Resilient Labour: Workplace Regimes, Globalisation and Enclave Development in Swaziland

Abstract

Are new forms of foreign investment in Africa having a major impact on local workers? Are they significantly altering labour practices and conditions? I explore these questions with reference to Swaziland and the ethnography of labour relations in a Christian company town. A comparative perspective looking at the South African regional economy shows that the legacy of apartheid enclave development casts a shadow over workers’ futures. Economic dualism, characterised by cheap labour drawn from an ever expanding informal sector and reinforced by social, political and institutional factors, tends to neutralise the possibility of inclusive economic growth driven by foreign capital.

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without generous support from the Economic and Social Research Council, award no. PTA-031-2005-00040. An earlier version of this article was presented on 29 June 2013 at the Fifth European Conference on African Studies in a panel on labour and globalisation in Africa. I am grateful to the panel convenors Laura Mann and Mark Graham for providing such an opportunity, and the panel speakers for offering useful feedback. I would also like to thank Harri Englund, Keith Hart, Kate Meagher, Patience Mususa and Max Bolt for their invaluable input. The data I have used in this article will be made available on request to bona fide researchers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The industry is likely to experience further decline as the US government decided to exclude Swaziland from AGOA effective from January 2015, after pressure from unions and pro-democracy groups focusing the attention on the poor workers’ and human rights record of the country.

2. These data were extracted from a query to the World DataBank Poverty and Inequality database and refers to the year 2010. Retrieved 10 October 2013 from http://databank.worldbank.org/data/views/variableSelection/selectvariables.aspx?source=poverty-and-inequality-database

3. All real names of places, people and organisations in this section (pp. 5–9) have been anonymised to protect research participants.

4. This was part of 23 months of doctoral field research carried out in Swaziland from 2007 to 2008. I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) for providing full funding for this project. I carried out several brief follow up visits in Enkopolwani after that, and have remained in touch with key collaborators and research participants there.

5. Labour brokers are a common feature of the private sector in Swaziland and South Africa. Companies use them so that they are not legally responsible for any dispute with their employees.

6. In August 2008, 35 emalangeni (Swazi currency) would have been roughly equivalent to US$4.55 per day.