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Searching for the Informal Labor Movement: Theorizing Class and Collective Action among Informal Workers in West Africa

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  • Joshua Lew McDermott

Abstract

Amid renewed debates and theorizing about informality and the role of informal workers in Africa and across the globe, there remains little in the way of class-based understandings of Africa's informal workers and of informal worker politics. Marxists, especially Analytical Marxists, have been slow to study and consider the role and potential role of informal workers in geopolitics and class struggle across the Global South, and Africa, in particular. Drawing on ethnographic field work and interviews conducted in Sierra Leone, and broader informal worker-led struggles and events across Africa and the Global South, this work argues for a renewed understanding of collective action and class formation among informal workers. JEL Classification: J0, J2, J6

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Lew McDermott, 2023. "Searching for the Informal Labor Movement: Theorizing Class and Collective Action among Informal Workers in West Africa," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 333-352, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:55:y:2023:i:2:p:333-352
    DOI: 10.1177/04866134221134548
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua Lew McDermott, 2021. "Understanding West Africa’s informal workers as working class," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(170), pages 609-629, October.
    2. Nick Bernards, 2019. "Placing African labour in global capitalism: the politics of irregular work," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(160), pages 294-303, April.
    3. Ndongo Samba SYLLA, 2013. "Measuring labour absorption problems in developing countries: Limitations of the concept of unemployment," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 152(1), pages 27-41, March.
    4. Harvey, David, 2005. "The New Imperialism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199278084.
    5. Guillermo E. Perry & William F. Maloney & Omar S. Arias & Pablo Fajnzylber & Andrew D. Mason & Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi, 2007. "Informality : Exit and Exclusion," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6730.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    informal labor; labor and workers; reserve army of labor; class analysis; international political economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

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