19 April 2016 "Migrant Labor in South Africa"

Migrant labour, which has been an increasingly popular form of labour throughout the world, has particular connotations in Africa. Many men migrate several countries away to places such as South Africa in order to work in places such as mines. With little other work options, they face harsh, often unsafe conditions in their work environments, only to come home to a hostel in which conditions are almost unlivable.

            Michel Foucault, in his groundbreaking work Discipline and Punish, describes disciplinary institutions. Though Foucault focuses heavily on the prison system and its development, Ari Sitas compares this definition to the African migrant hostel. As Sitas explains, “the hostel is an ‘administrative formula of domination’.”[1] In other words, the hostel is a place in which domination occurs totally within the law, and under the realm of protection offered by professional work. Silas goes on to explain that in the situation of migrant workers living in hostels, an employer has “complete control over the migrants’ working lives”.[2] Migrant work is a form of legitimate domination; when working as a migrant labourer one becomes dependent both on the wages presented by the employer and on the employer himself. As Silas goes on further to explain, migrant labourers are often subjected to the type of labour that local people would never tolerate, simply because employers know that migrant labourers have no other choice. In addition, the wages they do receive for their labour are often lower than the local people. When interviewing several migrant labourers, Silas discovered an animosity between migrant labourers and local labourers. Migrant labourers often resented the fact that local labourers were not forced to accept the unfair conditions because they would simply quit and find another, better job. Migrant labourers felt obligated to accept whatever work conditions they were faced with, as they felt they had no other options. In fact, this is very true, thanks to limitations put on non-citizens who wished to work in South Africa.

            Within the institution of the hostel, the migrant labourer finds himself limited in how much he can contribute to the wider society in which he lives—in other words, the hostel in the country to which he has migrated. As Manganyi explains: “the migrant worker becomes encapsulated at different times in his life into the culture of the mines, thus contributing to a wider industrial civilization without being part of it in ways that matter.”[3] The migrant worker is part of a civilization, but, thanks to the limitations put forth on his migrant status, cannot truly be part of that civilization. While living in the disciplinary institution of the hostel, the migrant worker finds himself stuck with little prospect of escape.

References:

Sitas, A. 1985. From grassroots control to democracy: A case study of the impact of

trade unionism on migrant workers’ cultural formation on the east Rand. Social

Dynamics: 11:1 (pp. 32-43).

Manganyi, C.N. 1981. The Migrants’ Burden. In Looking Through The Keyhole. :

Johannesburg: Raven Press. 126- 133.

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[1] Sitas, A. 1985. From grassroots control to democracy: A case study of the impact of trade unionism on migrant workers; cultural formation on the east Rand. Social Dynamics: 11:1 (pp.32-43).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Manganyi, C.N. 1981. The Migrants’ Burden. In Looking Through The Keyhole. : Johannesburg: Raven Press. 126- 133.