Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T10:05:43.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Child Labor and Africanist Scholarship: A Critical Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Beverly Grier
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Though children's labor has been critical to African economies historically, Africanist scholars tend to treat child and adolescent workers as invisible. In this essay, the reasons for this neglect are explored, as are the consequences of such neglect for theory and empirical research. Suggestions are made for pursuing research on child and adolescent labor that places young workers within the broader context of economic, social, and political relationships and processes. The essay critically reviews the extant scholarly literature on children and work in the pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods and concludes that child labor is either underresearched or undertheorized to the detriment of our understanding of gender, patriarchy, agency, the formation of worker and political consciousness, capital accumulation, and the state. The essay argues that children have shaped and continue to shape history in Africa and that childhood is a terrain of struggle in which numerous social and political forces (including children, patriarchy, capital, and the state) seek constructions that suit their particular (and changing) interests. The essay makes a plea to Africanist scholars to take children more seriously in their research.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Bien que, d'un point de vue historique, le travail des enfants ait été capital pour l'économie des pays africains, les chercheurs africanistes ont tendance à traiter les travailleurs enfants et adolescents comme s'ils étaient invisibles. Dans cet article, nous examinons les raisons de cette négligence, ainsi que les conséquences d'une telle négligence pour la recherche théorique et empirique. Nous proposons des pistes de recherche sur le travail des enfants et des adolescents, qui situent ces jeunes travailleurs dans le contexte plus large des relations et processus économiques, sociaux et politiques. Cet article établit un examen critique des publications universitaires existantes sur l'enfance et le travail dans les périodes précoloniale, coloniale et post-coloniale, et conclut que le travail des enfants est soit sous-recherché, soit sous-théorisé au détriment de notre compréhension du genre, du patriarcat, de l'instrumentalisation, de la formation de la conscience politique et des travailleurs, de l'accumulation du capital et de l'état. Nous soutenons dans cet article que les enfants ont façonné, et qu'ils continuent à façonner l'histoire de l'Afrique, et que l'enfance est un terrain de lutte sur lequel un grand nombre de forces sociales et politiques (y compris les enfants, le patriarcat, le capital et l'état) recherchent des constructions qui correspondent à leurs intérêts particuliers (et changeants). Cet article implore les chercheurs africanistes de considérer les enfants plus sérieusement dans l'exercice de leur recherche.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , September 2004 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andvig, Jens Christopher. 2001. Family-Controlled Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Survey. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0122. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Andvig, Jens Christopher, et al. 2001. “Child Labor in Africa: Issues and Challenges.” Findings 194 (11).Google Scholar
Anti-Slavery Society. 1983. Child Labour in South Africa: A General Review. Child Labour Series 7. London: Anti-Slavery Society.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Alice, et al. 1995. Towards a Cultural Understanding of the Interplay Between Children's and Women's Rights: An Eastern and Southern African Perspective. Working Paper 11, Women and Law in Southern Africa, Harare.Google Scholar
Barnes, Teresa A. 1999. “We Women Worked So Hard”: Gender, Urbanization and Social Reproduction in Colonial Harare, Zimbabwe, 1930-1956. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Bass, Loretta. 2004. Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Beinart, William. 1997. “Transkeian Migrant Workers and Youth Labor on the Natal Sugar Estates, 1918-1948.” In Jeeves, Alan H. and Crush, Jonathan, eds., White Farms, Black Labor: The State and Agrarian Change in Southern Africa, 1910-1950, 147–71. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Beira and Mashonaland and Rhodesia Railways. 1924. “Guide to Rhodesia for the Use of Tourists and Settlers, with Illustrations, Maps and Plans.” 2nd ed. Bulawayo: Davis and Co.Google Scholar
Bequele, Assefa, and Boyden, Jo, eds. 1988. Combatting Child Labour. Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
Bhalotra, Sonia, and Heady, Christopher. 2001. Child Farm Labour: The Wealth Paradox. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0125. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Blunch, Niels-Hugo, et al. 2002a. Child Work in Zambia: A Comparative Study of Survey Instruments. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0228. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Blunch, Niels-Hugo, et al. 2002b. Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Economic Policies on Child Labor and Schooling in Ghana. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0212. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Bourdillon, Michael. 1994a. Poor, Harassed but Very Much Alive. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Bourdillon, Michael. 1994b. “Street Children in Harare.” Africa 64 (4): 516–32.Google Scholar
Boeyens, Jan C. A. 1994. “‘Black Ivory’: The Indenture System and Slavery in Zout-pansberg, 1848-1869.” In Eldredge, and Morton, , eds., Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labor on the Dutch Frontier, 187–214. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Boyden, Jo. 1997. “Childhood and the Policy Makers: A Comparative Perspective on the Globalization of Childhood.” In James, and Prout, , eds., Constructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, 190–229. London: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Brittain, Victoria, and Minty, Abdul S., eds. 1988. Children of Resistance: Statements from the Harare Conference on Children, Repression and the Law in Apartheid South Africa. London: Kliptown Books.Google Scholar
Byfield, Judith. 1994. “Pawns and Politics: The Pawnship Debate in Western Nigeria.” In Falola, and Lovejoy, , eds., Pawnship in Africa: Debt-Bondage in Historical Perspective, 187–216. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Canagarajah, Sudharshan, and Nielsen, Helena Skyt. 1999. Child Labor and Schooling in Africa: A Comparative Study. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 9916. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Challis, Robert J. 1982. “The European Educational System in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1930.” Zambezia: The Journal of the University of Zimbabwe. Supplement.Google Scholar
Chijere, Chirwa. Wiseman. 1993. “Child and Youth Labour on the Nyasaland Plantations, 1890-1953.” Journal of Southern African Studies 19 (4): 662–80.Google Scholar
Cigno, Alessandro, et al. 2002. Child Labor Handbook. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0206. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Clayton, Anthony, and Savage, Donald C. 1974. Government and Labour in Kenya, 1895-1963. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Crush, Jonathan. 1997. “‘The Colour of Civilization’: White Farming in Colonial Swaziland, 1910-1940.” In Jeeves, and Crush, , eds., White Farmers, Black Labor: The State and Agrarian Change in Southern Africa, 1910-1950, 214–27. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Hugh. 1995. Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Hugh. 1991. The Children of the Poor: Representations of Childhood since the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Das Neves, Joel Mauricio. 1998. Economy, Society and Labour Migration in Central Mozambique, 1930-C.1965: A Case Study of Manica Province. Ph.D. diss., University of London.Google Scholar
Eldredge, Elizabeth A., and Morton, Fred, eds. 1994. Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labor on the Dutch Frontier. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Falola, Toyin. 1994. “Pawnship in Colonial Southwestern Nigeria.” In Falola, and Lovejoy, , eds., Pawnship in Africa: Debt-Bondage in Historical Perspective, 245–66. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Falola, Toyin, and Lovejoy, Paul E., eds. 1994a. Pawnship in Africa: Debt-Bondage in Historical Perspective. Boulder Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Goddard, Victoria, and White, Benjamin. 1982. “Child Workers and Capitalist Development: An Introductory Note and Bibliography.” Development and Change 13: 465–77.Google Scholar
Grier, Beverly. 1994a. “Invisible Hands: The Political Economy of Child Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1930.” Journal of Southern African Studies 20 (1): 27–52.Google Scholar
Grier, Beverly. 1994b. “Pawns, Porters, and Petty Traders: Women in the Transition to Cash Crop Agriculture in Colonial Ghana.” In Falola, and Lovejoy, , eds., Pawn-ship in Africa: Debt-Bondage in Historical Perspective, 161–86. Boulder, Colo.: West-view Press.Google Scholar
Grier, Beverly. 2004. Child Labor and Agency in Colonial Zimbabwe: The Social Construction of Childhood. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Grimsrud, Bjorne. 2001. What Can Be Done about Child Labor? An Overview of Recent Research and Its Implications for Designing Programs to Reduce Child Labor. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0124. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Grimsrud, Bjorne. 2001. Measuring and Analyzing Child Labor: Methodological Issues. Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0122. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Guest, Emma. 2001. Children of AIDS: Africa's Orphan Crisis. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Harries, Patrick. 1994. Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa, c. 1860-1910. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Hendrick, Harry. 1997. “Constructions and Reconstructions of British Childhood: An Interpretative Survey, 1800 to the Present.” In James, and Prout, , eds., Construtting and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, 34–62. London: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Honwana, Alcinda, and de Boeck, Filip, eds. 2004. Makers and Breakers, Made and Broken: Children and Youth as Emerging Categories in Postcolonial Africa. Oxford: James Currey Publishers.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Eric. 1994. Childhood Transformed: Working-Class Children in Nineteenth-Century England. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch. 1994. Easy Prey: Child Soldiers in Liberia. New York: Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch. 1995. Children of Sudan: Slaves, Street Children and Child Soldiers. New York: Humans Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch. 1996. Children in Combat. New York: Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch. 1997. Juvenile Injustice: Police Abuse and Detention of Street Children in Kenya. New York: Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Humphries, Stephen. 1995. Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth, 1889-1939. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
International Labour Organisation. 1986. Annotated Bibliography on Child Labour. Geneva: ILO.Google Scholar
International Labour Organisation. 1992. Towards Action against Child Labour in Zimbabwe. Geneva: ILO.Google Scholar
International Labour Organisation. 1996a. Child Labour in Commercial Agriculture in Zimbabwe. Rene Lowenson. ILO International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour. Working Paper 5. Harare: International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor.Google Scholar
International Labour Organisation. 1996b. IPEC Action Tanzania. Geneva: ILO Google Scholar
International Labour Organisation. 1998. Definitions and Legal Provisions on Child Labour in Southern Africa. Joost Kooijmans. Southern Africa Multidisciplinary Advisory Team. Harare: ILO.Google Scholar
International Labour Organisation. 2002. Future without Child Labour. Geneva: ILO. (ilo.org/public/english/standards/decl/intro/.)Google Scholar
Isaacman, Allen. 1996. Cotton Is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
James, Allison, et al. 1998. Theorizing Childhood. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
James, Allison, and Prout, Alan. 1997. Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood. London: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Sean. 1993. Assaulting Childhood: Children's Experiences of Migrancy and Hostel Life in South Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Jeeves, Alan H. 1985. Migrant Labour in South Africa's Mining Economy: The Struggle for the Gold Miners' Labour Supply. Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Jeeves, Alan H. and Crush, Jonathan, eds. 1997. White Farms, Black Labor: The State and Agrarian Change in Southern Africa, 1910-1950. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Kaur, Iqbal, and Tzannatos, Zafiris. 2002. “The World Bank and Children: A Review of Activities.” Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0220. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Google Scholar
Kayongo-Male, D., and Walji, P. 1984. Children at Work in Kenya. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keegan, Timothy J. 1987. Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa: The Southern Highveld to 1914. London: Macmillan Press.Google Scholar
Kenya Colony and Protectorate. 1938. Report of the Employment of Juveniles Committee. Nairobi: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Kilbride, Philip L. 1996. “Patterns of Infant Care among Nairobi Street Girls.” Paper presented at the 39th annual meeting of the African Studies Association, 10.Google Scholar
Kriger, Norma. 1992. Zimbabwe's Guerrilla War: Peasant Voices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
La Fontaine, J. S., ed. 1978. Sex and Age as Principles of Social Differentiation. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Levine, Susan. 2000. In the Shadow of the Vine: Child Labour in South Africa. Ph.D. diss., Temple University.Google Scholar
Little, Peter. 2003. “Youthful Africa in the 21st Century.” Theme Statement, 46th annual meeting of the African Studies Association, 10 30-Nov. 2. <www.africanstudies.org/asa_papercalltheme2003.htm>.Google Scholar
McClendon, Thomas V. 2002. Genders and Generations Apart: Labour Tenants and Customary Law in Segregation-Era South Africa, 1920s to 1940s. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Miers, Suzanne, and Kopytoff, Igor, eds. 1977. Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Miers, Suzanne, and Roberts, Richard, eds. 1988. The End of Slavery in Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Morice, Alain. 1982. “Underpaid Child Labour and Social Reproduction: Apprenticeship in Kaolack, Senegal.” Development and Change 13 (4): 515–26.Google Scholar
Morris, Michael L. 1980. “The Development of Capitalism in South African Agriculture: Class Struggle in the Countryside.” In Wolpe, Harold, ed., The Articulation of Modes of Production: Essays from Economy and Society, 202–43. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Newton-King, Susan. 1999. Masters and Servants on the Cape Eastern Frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ohadike, Don. 1988: “The Decline of Slavery Among the Igbo People.” In Miers, and Roberts, , eds., The End of Slavery in Africa, 437–61. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
O'Hear, Ann. 1994. “Pawning in the Emirate of Ilorin.” In Falola, and Lovejoy, , eds., Pawnship in Africa: Debt-Bondage in Historical Perspective, 217–43. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Organization of African Unity. 1990. African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/24.9/49, 11 29, 1999. <wwwlumn.edy/humanrts/africa/afchild.htm>..>Google Scholar
Palmer, Robin. 1986. “Working Conditions and Worker Responses on Nyasaland Tea Estates, 1930-1953.” Journal of African History 27: 105–26.Google Scholar
Penvenne, Jeanne Marie. 1995. African Workers and Colonial Racism: Mozambican Strategies and Struggles in Lourenco Marques, 1877-1962. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Presley, Cora Ann. 1992. Kikuyu Women, the Mau Mau Rebellion, and Social Change in Kenya. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Prout, Alan, and James, Allison, eds. 1997. “A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood? Provenance, Promise and Problems.” In James, and Prout, , eds., Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, 7–33. London: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Pamela. 1986. “Concepts of Childhood Drawn from the Ideas and Practices of Traditional Healers in Musami.” Zambezia 13 (1): 1–10.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Pamela. 1991. Dance, Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambesi Valley. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Robertson, Claire C., and Klein, Martin A., eds. 1983. Women and Slavery in Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Rodgers, Gerry, and Standing, Guy, eds. 1981. Child Work, Poverty and Underdevelopment. Geneva: International Labor Organization.Google Scholar
Rodgers, Gerry, and Standing, Guy, eds. 1981. “The Economic Roles of Children: Issues for Analysis.” In Rodgers, and Standing, , eds., Child Work, Poverty and Underdevelopment, 1–45. Geneva: International Labor Organization.Google Scholar
Rock, Brian. 1997. Spirals of Suffering: Public Violence and Children. Pretoria: HSRC Publishers.Google Scholar
Sachikonye, L. M. 1991. Child Labour in Hazardous Employment: The Case of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies, Consultancy Reports 18, Harare.Google Scholar
Schildkrout, Enid. 1978. “Changing Economic Roles of Children in Comparative Perspective.” In Oppong, , ed., Marriage, Fertility and Parenthood in West Africa, 289–306. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Schildkrout, Enid. 1981. “The Employment of Women in Kano (Nigeria).” In Rodgers, and Standing, , eds., Child Work., Poverty and Underdevelopment, 81–111. Geneva: International Labor Organization.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Elizabeth. 1992. Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Selous, Frederick C. 1893. Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa. London: Rowland Ward.Google Scholar
Shivji, Issa. 1985. “Law and Conditions of Child Labour in Colonial Tanganyika, 1920-1940.” International Journal of Sociology of Law 13: 221–35.Google Scholar
Singhal, Arvind, and Howard, W. Stephen, eds. 2003. The Children of Africa Confront AIDS. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Colonial Zimbabwe. 1950. “Chipinga Criminal Cases.” National Archives of Zimbabwe, Harare, S1054/173/50.Google Scholar
Summers, Carol. 2002. Colonial Lessons: Africans' Education in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1918-1940. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Summers, Carol. 1994. From Civilization to Segregation: Social Ideals and Social Control in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1934. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Swai, Bonaventure. 1979. “The Labour Shortage in the 1930s in Kilimanjaro and the Subsequent Employment of Child Labour.” Utafiti 4 (2): 111–32.Google Scholar
Swart, Jill. 1990. The Street Children of Hillbrow. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Tranberg Hansen, Karen. 1990. “Labor Migration and Urban Child Labor during the Colonial Period in Zambia.” In Fetter, Bruce, ed., Demography from Scanty Evidence: Central Africa in the Colonial Era, 219–34. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
UNAIDS. 2002. “Children Orphaned by AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa.” UNAIDS/UNICEFFact Sheet, <www.unaids.org>..>Google Scholar
UNICEF. 1990. Children and Women in Zimbabwe: A Situational Analysis. Harare: UNICEF.Google Scholar
UNICEF. 1991. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: The Zimbabwean Situation. Rene Lowenson. Harare: UNICEF.Google Scholar
UNICEF. 1996. The State of the World's Children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
UNICEF. 2003. Stop the Traffic in Children. London: UNICEF UK.Google Scholar
Van Hear, Nick. 1982. “Child Labour and the Development of Capitalist Agriculture in Ghana.” Development and Change 13 (4): 499–514.Google Scholar
Van Onselen, Charles. 1976. Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1900-1933. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Van Zwanenberg, R. 1975. Colonial Capitalism and Labour in Kenya, 1919-1939. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau.Google Scholar
Wahba, Jackline. 2000. Do Market Wages Influence Child Labor and Schooling? Social Protection Discussion Paper Series 0024. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Wainaina, Jemimah. 1981. “The ‘Parking Boys’ of Nairobi.” African Journal of Sociology 1: 7–45.Google Scholar
West, Michael O. 1992. “Ndabaningi Sithole, Garfield Todd and the Dadaya School Strike of 1947.” Journal of Southern African Studies 18 (2): 297–316.Google Scholar