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Taking a unique comparative approach to the respective development paths of India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), this book shows that people and governments in all three countries are faced with similar challenges of heightened insecurity, caused by liberalization and structural adjustment. The ways in which governments, as well as individuals and worker organisations in IBSA have responded to these challenges are at the core of this book.
The book explores the nature of insecurity in the Global South; the nature of the responses to this insecurity on public and small-scale collective as well as individual level; the potential of these responses to be more than neo-liberal mechanisms to govern and contain the poor and lessons to be learnt from these three countries. The first section covers livelihood strategies in urban and rural areas as individual and small-scale collective response to the condition of insecurity. Insecurity in the countries of the South is characterised by a high degree of uncertainty of the availability of income opportunities. The second section looks at state responses to insecurity and contributions on social protection measures taken by the respective IBSA governments. The third section discusses whether alternative development paths can be identified. The aim is to move beyond 'denunciatory analysis.' Livelihood strategies as well as public policies in some of the cases allow for the building of new spaces for agency and contestation of a neo-liberal mainstream which provide emerging and experimental examples.
The book develops new thinking on Northern welfare states and their declining trade unions. It argues that these concepts, knowledge and policy innovations are now travelling in three directions, from North to South, from South to North, and between Southern countries. This book provides unique insights for researchers and postgraduate students in development studies, social policy and industrial sociology.
List of contents
1: Introduction: Work, Livelihoods and Insecurity in the 21st Century: A Conceptual Introduction, PART I Urban and Rural Livelihood Strategies 2. Introduction: Urban and Rural Livelihood Strategies 3. Precarious Workers, Different Voices: Johannesburg’s Inner City Workers 4. Labour and Migration Patterns: The Clothing Industry and Bolivian Migrants 5. Public Space and Livelihood Security in the Urban Economy: The Case of Street Vendors in Mumbai 6. Charcoal for Food: Livelihood Diversification in Two Peasant Communities in Mozambique 7. Conservancy work in Mumbai and Johannesburg: Retention at the Periphery 8. Organising the Unorganised: Mumbai’s Home Workers Lead the Way PART 2: State Responses to Insecurity 9. Introduction: State Responses to Insecurity 10. Strategies for Social Protection Provision: A Comparison of Brazil, India and South Africa 11. State Responses to Insecurity: Social Assistance and Care in South Africa 12. Practice and Priorities of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India: An Activist’s Perspective 13. Brazil’s Strategy against Poverty: The Bolsa Família and Brasil SEM Miséria PART 3 Alternative Development Paths 14. Introduction: Alternative Development Paths 15. The Solidarity Economy Alternative in South Africa: Theory and Practice 16. The Buen Vivir (good life) in Latin America: An Alternative Developmental Concept Challenging Extractivism in Ecuador 17. The Lula Moment: Constraints in the Current Peripheral Development Model 18. The ‘Green Economy’: A ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ or an Alternative Development Path for South Africa? 19. Envisioning Environmental Futures: Conversations around Socio-ecological Struggles and Industrialisation in Mundra, India 20. Conclusions: Building New Spaces: Responses to Insecurity in the Global South,
About the author
Dr. Khayaat Fakier is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Ellen Ehmke is a PhD candidate at the International Centre for Development and Decent Work (ICDD), University of Kassel, Germany.
Summary
Taking a unique comparative approach to the respective development paths of India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), this book shows that people and governments in all three countries are faced with similar challenges of heightened insecurity, caused by liberalization and structural adjustment. The ways in which governments, as well as individuals and worker organisations in IBSA have responded to these challenges are at the core of this book.
The book explores the nature of insecurity in the Global South; the nature of the responses to this insecurity on public and small-scale collective as well as individual level; the potential of these responses to be more than neo-liberal mechanisms to govern and contain the poor and lessons to be learnt from these three countries. The first section covers livelihood strategies in urban and rural areas as individual and small-scale collective response to the condition of insecurity. Insecurity in the countries of the South is characterised by a high degree of uncertainty of the availability of income opportunities. The second section looks at state responses to insecurity and contributions on social protection measures taken by the respective IBSA governments. The third section discusses whether alternative development paths can be identified. The aim is to move beyond ‘denunciatory analysis.’ Livelihood strategies as well as public policies in some of the cases allow for the building of new spaces for agency and contestation of a neo-liberal mainstream which provide emerging and experimental examples.
The book develops new thinking on Northern welfare states and their declining trade unions. It argues that these concepts, knowledge and policy innovations are now travelling in three directions, from North to South, from South to North, and between Southern countries. This book provides unique insights for researchers and postgraduate students in development studies, social policy and industrial sociology.
