Living, not just surviving: The politics of refusing low-wage jobs in urban South Africa

Viable geographies

“…Dawson, 2014; Korzenevica, 2016). For example, drawing on fieldwork with economically and politically marginalised young people in an informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg in 2010–2011, Dawson (2014) describes how socio-economic crises pushed young people into a constant negotiation over how to make individual futures possible in the city; viability in the sense of survival had become a daily concern (see also Ralph, 2008; Thieme, 2018; Dawson, 2022). As one young man told Dawson (2014: 872) ‘We [are] trying so hard to survive]’ (see also Dawson, 2022).…”

“…For example, drawing on fieldwork with economically and politically marginalised young people in an informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg in 2010–2011, Dawson (2014) describes how socio-economic crises pushed young people into a constant negotiation over how to make individual futures possible in the city; viability in the sense of survival had become a daily concern (see also Ralph, 2008; Thieme, 2018; Dawson, 2022). As one young man told Dawson (2014: 872) ‘We [are] trying so hard to survive]’ (see also Dawson, 2022). Animated in part by this concern with survival, young people in Dawson’s (2014) study channelled effort into acquiring short-term jobs, haggling over access to shelter, finding sources of illegal or quasi-legal income, cultivating key social relationships required to survive in the city, and ensuring a measure of protection against arbitrary state violence (Banks, 2016; Honwana, 2012; Kamete, 2010).…”

“…For example, LaDuke (2005) describes how First Nations young people in Canada have developed ties with older members of their community in trying to renew indigenous livelihoods in the face of dominant power (see also Laurie et al, 2005; Daigle, 2015, 2019). Dawson (2022: 1) similarly argues that young people seeking basic amenities in urban South Africa also prioritised developing a broad set of social relationships based on mutual respect, such that their action was concerned with ‘living, not just surviving’. Accounts of the social dimensions of new ecosystems of practice also stress the significance of non-human entities in these ecosystems (Butler, 2012; LaDuke, 2005) thereby commonly critiquing anthropocentric approaches (cf.…”

“…It is important to understand this 'thinking across' to appreciate the inventiveness of young people's action. Consideration of thinking across also helps to align scholarly analysis with how youth on the ground conceptualise their own practice, which is often in terms of the broad concepts of 'survival', 'living', or 'viability' itself (Dawson, 2014(Dawson, , 2022. In addition, analysis of thinking across can help to illuminate young people's potential to assist in policymaking; for example, young people may be particularly well-positioned to challenge silo-ed approaches to 'development' (see Kraftl et al, 2019).…”

Work, development, and refusal in urban Ethiopia

“…In this regard, it is revealing that Negri (1977) himself, the father of contemporary debates on the refusal of work, wrote extensively about the political potentialities of refusing work but rarely talked about refusers themselves. By telling the story of Tamrat, a once‐hardworking construction worker and labor union activist who gave up work because it was simply not worth it, this article seeks to fill this gap by contributing to a burgeoning ethnographic literature that documents and analyzes refusal (McGranahan 2016; Weiss 2016) and the refusal of work (Dawson 2022).…”