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

Abstract

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.

The work of class: Cash transfers and community development in Tanzania

“…Similarly, South Africans across all income groups are suspicious of an expanded welfare system. This includes the young unemployed, whose expectations of distributive claims are nevertheless framed in terms of working (Dawson and Fouksman 2020, 239–44; Ferguson 2013; Fouksman 2020, 299). The prevalence of such views, across the region, alongside serious reservations about longer‐term fiscal viability, account for hesitancy of governments toward extending cash‐based social assistance for working‐age adults.…”

“…PSSN is organized through time‐consuming bureaucratic activities and making visible certain kinds and qualities of work (Strauss 1985, 3). This centers on performance of self‐transformation by showing one's disposition to work and rejection of laziness that would indicate a “handout mentality.” Ideas about laziness as antithetical to development are equated with resistance to self‐reliance, as they are across the region (e.g., Dawson and Fouksman 2020; Lavers 2019; Seekings 2017).…”

“…Program logics creatively combine Tanzanian values around community responsibility for development with the bank's conceptualization of social assistance as productive investment using established architectures of community development. This centers on a representational distinction between the developmental disposition of hardworking middle‐class people and the moral frailty of the poor, whose proclivities toward handouts and reliance on others mean they require mobilization (Dawson and Fouksman 2020; Seekings 2017). Implementation involves an intricate orchestration of prescriptive ideals about labor, entitlement, and value organized around labor‐intensive bureaucratic procedures, public works, and community sensitization sessions that accompany cash payouts.…”

(Re)formulating the Social Question in Post-apartheid South Africa: Zola Skweyiya, Dignity, Development and the Welfare State

“…At the same time, there was widespread scepticism about social grants for unemployed adults and outright condemnation of grant recipients who "misspent" their grants (e.g. on alcohol) (Seekings 2007;Dawson and Fouksman 2020).…”

The Politics of Cash Transfers in Kenya

“…It is important to understand how beliefs about causes of poverty and deservingness interact with support for public spending on cash transfers in contexts like Kenya. For instance, Dawson and Fouksman (2020) document the discourse on lazy welfare grant recipients and deservingness in South Africa. Similarly, in the United States, racialized beliefs about the causes of poverty and deservingness are correlated with opposition to welfare spending (Hussey and Pearson-Merkowitz, 2011).…”