McDermott, Joshua Lew
(2021)
Understanding West Africa's Informal Workers as Working Class.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Informal workers in Africa are very often portrayed as primarily self-employed entrepreneurs, subsistence peasants, and unemployed individuals largely excluded from capitalism, and thus insulated from class analysis and class dynamics. Drawing on a case study of informal workers in Sierra Leone, the article challenges this dominant understanding, arguing that informal workers experience the reality of class relations and that their material lives are shaped by, and help to shape, broader dynamics of capital accumulation. The research applies a holistic class analysis rooted in Marxist and feminist thought, arguing for an understanding of informal workers, including even small-scale self-employed individuals, as workers exploited by, and opposed to the interests of, capital. In so doing, it challenges the simple understandings of working class as existing only and exclusively through formalized wage work, in favor of a more complex and inductive understanding of the reality of global capitalism, highlighting the relevance of class, value and exploitation to the lived reality of informal workers in Africa.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
18 December 2021 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
6 December 2021 |
| Approval Date: |
13 September 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
6 December 2021 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
159 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Sociology |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
informal work, West Africa, Sierra Leone, ethnography, informality, working class, class formation, capitalism, Marxism, labor |
| Date Deposited: |
13 Sep 2024 18:56 |
| Last Modified: |
13 Sep 2024 19:07 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/41993 |
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