Placing African labour in global capitalism: the politics of irregular work

Abstract

SUMMARY: This contribution to ROAPE’s ongoing debate on ‘Capitalism in Africa’ highlights the politically contested relationships between irregular forms of work predominant in sub-Saharan Africa and global capitalism. Previous contributions to this debate have rightly pointed out that abstracted understandings of ‘capitalism’ assuming the ever-wider spread of proletarian labour are problematic in African contexts dominated by irregular forms of work. This piece argues, however, that this should be a prompt for us to consider how African labour relations require us to alter our understandings of ‘capitalism’, rather than debating whether or not African political economies are capitalist.