SWOP Research Associate, Bridget Kenny (Department of Sociology, Wits University) will present an inaugural lecture on Thursday, 28 November 2024.
Glitching the system: Conjunctures of work and labour in South Africa
Work and labour continue to provoke fi erce debate in South Africa where unemployment and inequality have increased exponentially since 1994. In this context, we argue over job creation, the basic income grant and entrepreneurialism as mechanisms for livelihood and survival. Yet the longer history of changes to the labour market, labour processes and working-class contestation offers insights into wider political conjunctures, their contradictions, ruptures and resettlements. Drawing on her archival and ethnographic research across decades, Professor Kenny’s lecture will examine three moments in the transformation of work and labour in South Africa – the 1950s to the 1970s, the democratic transition and today – to argue for how labour ‘glitches’ the system, interrupts a transition and
poses the question of repair.
