‘No Condition IS Permanent': Informal Transport Workers and Labour Precarity in Africa's Largest City

Abstract

This article pieces together an understanding of everyday life grounded in the social imagination and everyday experiences of informal transport workers (ITWs) in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital and Africa's largest city. The article has two core objectives: to elevate the everyday practices of ITWs to the status of a critical concept in order to advance a sociology of everyday life, and to ground these practices on the precarious rhythm of everyday life as lived by people with the experience of radical uncertainty. By using crisis as a context of action and meaning, the article shows how uncertainty serves as a social resource that ITWs leverage to negotiate the precarious nature of everyday life and to make the most of their time. This foregrounding of uncertainty enhances our hitherto tenuous grasp of labour precarity, informal agency and the everyday struggle for survival in Africa's informal transport sector.

Uncertainty and the Governance of Street Vending: A Critical Comparison Across the North/South Divide

“…Recent research finds that state projects can ‘govern through uncertainty’ using biopolitical logics of risk to manage urban development (Zeiderman et al , : 283) . Yet, urban workers can still sometimes leverage uncertainty as a ‘social resource’ (Agbiboa, : 936) . Our focus is somewhat different, focusing on the uncertainties produced by everyday enforcement politics.…”

Placing Transport Workers on the Agenda: The Conflicting Logics of Governing Mobility on Bishkek's Marshrutkas

“…; Parsons and Lawreniuk ) in global South cities, or looking at subaltern mobilities using the example of dollar cabs in the Western context (Best ). Such research has brought a range of important topics onto the research agenda, including questions about the agency of precarious transport workers (Agbiboa ) and the ways neoliberal policy projects can affect workers’ incentives to mobilise collectively (Paget‐Seekins ), importantly illustrating the significant political mobilisation power of mobility operators (Sopranzetti ). This article builds on and contributes to this still peripheral but important critical subsection of urban transport and mobilities research.…”

“…These studies identify a number of tendencies that affect informal transport workers. Much like informally employed and self‐employed workers in other sectors (Carr and Chen ; Routh ), informal transport workers are precarious (Agbiboa ), work long hours and operate at low margins of profitability. They are excluded from labour or social protection, lack representation, are rarely unionised, experience harassment and fall victim to corruption and extortion practices, while their health and safety is at risk (Spooner ).…”

“…; Parsons and Lawreniuk ) and North (Best ). These publications articulate the consequences of neoliberal transport politics (Paget‐Seekins ) and transport worker's precarity, but also their subversive agency (Agbiboa ), and capacity for political mobilisation (Sopranzetti ).…”

The Popular Niche Economy of a Ghanaian Bus Station: Departure from Informality

“…The notion of economic informality looms large in contemporary descriptions and analyses of Africa's public road transport sector (Agbiboa 2016;Cervero 2000;Khayesi, Nafukho, and Kemua 2015;Mutongi 2017; Oteng-Ababio and Agyemang 2015; Rasmussen 2012). On the face of it, this close association between Africa's transport services and informality is neither far-fetched nor particularly surprising.…”