The government of poverty and the arts of survival: mobile and recombinant strategies at the margins of the South African economy

Toit, Andries du; Neves, David

doi:10.1080/03066150.2014.894910

Cited by 46 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Perhaps more important, though, is the simple fact that the ANC is dependent on the continued political support of precisely the people who have been most directly affected by neoliberal reforms. As du Toit and Neves (: 841) note, in South Africa ‘the poor, while economically disenfranchised, are politically central: citizens with votes in a polity where the legitimate government depends on its claim to represent their needs and interests’.…”

Section: Truncated Commercialization In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The past 20 years, consequently, have also witnessed the emergence of a patchwork system of social transfers that is decidedly inadequate in significant ways. While it does not challenge the basic imperatives of neoliberalism, it does play a crucial role in the survival strategies of many poor households (Ferguson, ; Neves and du Toit, ; Scully, ; du Toit and Neves, ). AsgiSA and the NGP both included commitments to expanded social spending.…”

Section: Truncated Commercialization In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Truncated Commercialization of Microinsurance and the Limits of Neoliberalism

Bernards¹

2018

Development and Change

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Microinsurance — defined as low‐cost insurance products targeting low‐income populations — exemplifies key themes in contemporary neoliberalism, and has figured prominently in neoliberalism's turn to discourses such as ‘risk management’ and ‘financial inclusion’. The development of commercial markets for microinsurance, however, has in practice been highly variable and often very limited. This article considers the implications of this process of ‘truncated commercialization’. It draws on a Polanyian analytical framework that emphasizes the contradictory regulatory dynamics involved in the commodification of labour. The article applies this approach by tracing multiscalar efforts to promote microinsurance, examining the emergence of the concept in the efforts of the International Labour Organization to promote social security for informal workers in the 1980s and 1990s, looking at the adoption of explicitly commercializing imperatives in the work of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors in the 2000s, and, finally, considering a case study of South Africa. The truncated commercialization of microinsurance, it is argued, provides a useful lens through which to see the practical impossibility of neoliberal development strategies.

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Section: Truncated Commercialization In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Truncated Commercialization In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Truncated Commercialization of Microinsurance and the Limits of Neoliberalism

Bernards¹

2018

Development and Change

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“…In support of this position, other studies have observed that the countryside across Africa is home to labour which is less dependent on earnings from agriculture, but also not easily absorbed within the non‐farm economy. Even in countries with advanced agrarian transitions such as South Africa, rural peoples’ strategies for survival straddle rural and urban spaces, combining formal and informal sources of income, agricultural self‐provisioning and state‐sponsored social protection (Du Toit and Neves, ).…”

Section: Three Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sam Moyo: A Life of Prodigious Scholarship, Institution Building and Strategic Activism

Tsikata¹

2017

Development and Change

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The car accident that took Sam Moyo's life in Delhi on 22 November 2015 and injured his comrades Paris Yeros and Marcelo Rosa, cut short a scholar at the height of his powers. Working together with a group of like‐minded colleagues, Sam had finally built the foundations of a vibrant tri‐continental network that could hold his dreams: the Agrarian South Network. He was in Delhi at a conference on ‘Labour Questions in the Global South’, hosted by Praveen Jha, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, one of his two closest intellectual partners — the other, of course, being Yeros. The conference, like earlier gatherings in Sao Paulo and Brasilia, was an opportunity to coordinate meetings of the Network and its journal, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. As it turned out, a meeting of the journal's editorial board was Sam's last activity before the accident.

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“…Casualized farmwork may enable a greater number of people to engage with the agricultural economy, but the terms of that engagement are highly disadvantageous, and at best only offer a route to the margins of poverty rather than beyond it (Barrientos and Kritzinger ). Indeed, people may be better off remaining disengaged from the mainstream economy and following alternative courses to achieve household sustainability (Bowrig et al ; du Toit and Neves ). As du Toit (, 1) states, ‘[the] pro‐poor consensus has not produced a pro‐poor reality.…”

Section: Adverse Incorporation Of Rural Labour and The Question Of Vamentioning

confidence: 99%

A High Road to Sustainability? Wildflower Harvesting, Ethical Trade and Social Upgrading in South Africa's Western Cape

Bek

Binns

Blokker

et al. 2016

Journal of Agrarian Change

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This paper evaluates the outcomes from an ambitious wildflower harvesting programme in South Africa's Western Cape, which has sought to achieve positive outcomes in terms of socio‐economic development and biodiversity conservation. Indigenous wildflowers, harvested according to conservation principles, are processed into ‘Cape Flora’ bouquets and sold into international and domestic markets. The principal supply chain provides an example of ethical trade due to the explicit environmental and social standards that are required at local sites of production. The incorporation of such standards represents an attempt to engender economic and social upgrading within the value chain. In this sense, the programme is consistent with dominant policy discourses, which suggest that exploiting potentially profitable niches within international trade flows represents a ‘high road’ to economic growth and transformation. The paper focuses upon the job creation and social impacts of the programme in the context of efforts to overcome South Africa's deeply entrenched socio‐economic disparities and high poverty levels. Despite impressive growth in production and exports during the global financial crisis, there have been mixed outcomes in terms of benefits to stakeholders at the upstream end of the supply chain. The paper concludes by considering the extent to which local initiatives operating under the framework of ethical trade possess the potential to facilitate effective social and economic upgrading.

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The government of poverty and the arts of survival: mobile and recombinant strategies at the margins of the South African economy

Cited by 46 publications

References 55 publications

The Truncated Commercialization of Microinsurance and the Limits of Neoliberalism

The Truncated Commercialization of Microinsurance and the Limits of Neoliberalism

Sam Moyo: A Life of Prodigious Scholarship, Institution Building and Strategic Activism

A High Road to Sustainability? Wildflower Harvesting, Ethical Trade and Social Upgrading in South Africa's Western Cape

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