap in the literature by illustrating how South Africa constructs and reconstructs its identities and interests in relation to membership in international organisations (IOs). To that end, the paper examines the evolution of South Africa's participation in the African Union (especially ‘peacekeeping’ contributions) and the International Criminal Court. The paper concludes by assessing the theoretical implications and practical ramifications of the norm dynamics involved in South Africa's commitment to these two IOs.     

The regional politics of scale: revisiting the functional aspects of the labour market dualism

This article seeks to revisit Arthur Lewis’s theory of labour market dualism, while focusing on human resource development in the form of labour productivity, to explain its usefulness in the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) contemporary policy discourses around non-economic integration in an era that is now classified as the Caribbean Educational Policy Space. The focus is on how key assumptions around labour productivity, and the lessons that can be deduced from analysing historical and contemporary policy initiatives, present plausible applicability to an expanding Caribbean single market and the proposed creation of the Caribbean single economy. In focusing on the discursive elements of labour productivity, it is contextualized that the free movement of skilled labour within CARICOM illustrates labour market dualism.     

Two perspectives on Zimbabwe's National Democratic Revolution: Thabo Mbeki and Wilfred Mhanda

The concept of the ‘National Democratic Revolution’ (NDR) is often used by left-leaning scholars and political actors in attempts to explain or justify the lack of socialism in third-world societies governed by rulers who consider themselves ‘scientific socialists’. It has been invoked in analyses of Zimbabwe by both the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, in 2001 as he was embarking on his ‘quiet diplomacy’, and Wilfred Mhanda, a Zimbabwean guerrilla leader imprisoned by the Mozambican government in the late-1970s for posing problems to the leadership aspirations of Robert Mugabe, who later became president of the country posing problems for Thabo Mbeki among others. Analysis of both these political intellectuals’ writing sheds light on the concept of the NDR (evoked often in contemporary South African politics and Zimbabwean discourse about the current crisis) as well as the theoretical and practical aspects of the authors’ careers.     

The Anglophone Cameroon-Nigeria boundary: Opportunities and conflicts

Recent studies of African boundaries have tended to focus eitheron the growing number of border disputes between states or onfrontier regions that are said to offer local inhabitants awide range of economic opportunities. This article attemptsto combine both approaches and to demonstrate the ambiguousnature of the Anglophone Cameroon-Nigeria border. On the onehand, the border has been subject to regular skirmishes betweenCameroon and Nigeria, culminating in a protracted war over thesovereignty of the Bakassi peninsula — an area rich inoil reserves. On the other hand, it has for historical and economicreasons never constituted a real barrier to cross-border movementsof labour and goods. The large Nigerian migrant community inAnglophone Cameroon, in particular, has been able to benefitfrom formal and informal cross-border trade for a long time.Unsurprisingly, its dominant position in the host community'scommercial sector has been a continuous source of conflict.     

Democracy,African intellectuals and African Renaissance

Abstract

This article argues that democracy is a prerequisite for the African Renaissance. The role of African intellectuals is crucial in making the dream of the African Renaissance come true. This article revisits the discourse on the African Renaissance, its history and content before dealing with the issue of democracy. Democracy is closely related to human rights and development and is a sine qua non for the African Renaissance. The current discourse on the African Renaissance is not new. The first international conference on the African Renaissance was held in Dakar, Senegal, from 26 February to 2 March 1996 where African intellectuals gathered to celebrate the works of Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, ten years after his death. The theme of the conference was ‘African Renaissance in the Third Millennium’. The first African Renaissance Conference in South Africa took place from 28 to 29 September 1998. Thabo Mbeki ‐ then, Deputy Pesident of South Africa ‐ read the keynote address on ‘Giving the Renaissance content: Objectives and definitions’. This article complements efforts at redefining the roles of African intellectuals in fostering democracy through a conscious application of the framework of African Renaissance.     

Keeping labour mobility informal: the lack of legality of Central Asian migrants in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan's legal–regulatory framework provides for a small number of quotas for highly skilled foreign workers but has no provisions for legal employment of semi-skilled or low-skilled migrants from the Central Asian states, who enter under the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) visa-free regime and work informally in construction, household and service sectors. The lack of acknowledgement of the scale of informal labour migration has denoted an act of strategic neglect on the part of the state, allowing it to render migrant labour illegal, disposable, and keep migrants legally and statistically invisible. Unable to obtain a legal status, migrants nominally comply with the existing legal framework as they also circumvent and subvert it. The article details the entrenched informal regime of labour migration and explains why recent efforts to ‘legalize’ labour through the introduction of a labour patent (licence), as is the case in Russia, are unlikely to bring in significant reforms.     

The Reconstructing of Industrial Relations in Taiwan’s High Technology Industries

Scholars have shown interest in labour capacity when discussing labour movements in Taiwan’s industrial relations since the nation’s democratic transition from 1987. Interestingly, the upturn in workers’ struggles skipped the Hsinchu Science Industrial Park, which concentrated its business on the non-unionised, high-technology sector. Existing studies have not sufficiently explained how the Hsinchu Science Industrial Park escaped the series of labour conflicts after 1987. Rather than focusing on labour capacity, this article employs an alternative perspective – the role of employers and management strategies – to examine how employers brought together segments of capital and labour through a diversity of human resource management strategies. These management strategies have two aspects. First, high-tech industrial managers took advantage of “Taiwan-style” employee profit sharing and stock ownership to strengthen firms’ top tier of strategic decision-making with the support of national institutions. Second, while human resource management strategies will often differ from country to country, Taiwan’s management strategies draw from the experiences of Silicon Valley. Rather than fragmenting workers into teams and ethnic networks as in Silicon Valley, Taiwan’s managers established individual labour and management relations to avoid collective labour conflict.     

African being and cultural project

This article examines aspects of African culture seen as projects from an existentialist perspective and seeks to make a robust contribution to African studies and in particular interdisciplinary African studies. It offers a focus on the interiorisation of African cultural project-as-text as an upsurge of being; interiorisation(s) of being projects of African being and consciousness. This study on African subjectivity situates the African cultural constituency within a specific existentialist schematic: the African for itself in the form of cultural project-as-text, a reflective black consciousness, the black ‘I’ or African being-with-others in the form of cultural projects-as-texts, a self-reflective conscious of black consciousness, the black ‘we’-subject, ‘us’, and lastly African being-for-ourselves Black existentialist philosophy is predicated on the liberation of all black people from oppression.     

The Gender Deficit: Everyday Practices of Differentiation in the Chilean Labour Market

We focus on the reproduction of gender inequality in the labour market, analysing everyday practices of social boundary demarcation that exclude women from accessing resources at work. We argue that women's diminished position in the labour market – or gender deficit – is a result of taken‐for‐granted, day‐to‐day practices, conditioning the distribution of resources. Taking Chilean professional women as a case study, we focus on labour market practices that uphold gendered evaluation criteria, reproduce social classifications, and engender exclusion through social boundary work that limits women's access to labour market benefits and rewards.     

Precarity,Cognitive (Non-)Resistance and the Conservative Working Class in China

ABSTRACT

Workers’ resistance is crucial to understanding how the working class respond to the growing labour precarity in post-socialist China. The labour studies literature posits that inequality and volatile capital movements increase workers’ precarity and lead to stronger labour resistance, such as strikes. However, workers’ cognition as an integral part of resistance has been rarely studied. This article examines cognitive resistance by Chinese workers from different tier cities by looking at their social trust, class identity, understanding of policies and class solidarity. Despite capital movements and precarity causing more labour unrest, it does not necessarily lead to a stronger cognitive resistance. While inequality and precarity are greater in the more developed megacities with a shifting capital favourability, workers in megacities display a more conservative cognitive resistance than those from the lower-tier cities. This study of workers’ cognitive resistance provides insight into the future of the Chinese labour movement. It argues that the working class’s current cognitive non-resistance suggests that even if a window of opportunity were to appear in the wall of state oppression, workers are not cognitively prepared to coalesce into a coherent social movement that would bring about transformative changes.     

Development of Labour Organisation in Singapore, 1800-1960

This paper looks at the long-term development of labour relations in Singapore. Firstly, it suggests a periodisation for the history of the Singapore labour movement. Secondly, the paper examines the shifting nature of industrial relations and the ability or lack thereof for labour to organise. One consistent theme emerges, that is the question of identity and consciousness among labour. Unless workers were able to identify themselves as labour, as opposed to capitalists, it was difficult for them to maintain a sustained effort to press for their own interests. In the nineteenth century, labourers were organised under patriarchal groups based on surnames or lineages. In the twentieth century, unions were part of the political movements for independence. Within the tripartite framework of labour, business and government, labour almost always found itself subordinated by the partnership of the state and capital, or government and business.     

Organised Labour,Dualisation and Labour Market Reform: Korean Trade Union Strategies in Economic and Social Crisis

Labour markets across industrialised countries have seen an increasing polarisation between insiders and outsiders as a result of labour market deregulation and welfare retrenchment, with governments responding to rising pressure from employers. But where are trade unions in this process of labour market deregulation and dualisation? Insider/outsider as well as producer coalition approaches portray organised labour as a structurally conservative force that is ready to prioritise the interests of insiders at the expense of those at the margins of the labour market. Rather than protecting the entire working class, unions are seen as being “complicit” in labour market dualisation that leaves an ever greater number of workers vulnerable. Our examination of the Korean case, though commonly perceived as an example of unions pursuing particularistic interests, does not comply with this image, but shows greater union inclusiveness in the face of socio-economic and socio-political challenges. Understanding the change in Korean trade union strategies, we highlight the critical importance of union identities shifting towards social movement unionism, in addition to the perceived imperative to revitalise the movement in order to remain a meaningful social force.